Nice review. I owned the Tomtom OneXL for a week before I returned it and found the exact same problems with bad estimates and no-optimal routes.
I'll properly go for the Mio C520T instead, since I feel that Garmin Nuvi has way to few GPS features in their devices and seems to focus to much on mp3, photo, guides and other stuff that I don't need.

You know, the routing engine may give you a longer time but did you actually try driving these routes? I own a Tomtom one xl and unfortunately, have never used any other one but I did notice that it is constantly overestimateing the time it takes to get places. Not sure if it would make a difference or not but just thought I would throw my two cents in.

I think that the tomtom one + XL is missing a "economic" route option as e.g. the mio gps devices has. When selecting "fastest" route option on the tomtom, I have seen many examples of suggested routes with +15% in length to save 0.5% in time. (e.g. drive 10km more to save 1 minute). "Shortest" route has often the opposite problem, saving 3% in distance by paying 40% in time.
On a mio gps, using the "economic" route option, it tries to put some common sence in to it, and chooses a nice compromise between time and length (but with main focus on length).
Apart from that, I really like the tomtom units and there intuitive userinterface.

I received a TomTom XL and have found that it is easy to use, has a good easy picture menu, and works just fine. Even though the review was on target with several of the items noted. I have found that the TomTom XL has worked very well on several of the trips we have taken. I like the ease of using this device right out of the box. I think (given some software upgrades by the manufaturer) that this is a good device for the money.

In australia the tomtom always gives me the correct side for the house, maybe its set up for us people that drive on the wrong side of the road to you guys. it gives me the best fastest times to my jobs even keeps up at 160kph with good warning for the next turn. shortest routes are shorter but not faster though.

Not a fair review, you cannot compare a $400 GPS unit to $700+ units and expect similar performance. If you want to bash tomtom units just do that, you don't need to make them seem inferior for being less robust than more expensive units. Your driving direction comparisons mean nothing if you didn't drive them all and then draw conclusions based on fact.

Tom Tom's Itinerary feature is a very bad joke on the user. Each time you reach a destination in the itinerary, the routing ends and you must use 7 keystrokes to begin the next leg of your itinerary. That's dangerous if you use the Itinerary feature as a substitute for a missing waypoint routing feature, or tedius for actual stops. Tom Tom also does not support any method of "forcing" a route to go a particular way. This is a feature commonly needed in large cities, where the "fastest" route may be the slowest, and the most obscure route may be the fastest. Wake up Tom Tom! You haven't yet begun to program an useful device.

Thank you very much for your thorough review. I just bought the TomTom One XL and it is my first GPS. Frankly I really like it and it has perfectly gotten me to the two destinations I have tested (home and work.) However, I had the exact same problem as the reviewer in not being able to cancel a route. It was crazy. I just could not figure out how to do it and it just wanted me to turn around and go home in the worst way even though I had changed my mind. Thanks to the reviewer for telling me how to do this. The owner's mannual is very unhelpful and you really have to figure most of the stuff out yourself, which is not that hard because the touch screen icons are fairly self explanatory. I really do wish the gps stated the names of the streets instead of just "turn right in 200 yards" but I would not pay a whole lot more for it. The map has a green arrow telling you exactly where to turn and the street name is spelled out for you.

I disagree with the reviewer's criticism about the device using yards as opposed to feet. First who cares? and second why does the reviewer think it makes more sense to use one over the other? Does not make any difference to me.

I can not figure out how to eliminate churches from my points of interest. In my city there is a church on every corner, and the One XL puts each and every one in middle of the roadway. Why? I want to rid myself of the churches!

Finally, on the issue of POI's, my son has a gps and it puts true poi's (i.e.highway rest areas)off to the side of the roadway, the proper side of the roadway. That makes a heck of a lot more sense than what TomTom does by putting them in the middle of the road.

After reading this review, I would probably buy the Magellin or the Garmin before the TomTom but I like my purchase and I am enjoying it.

JohnM, You need to read the user manual more, they DO have a waypoint function, once you have added a point into the itinerary you can then make it a waypoint. Also have you tried the "find Alternative" function then then "Avoid part of Route" it works pretty well for me for forcing a certain routing.
My biggest gripe is that a search by street name before city setting would be nice, with possibly an option to limit searches to one state only, I live in Australia and don't drive 3000km to the other side very often so why bother to show cities on the other side of the country everytime I put in an address!! Also the speed dependent volume option seems to turn itself off everytime I turn the unit off. Otherwise I'm pretty happy, but this is my 1st gps device so I don't have a lot to compare it too.

Thanks for the interesting review. One drawback that you didn't mention is the limited memory. My pre-installed maps (W. Europe) and other data used up nearly all of the 1gb memory on my new XL. When I tried to download speed camera data, there was not enough space and it seems impossible to extend the available memory with an SD card, even though there is an empty slot. Eventually, I had to delete some maps to make space.

I purchased my One XL yesterday. I, like others, found it ridiculous to not have all the preference menus available as a default. Until I read this review, I could not find where I could set the time - it was on a hidden menu. The 'ABC' keyboard was another annoying feature that I was able to change when I found these other menus. Who, these days, isn't familiar with a 'qwerty' keyboard and requires this stupid default. I almost bought an opposition product that had a default 'qwerty' keyboard on display in the shop. Most people use a 'qwerty' keyboard in their day to day life these days. Your review is a bit 'picky'. Who cares whether it shows yards or feet - if you get with the rest of the world and go metric, you won't have a problem with your fetish about feet. A handy feature would be a speaker mute button on the main screen. I'm generally happy with the devoce now that I have configured it to behave the way I want.

Just bought my wife a Tom Tom One XL for her birthday while we are in the middle of our annual walk-about here in the western US and we like it, so far. . . . . .

We've used it through central Oregon through to the west coast and now northbound up the oceanside route from the California border.

We bought the one XL over the Garmin equivalent simply because the Garmin didn't come with Canadian maps pre installed and we are from western Canada so . . . . (also the price was about 20% LESS)

So far it has given us accurate directions although we are not familiar enough with the areas we've been travelling to tell the possible difference. We won't use it much at home as we both know our area, (Vancouver) welll enough to preclude the need for a GPS)

Arrival times aren't important but ease of use seems very good. The screen is very visible with the unit mounted in the upper right corner of the windshield, I drive, (pulling a large 5th wheel behind) and my wife navigates. Between it and her business Blackberry or (crackberry as it's sometimes referred to) she is kept very busy.

As we haven't used it long enough nor do we have another one to compare it with this one will do us just fine.

We appreciate the reviews and look forward to learning more about GPS devices et all through this most helpful website,

Thank you,

Jeff and Michelle,

Brandon,

As someone who lives in San Jose, I can tell you the route given by the TomTom unit for San Jose Fry's to SF is TERRIBLE.

There's no logical reason to take 880 and then 80. The 880 route is not only longer, you also cross a $4 toll bridge (Bay Bridge) which has TERRIBLE traffic going from east to west. It wouldn't surprise me if you spent more than 52 minutes due to the traffic before the toll plaza.

The routes given by the Navteq devices make WAY more sense and don't involve any tolls.

Joe,

You complain about slamming $400 units vs. $700+ units. Well, the Nuvi 350 gives identical directions (http://www.gpsmagazine.com/2007/08/garmin_nuvi_350_review.php?page=8) to the 680, at least on the aforementioned SJ Fry's to SF route. It goes for as low as $350 at online retailers. I got one from Sears today for $300 (admittedly, an unusual deal).

As a new user of a GPS unit, I found the XL very easy to use. Though the instruction manual could be more helpful I find that trial and error is the way to go. By "playing" with my XL I was easily able to work out the kinks and actually learn how to use the features I chose based on my travel needs. As with most people out there, I'm not familiar with the map systems you spoke about, but it will be something to think about in the future. Bottom Line, my XL gets the job done. So some of the more complicated issues your review mentioned were not a big concern. I don't travel alot but when I need to get somewhere my XL is up to the task. Isn't that what matters? Reviews are great when you plan on spending a large amount of cash for some of today's GPS systems. Your review was very accurate because it still shows us the flaws and its up to the user to work through it. As we become more accustomed to these products they will keep improving.

Great review... One thing I'd like to add: living in Canada, I chose metric measurements. Sure enough I get kilometers and meters on the screen, but... the voice tells me distances in imperial! Good thing I'm old enough to remember what a mile is.

Hi there,

If the voice is telling you imperial when you are set to metric, just change to a different voice - I've found that one of the default voices simply doesn't seem to have the metric words programmed. Fortunately, most of the celebrity voices have both sets of measurements. Right now, I have Yoda as my voice on the Xl. "Up ahead, left you must keep." :)

- Andrew

I use TT Navigator 6 myself, but have a query regarding the TT One XL. I want to put in my own POI file - where do I put it? Does it go onto the Sd card or elsewhere?. In my setup, I put it into the TT map directory (with a suitable icon) and it's all good.

I'd appreciate any help.

I tend to differ with your route testings. Test 3 in particular. You just checked the estimated time taken displayed as the word and displayed the winner. Magellan takes you no where. Infact, it start from a wrong location same as yahoo maps does for this route. If you look at the route, If I had Magellan I would be lost. It takes you no where. Garmin says that the route it shows takes 5 mins. Thats crap according to my analysis. If you see the route on google maps, you will see that not only it takes the longer route but also goes through streets which has a lot of intersections and traffic light. TomTom does an excellent job on test 3 and should be declared as the winner since if you see on google maps it uses the same route as TomTom which has less traffic lights and less distance to get there faster. Don't take the displayed time for their word. Tomtom usually displays time great than the actual but does a good job routing.

On test 2, to SFO it definately messes up taking you through 880N and through a toll plaza.

On test 1 again it displays the shortest distance as well as does a good job of taking you though less tops. Garmin wins on this test.

Bottomline, Garmin and Tomtom are very close on routing capabilities and Tomtom with its mapshare technology is only going to improve. Magellan is crap.

I tend to differ with your route testings. Test 3 in particular. You just checked the estimated time taken displayed as the word and displayed the winner. Magellan takes you no where. Infact, it start from a wrong location same as yahoo maps does for this route. If you look at the route, If I had Magellan I would be lost. It takes you no where. Garmin says that the route it shows takes 5 mins. Thats crap according to my analysis. If you see the route on google maps, you will see that not only it takes the longer route but also goes through streets which has a lot of intersections and traffic light. TomTom does an excellent job on test 3 and should be declared as the winner since if you see on google maps it uses the same route as TomTom which has less traffic lights and less distance to get there faster. Don't take the displayed time for their word. Tomtom usually displays time great than the actual but does a good job routing.

On test 2, to SFO it definately messes up taking you through 880N and through a toll plaza.

On test 1 again it displays the shortest distance as well as does a good job of taking you though less tops. Garmin wins on this test.

Bottomline, Garmin and Tomtom are very close on routing capabilities and Tomtom with its mapshare technology is only going to improve. Magellan is crap.

I should tell that mine is TomTom ONE 3rd edition with ver 7.161, Map v705.1481. Again for test 2, from San Jose to SFO, if you answer Yes when ask for avoid the toll chanrge way or not, the ONE will lead you to US 101 with simplest route. It says the total time is 0.59hrs and 47.7M. May be the time is over estimated but I really can not see any faster route from Google map. This route is so simple, don'r think others can take advantage. So the ONE is pretty good for test2. I can not tell the absolute position acurracy but I check many times when my car pass a intersection, the arrow is right at the correct posion matching very well with real situation. It always remind me to make turn at about 5 meters to the places which is really nice, right on time.

Other than the toll fee, does TT route on test 2 makes sense?

You can configure any TT to warn or avoid toll road completely.

Good point on estimate travel time.

My Garmin C330 also wants me to take the 880/80 to SF from the Fry's at San Jose.

The price of the C330 was double the current price of the ONE XL (

Andrew C,
If you are going to start comparing the price of the nuvi350 to the TToneXL, then I will bring up the TTone LE which is available from bestbuy for $150, and could be had for as low as $120 during BF, so its still half the price of the comparable Garmin unit.

My daughter and son-in-law bought me a TomTom One XL for my birthday. This is my first GPS. So to test drive it, so to speak, I would enter destinations close to home. Like to work, the store and to church. I found it interesting that after I arrived at my destination, when I did the trip back home, I'd, more often the not, get a different route from the one to my destination. I too find the TomTom over estimates travel time. I was surprised to find two local college campuses missing from the list of POI's. Once on a trip to Pittsburgh, I was returning home and needed to get on the PA Turnpike. As I approached the ramp the TomTom showed on the screen to take the center lane. I noticed a sign along the road showing the right lane going to the turnpike. I ignored the sign and after I passed the point of turning the arrow on the screen changed to show exiting in the right lane. One other glitch I found interesting is a restaurant symbol in the center of a bridge over two Interstate highways. I have noticed, and I don't know if this is a TomTom problem or subscribers entering information incorrectly, but I have found POI's, literally, miles away from their true location.

Hey I like my xl...but I i know I shouldn't. Terrible manual...no excuse at all. All sorts of stuff not covered.
And what's with the hard to find, never explained route cancel option. Three key hits?
No excuse.
And Bluetooth is dreadful...they should be ashamed. What, Bluetooth is going to be around for a year or two? Stop.
And the lat and long function doesn't work very well...wanted to put a navigation bouy off my house in the machine and it told told me it wouldn't take it because no POI nearby...Huh? I decided what a POI is, not the machine.
Still, I like the thing. In many ways easy to use...I forgive them the Bluetooth thing...but the manual? and the route cancel? Never.

Good review, thanks.

I'm glad to see I'm not alone in finding the routing and destination tracking suboptimal. The Tomtom unit "drops me off" in places that aren't really related to my destination -- for example, just because I go by my hotel on the other side of a highway doesn't mean I've "arrived."

Also, the ONE XL has no text-to-speech support telling you which road to turn onto, or where you are approaching. Frankly, that's fairly shoddy for a unit of this price -- if you want this feature, you have to upgrade to the ONE XL-S.

I was highly impressed with the compass rose feature (and how customizable it is) along with things like direct lat/long support and other levels of customization that simply aren't available on the better-known units. (Most Garmin units are especially poor in this respect.)

I purchased a TomTom a while ago and like it but ended up returning it because it would not work with my sprint cell phone for hands free calling. Then I purchased a Magellan 1200, exchanged it because the first one was bad, the second one would not keep correct time when turned off and sometimes froze up, was very slow with everything especially recalculating the route if you make a wrong turn or miss a turn. I contacted their support about something and it was in india or something, they refused to transfer me to someone that spoke english, after I tried calling in 4 times and could not get them to understand and I could not understand them. I called back 3 additional times to try and get transfered to someone that speaks english and apparently they are trained to not do that under any circumstances. I know there are some companies that if you call in and say they they transfer you instantly without question, these people kept on saying "I understand your concern, I will be able to assist you though and I will speak slow and clearly" every person I talked to repeated that like 5 times. So I couldnt return that unit fast enough, I then purchased the Tom Tom One XL and it is great so far, I wasnt expecting this but I even got it to work with my cell phone for the wireless data connection - I had to enter the settings manually though but the pervious Tom Tom 500 I think... would not even let me set it up manually (sprint data is #777) I like the mapshare feature, I got this unit from WalMart.com for $248 also. The Tom Tom seems to have the best interface, most of the routes seem to be fine. There are just so many features it's amazing.

I purchased a tomtom one. The languare was already set. It's german or something. I can find no help on changing the language. I did not get a menu screen when I first turned the unit on.

I just purchased the XL and found it very easy to use out of the box without reading the instructions. I just need a basic GPS to get me from point A to Point B and this does it very well for me.

While tarvelling in the US, I bought the new Tom Tom One XL with North American Maps (USA & Canada) that came on the system.
Now back in Brazil, I'm frantically searching for Brazilian or South American Maps.
Having called the Offices of Tom Tom and Tele Atlas (the plotters of the maps that Tom Tom uses) in São Paulo, Brazil, they say that there is NO WAY I can oficially get the maps or buy an SD Card with the maps I need. The only way, they tell me, is to BUY A NEW TOMTOM ONE XL navigator here in Brazil, as it comes with the Brazilian Maps on the system. What an absurd proposition - to spend R$ 1600,00
Please, can any of you, shine a light and show me a way out?

I have to take issue with the "Garmin/NAVTEQ" rules I'm reading in some of these reviews.

I have a TomTom One 3rd Edition (NavCore7 and latest maps as of April 08), and Garmin Nuvi 200 also with the latest maps and firmware. The Nuvi tells me what side of the road a POI is on, but in testing 5 restaurants that have been around for years, it put the first 3 on the opposite side of the road from where they are, and the 5th was a mile in the other direction. Only one of the 5 was right. The TomTom had all 5 right, although it didn't attempt to say which side of the road it was on. I picked a mix of about 10 addresses in new and old neighborhoods here in the south central US (NOT Europe!) and on three the Nuvi tried to direct me down roads that don't exist (and wont for several years). The TomTom could not find the house number of one of the newer ones, and said so, but the rest were right to the door. The Nuvi seems to guess the house numbers by some kind of estimate, because often it was saying I'd arrived one or two houses too soon (or too late) and in one case it was telling me to turn around and go back when there was still a block to go.

I tested with Google Maps and the funny thing is they have the same bad road info. Ironically, the street level views (provided to Google by TeleAtlas) only cover the parts of the roads that really exist. I have since been told that TeleAtlas is literally driving the cities and highways in the US with fleets of specially equipped vans that capture highly accurate road data and addressing info and take the 360 degree photos that are used for the street level views by Google and others that offer that angle. This must be what accounts for the rapid improvements in the TeleAtlas maps. NAVTEQ on the other hand, gets much of their info from city and highway planners, which explains the roads on the maps that may not exist for years to come. That combined with MapShare and the ability for anyone to real-time correct maps helps give TeleAtlas an advantage these days. At least that's what I've seen my area of the US.

I'd love to see Garmin/NAVTEQ catch back up, but to do so, they will have to change the way they update only yearly and even then using maps already several years old. TomTom and TeleAtlas are innovating, while Garmin/NAVTEQ are still trying to use out-of-date methods that worked ok a decade ago when the market was smaller and they had little to compete with.

I thought I was the only one with the time calculation with this unit. I live in AK, and when I bought the OneXL My first lengthy trip with it was from Fairbanks to Wasilla. A 5 hour route that I knew, was calculated at 9 hours by the One XL. I kept turning it on and off throughout to see if it would re-set itself and finally gave up. In part to low battery but also frustration, since it is only ONE road to travel en route. Otherwise I like the unit, it recognized road construction and gave accurate directions around it the first day out of the box. It's my first GPS unit and I would so far give it a 7 out of 10. My naivety is the shortcoming. Hope this helps.

I used a Garmin 6 months before I purchased this TomTom One XL. The accuracy of the ETA was excellant on the Garmin but when I went to buy my own GPS they were out of my budget so I shopped around and found this TomTom and it seemed complete with everything I needed. Wrong the maps for North America are incomplete and the ETA is out, almost cut the time in half when driving on the highway. Some of the roads that have been built for over 3 years are still not on the latest map version. I have contacted TomTom and they said that they have a formula that takes into consideration stops for a rest, gas and visits with friends.

Just got a new oneXL, and so far, so good. I haven't really had the chance to get into it, but is there in fact a "birds eye" view? If so, how do I get it?

Beware - the review is totally out of date. New style, new mount, instant GPS signal capture (a common complaint on Garmin), memory of most recent imputs (no retyping), lane announcements, timely turn announcements as turn is approached (not so on Garmin). Buy at Circuitcity for best all-around shopping experience. I'm very satisfied and Circuitcity makes it easy to switch. I didn't.

I have a TomTom XL (Australia) with latest whereis 2008 Australian map.
Absolutely brilliant unit, has never failed me getting from point A to point B. No problems with the sensitivity of the GPS, even picks up satellites inside the house.
The EasyPort™ mount is probably the best invention since sliced bread and Home V2.3 software works a treat.

I just purchased the Tom Tom One XL for work. I am an emergency services worker so I use it to navagate to emergency scenes, as I work in a large township. The only annoying thing I found is that the unit uses yards instead of feet to measure distance to the next turn. Other than that, the very first time I used it the unit took me EXACTLY where I needed to go. That's all I expect from the unit and the first time out, it did just that!

U said in your review that TT One Xl has automatic day/night setting option, but actually it dosent has any option to set automatic day/night themes.

The voce command won't activate on Tom Tom Plus: I select the language, make the selection, but when I test it-no Voice.
I get a blinking message saying that 'I did not make the selection', when in reality I have. Am I doing something wrong?

I bought one (due a great price) in spite of the negative review
and was very pleasantly surprised - I used a Nuvi 200 before which is an entry level unit from Garmin and I found that satellite acquisition is faster on the TT and I found the routing to be great in town (have not been out of town with it yet). The map correction utility was very easy to use and so far there have been less errors in the TT map.

My complaints - 2 hour battery life and after zooming in or out in the driving view it returns to a default zoom level after a few seconds.