Pricing: A

TomTom is almost single handedly driving down the average selling price of GPS units in North America. TomTom's ONE 3rd Edition hit the shelves for under $150 this year, and was Black Friday's top selling GPS unit. The ONE 2nd Edition has seen Costco pricing as low as $69. TomTom is raising the bar for what $150 and even $100 can buy in a GPS.

TomTom's GO and ONE GPS Units: B-

TomTom's GPS units were the best looking, most elegantly designed GPS devices we saw all year; European styling and flashy marketing campaigns struck a chord with consumers this year as TomTom steadily increased its market share. Already the top GPS company in Europe, TomTom is taking market share from Magellan and Garmin here in North America. TomTom's products are good, but still lag behind Garmin and Magellan for basic routing quality (choosing the best route). Software bugs, second tier routing logic, and some usability issues prevented GPSmagazine from recommending TomTom's ONE, ONE XL, and GO 720 this year, but there's no denying TomTom is gaining market share and that many people love their TomTom GPS. It's especially hard to quibble over quality given TomTom's ultra aggressive pricing. TomTom offers a decent product for the price, lets you customize more aspects of the GPS than most competing units, and has some fun features like the ability to download celebrity voices. TomTom also delivered exciting new technologies this year, most notably MapShare. Yet somehow I always got the feeling TomTom's products were rushed to market before the engineering teams had been able to work out the kinks: things didn't always work as described, product manuals referred to web URLs that hadn't been setup yet, accessories like iPod adapters and traffic antennas weren't available for months on end, and getting TomTom's PLUS services to work with your bluetooth cell phone was no easy task.

Features: A-

TomTom delivered more innovation and features in 2007 than anyone other GPS manufacturer. TomTom's MapShare harvests the collective knowledge of all TomTom GPS owners, effectively creative a huge data collection mechanism for keeping maps current. Traditionally, map updates can take years to trickle down to your GPS, as the mapping companies (NAVTEQ or Tele Atlas) gather corrections, validate them, sell updated maps to GPS manufacturers, who then compile the maps into brand-specific formats and sell updated maps for specific devices. That cycle can take months or even years. TomTom's latest models finally give end-users the ability to make map corrections directly on the device, add or edit POIs, and share the corrections with other TomTom owners. Map updates and corrections are then distributed on a daily basis via your home PC running TomTom's HOME software. TomTom also delivered some interesting Voice Recognition features on its higher-end models, and offers a range of internet connected applications via TomTom's PLUS services (although execution is spotty, as these require a compatible bluetooth-enabled cell phone).

TomTom's software also allows you to customize almost every aspect of the navigation experience. You can adjust what information you want displayed on the map, how you input addresses, what voice you want to hear, how verbose voice announcements should be, and many many more settings.

Marketing: A

There's no denying TomTom's marketing prowess. Television, print, and web campaigns secured TomTom more market share than ever before. Aggressive pricing on the low-end models gave TomTom the #1 item this Black Friday, and helped drive down the overall cost of GPS.

Support: B

TomTom's support is ok -- not great, but not awful either. Some users complained that all but the most basic requests to TomTom's support staff necessitate an escalation to Tier 2 support, and they have to call you back within a few hours. Still, once they do call you back they are generally knowledgeable and helpful. TomTom had some website issues this year, including prolonged outages and registration/activation mechanisms that didn't work for weeks. Nevertheless, TomTom's support is miles better than Magellan's infamously poor support.