5. Turning on the TomTom GO 930T for the First Time

Figure 31: Powering on the TomTom GO 930T

Press and hold the power button for 2-3 seconds to turn on the GO 930T.

Figure 32: Setting the Language Preference

The first time the GO 930T is powered on, the start-up wizard automatically begins. Before you can start navigating with the GO 930T, a number of setting and preferences must be configured, beginning with the desired language.

Figure 33: Confirming the Language Selection

The GO 930T asks you to confirm your language selection before continuing.

Figure 34: TomTom Welcome Screen

Once the language has been set, the GO 930T informs you that it must set a few more preferences before it's ready to begin navigating.

Figure 35: Right-handed or left-handed operation

Good news for lefties -- The GO 930T allows you to configure the device for either right-handed or left-handed use.

Figure 36: Setting the Unit of Measure

Depending on your local region, you may want to see distances in Miles or Kilometers.

One minor TomTom annoyance: when set to use Miles, the GO 930T reports smaller distances in yards instead of feet. Makes sense for much of the world, but feet would be better here in the US.

Figure 37: Clock Display Preference

The time can be displayed using any of the three formats shown above.

Figure 38: Setting the Current Time

The time can be manually set using the up and down arrows, or automatically set by tapping the Sync button (this works only when the device is receiving GPS signals).

Figure 39: Selecting A Voice

The GO 930T ships with a variety of male and female voices. Computer generated voices can announce actual street names using text-to-speech technology. Real human voices are also available to choose, but they can only announce generic maneuvers, such as "Turn left in half a mile".

The default voice selection is "Susan", for US English. Susan is a computer generated voice that will speak actual street names when announcing turn maneuvers. Notice that computer generated voices say "Computer" in the upper right area of the voice selection screen, as shown above.

Most users will want to make use of the text-to-speech feature of the GO 930T, and should choose a computer voice rather than a human recorded voice.

Figure 40: Computer vs. Human Voices

If you choose a computer voice (and you should), the GO 930T notifies you that the voice might not sound as perfect as a human recorded voice, but in exchange the device will speak actual street names.

Figure 41: Speech Preferences

The Speech preferences screen, shown above, lets users customize how much or how little they want the GO 930T to speak.

the "Read foreign street names out loud" option is curious, and TomTom's documentation makes no mention of it (or any of the other settings on this page). I noticed no difference when driving with this option checked or unchecked, but I suspect this setting is more relevant in Europe, where you might want to suppress street name announcements when driving through a foreign country.

Figure 42: Speech Preference, Page 2

The GO 930T provides an additional set of speech preferences that can be customized to your own particular needs.

Figure 43: Select a Map

The GO 930T ships pre-loaded with both North American and European maps.

Figure 44: Selecting a Day Color Scheme

The TomTom GO 930T has a built-in light sensor that can automatically switch the GPS between "day" and "night" color modes. Day color schemes are bright and designed to be seen during daylight conditions, while night color schemes use darker colors and are designed to be easy on the eyes when driving at night.

TomTom provides four different day color schemes to choose from.

Figure 45: Selecting a Night Color Scheme

TomTom provides four different night color schemes to choose from. The blue scheme (top left) is chosen by default.

Figure 46: Would You Like to Set Your 'Home' Address?

Next the GO 930T asks if you want to input your home address. The 'Home" address is a special saved address in your address book that makes it easy to route back to your designated home address with just a few taps on the screen.

More on entering the 'Home' address later in the review.

Figure 47: Would You Like A Brief Tour?

Now that all the start-up preferences have been set, the GO 930T asks if you want a brief tour on using the GPS and an overview of the features. If you're new to TomTom's GPS products, it's probably a good idea to take the tour (it only takes a few minutes).

Figure 48: Join Map Share

Map Share is one of the most exciting and innovative features TomTom has to offer. Map Share allows you, and other TomTom owners, to correct mapping errors directly on the GPS, and then share those corrections with other TomTom owners. If you're driving around and notice an error on the map, you can note the error as well as the correction directly on your device. If you choose to participate in the Map Share program, your map corrections are shared with other users, and maps are automatically updated each time the GO 930T is docked with the computer.

The level of map sharing can be configured to accept all corrections, or only those verified by TomTom.

Even if you choose not the participate in the Map Share program at all, the ability to change the mapping data directly on the GPS device is a powerful feature. Though you'll likely want to participate in Map Share.

Just how powerful a feature is Map Share? According to Harold Goddijin, TomTom's CEO, "on average, by the end of 2008, if you drive anywhere for one hour with a Tele Atlas map enhanced by Map Share feedback, your route will be influenced by more than 20 corrections."

Figure 49: Confirm Joining Map Share

If you decide to join the Map Share program, mapping corrections will be automatically downloaded to your GPS each time the GO 930T is connected to your computer. You'll need to install TomTom's HOME application on your PC/MAC in order to take advantage of Map Share, but you'd need to install HOME anyway in order to download software updates from TomTom.

Figure 50: Final First-Use Wizard Screen

The initial start-up wizard is now complete. Tapping on Continue completes the first-use wizard, and the GO 930T is ready to begin navigating.