Entry Level TomTom Map Swap

[msjohnson1974]

I was fortunate enough to win a TomTom ONE 3rd edition at a company event and until this week thought it was great... we're heading to Spain for two weeks and will be driving. Previous experiences driving in Europe have made the GPS seem like a great idea. One catch, the unit doesn't have enough memory and lacks a memory expansion slot. Also, opening it up to swap out the memory - not an option.

After searching for hours and reading the less than helpful instructions I figured out how to swap it out. There is a little map of Guam on there evidently for a reason... The device has a 1GB limit on memory and the US/Canada map takes 800+ MB, the one for Spain is 180+ MB, with all of the other stuff on there there isn't enough room for both. So, the little Guam map is useful for being the primary map while you delete the US map and load the Spain (or other) map.

First (and most importantly) you have to back up the US and Canada Map, delete it from the GPS, and then buy and load the new map you want. The buy happens on the TomTom site and the download and load happens in thier software - not intuitive at all and buried in their FAQs. BTW, you have to have the same email address registered in both the local s/w and the store or you won't see the new map in the software - not obvious since they ask for the device id.

Important step to not forget is to BACKUP the maps to your PC first or they will charge you for a new one.

For what its worth, this little GPS works well but when I actually buy one it will be a Garmin Nuvi or Magellan - something that can hold multiple maps and has an expansion slot.

[jmartinsmart]

I have one of the first Tom-Toms to ship into the US. I bought it about 4+ years ago, long before they developed 4 or 5 other models - including the Tom-Tom One. It's been a great unit, but like yours, it still has the original maps loaded.

There are several areas in my locale where the streets are (for lack of a better term) "Off Grid" and do not line up with where the vehicle is actually driving. My unit actually has an SD card and I can swap out maps as needed. But my real question is... What if I pay the $100-$150 for the latest map upgrade and the streets in question (my off grid ones) are still screwed up? Why do I care if the 53 new streets were added to somewhere in Idaho, and yet my own local streets are still pissing me off?

There, I vented.
Thoughts?

Jim

[msjohnson1974]

Mine's fairly accurate (with this year's map) around Atlanta, it gets a little wonky when I'm out of the metro area though - tries to put me on dirt roads and chooses some weird routes. Since the maps are NAVTEQ you could look on a friend's newer Garmin (if possible) to see if the updated maps are better, frankly I don't see any guarantee from any of the GPS vendors for the maps.

[jmartinsmart]

Therein lies the problem. The streets are there, but they are just, as you say "wonkie". I wouldn't know if they were corrected until I actually drove them.

Jim

[pajoe]

If you want to upgrade to a better model

The Go920 allows map corrections and allows you to share those connections with other TomTom users. It has 4 gig of memory and a memory card slot, comes with North American and Western Europe maps. I think the 720 is similar but does not have 4 gig of memory. These are not the latest models and can still be found at reasonable prices.

To share more information on TomTom, try:

TomTom Forums.com - Unofficial Site of TomTom for North America - Powered by vBulletin


We recently purchased a Go920 to replace our older Magellan 3050T and overall like the TomTom better, especially the ability customize it and to add third party software to add different features. We use ours on a motorcycle and having a event logger really is nice as afterwards I can have the created itn file used on Google Earth and review where we have been, I know it's backwards, most people use the gps to find where they want to go and we use it mostly to show us where we were as we explore many different roads and many times see things but forget how we got there.