5. Using the TomTom GO 910

Here is the main screen on the TomTom GO 910 user interface. As you can see the overall design is quite pleasing. The icons are both good looking and it's intuitive to understand what each icon does based on the graphic. My one small complaint here was that the icon for the next screen (the right triangle in the lower right corner) looks like a Play button more than a "next page" icon.

Pressing "Navigate to..." brings up the "Navigate to" screen. From here you can choose to navigate Home, to a saved address from the address book (Favorite), a recent destination, to a manually entered address (you'll probably use this option most of the time), or you can search the Points of Interest (POI) database for a business to navigate to (such as a gas station, hotel, restaurant, etc.).

In this example, we'll be navigating to a street address, so we tapped "Address" on the previous menu. From here we can choose to enter a specific street name and house number (if we know the complete address of the destination address), a cross street or intersection, or to the center of town (City center). Notice that the menu also includes an option for navigating to a Zip code. Zip code lookup is a nice feature not available on all GPS units, and allows you to search for a street name based on zip code rather than city name. We'll choose "Street and house number" and proceed.

The next step is entering the city name. As you tap out letters on the virtual keyboard on the screen, the GO 910 produces a list of possible matches in the upper portion of the screen. This is a handy time-saving way to enter city names, although not quite as nice as Magellan's method of dimming letters that no longer spell valid city names. Another nice feature on the GO 910 is that the unit remembers the cities you've recently searched for, and pre-populates the city search screen with the three previously searched for city names. Street name selection functions much the same way as you choose a city name.

Once you've selected a City and Street for your destination address, the GO 910 asks for the house/building number. Note that you can also change the order that the GO 910 asks for the elements of a destination address. For example, you may want the 910 to ask for the house number before the street name. The TomTom GO 910 is one of the few units I've seen that allow you to choose the order in which you enter address elements.

Once the destination address is entered, the GO 910 shows you the entire route on a map. Here you can browse the trip in more detail, or hit Done. We'll tap Done to proceed, although we could also tap on Details to see each maneuver in more detail, or make changes to the route.

By default the 910 uses "Fastest route" as the preferred method. However, you can change that on a per-trip basis, or have the 910 ask you each time, if you prefer. While I appreciated the fact that the GO 910 offered so many routing preferences, I found it somewhat useless as you have no way of knowing what the impact of each method will be on the overall trip time. I wished the GO 910 would have displayed the estimated travel times next to each of the six routing method options. That way, I could make a more informed decision about which method I wanted the unit to use.

Here we see the 3D map view. This is what you see while driving (although you can turn off 3D maps and view a more standard 2D map view if you prefer). The status bar displays distance to next turn, time remaining, distance remaining, current time, and GPS signal strength.

One of the cooler features of the TomTom GO 910 is its compatibility with iPod. Using a special cable that connects to your iPod (not available for purchase at the time of this review), and allows you to control the iPod and listen to music through the 910. When the 910 gives voice instructions, it pauses the music. We couldn't test this, as the cable wasn't available for purchase.

The 910 also includes a picture viewer utility. The internal 20GB hard drive has around 6GB of available space, so there's a lot of room for pictures and/or music. I've never really cared about looking at photos on my GPS, but I supposed it could be a nice feature if you're planning to visit family members and want to bring some photos with you for them to see.

If you prefer, you can turn off the scrolling map view and instead have the 910 only display the next turn in 3D, as shown above.

This is a screenshot of the Home software included with the 910. Using the included Dock, you cradle the 910 to your computer, and use the Home software to perform tasks like updating the firmware, loading additional routes, software, music, and photos onto the 910, as well as charging the internal battery. The Home app looks a lot like iTunes, which isn't a bad thing...