TomTom XL 325 4.3-inch Portable GPS Navigator

5 comments

1. 

   Rebecca S. Warfel on December 16, 2009 at 3:01 am

   I have a GPS on my I phone but I really wanted one that would speak to me. I received this as a gift for my birthday. Overall, I like it. Is it perfect? NO. I would NOT completely rely on this as your sole tool for navigation. There are quite a few times that it gave me improper directions (like tells you to make a left turn when you HAVE to make a right in order to get onto the highway in the proper direction). Once you get used to the menu, its very helpful. I had to take a friend to the hospital but I wasn’t sure how to get there. You can search under points of interest, select hospital and it will allow you to select which one you want. NICE! I use my I phone GPS as a back up to check on real time traffic and to get List directions. One other thing I do not like is that when you type in where you would like Tom Tom to take you, the keyboard isn’t set up like a keyboard. Easy, if you would prefer an alphabetical keyboard but the majority of keyboards are set up like a typewriter. It slows me down enough to get on my nerves.
   
   I like that it will calculate your speed so if your looking at it, its not much different than looking at your speedometer. You can tell it when you need to be at your destination and it will consider your speed and how much farther you have to go and will give you an ETA.
   
   Overall I am pleased but i’m glad I have my I phone as a back up tool.

2. 

   M. Fulkerson on December 16, 2009 at 3:40 am

   This is my first GPS unit, and my final thought on it is that it’s pretty interesting, and even amusing. It’s easy to use, it talks back to you like a cyborg in the passenger seat, and it’s got the touch screen which is nice. The setup is really easy, and it’s pretty cool to see all of your local streets pop up before your very eyes. The voice presets make me laugh, and they’re not always accurate, but the fact that some British chick is ordering you around in a backseat-driver fashion is kind of amusing. One of the flaws is the unit telling you to “turn in 100 feet”. Well, who knows exactly how many feet that is when you’re driving? It seems like since all the street names are in the unit it should tell you to “turn on Broadway” or whatever. Maybe the more expensive GPS units do that, but I felt it warranted a mention here.
   
   I like that you can save your favorite destinations and then just click the address to have it automatically take your there. I was driving in some pretty remote areas, and it was able to boot right up and name off the random street names. Cool!
   
   I have to wonder what happened to the tried and true method of cracking open a Thomas Guide, and looking up your destination before you even get in the car. The excuse “well, I travel constantly, and I don’t know where I’m going” is B.S., too. I have done a lot of traveling in my day, and I always find a way to get to where I am going. It seems that with all of the distractions that are already present in a car the GPS unit serves to be yet another contributor to clueless motorists doing dumb stuff.
   
   But, I digress. This GPS unit in and of itself works and does what it says it’s going to do, so I can’t fault a product for performing perfectly. I would give this five stars if the voices that talk to you were more varied. I mean, who wouldn’t want Barry White telling you to “turn left at 185th street, baby”? I know I would.

3. 

   Ken on December 16, 2009 at 5:37 am

   This applies to the new “SE” variant of the TomTom XL 325 model. It may apply to others, but I can only speak for the one I own and the responses concerning it from TomTom tech support.

   Overall this GPS works well. TomTom has wisely included the user community by allowing us to notify map inaccuracies to others, and to personalize our devices with POIs that we devise. Rather wiki-like. And we can take advantage of the POI lists and routes that others have created, free, e.g., Mini Cooper dealers in the US, Trader Joe stores and hundreds of others.

   The interface between TomTom GPS units and one’s computer, and ultimately TomTom itself, is via a free downloaded application called TomTom HOME. Through preferences it can be set to launch as soon as the GPS is connected via USB to the computer. HOME allows map, voices and POI updates, and all of these work quite well.

   TomTom admits, however, that the emulator portion of HOME does not yet work for this new model. The emulator would allow you to operate your device by clicking on links on your computer screen, and typing in addresses, rather than tapping on screen of the GPS device itself. It seems to be the only way to develop routes and itineraries via computer, then uploading to the GPS device. Until the emulator is provided you are limited to tapping on your GPS.

   This is a serious, and I hope temporary, drawback in an otherwise high-value GPS.

   SUMMARY: Great value in new lower-price unit offering features of much more expensive GPSs. CAVEAT: Emulator feature not available yet from TomTom; users should keep pressure on mfr.

   TomTom tech support is manned by competent people who try hard to be helpful, but reaching them by phone involves long waits. Plan on establishing a user account via their web site, and using their somewhat-hard-to-find problem submission system. Realize from the start that *you* must keep your trouble-ticket alive: TomTom closes all issues after 72 hours whether solved or not. You can, however, go to your problem history and resurrect a closed issue.

4. 

   Jason Peltz on December 16, 2009 at 6:48 am

   I recently purchased the TomTom XL 325, and I have used it no matter where I travel. The only issue I have encountered so far is the lack of maps in certain regions of the world. Before buying a navigation system, be sure to look into map availability. That said, this device is highly portable, and well designed. If you’re using in for local use, i.e., within the US or Canada, I highly recommend it.

5. 

   Kiki on December 16, 2009 at 8:41 am

   I was excited to get the Tom Tom XL 325. I’ve used a GPS before, my mom has a similar model Garmin, and I’ve driven to New York from Birmingham, Alabama with that one. So I felt I had some experience with a GPS. I was with my mother when she got her Garmin, and we were able to pretty much use it straight out of the box.

   The Tom Tom has not been quite as easy as the Garmin. I’ve only used it around our area of Birmingham, North Shelby County. Right off, our church/school (Catholic) was not listed. It’s been there, in the same location, for well over 25 years now. However, the Baptist church that just moved in across the street was coming up at the same address! That was weird–I suppose someone from that church updated the maps online perhaps? But this was straight out of the box. While driving to the school, I noticed the library was listed in the completely wrong spot. Later, I discovered they also had the old library location still on there, from where it was located over 10 years ago. Very strange.

   I found trying to enter in an address to be very frustrating. It kept asking for the city, which I had already thought was entered. Every time I used the back button (which I would think would take you back to the previous page) it would go back to the map, causing you to try and start the whole process over again. Very non-intuitive navigation of the system, and frustrating.

   While heading across town to go to a meeting at yet another public library (that was listed as a point of interest, unlike our school), it told us to turn around and we weren’t even out of the driveway yet. I purposely took a different route then the Tom Tom was suggesting, because I knew the traffic would be bad by a large shopping mall on that route. It took the Tom Tom several miles to get over that fact and stop telling me to turn right at every single street and neighborhood I passed, to turn around. It did have the correct directions from there however.

   The other thing the Garmin does which the Tom Tom does not is call out the street names you need to be turning on to. It just tells you to turn left or right in so many yards/feet, which could be a problem. And everytime you turn on to a highway, it tells you to stay in the right lane: “Make a right and stay to the right”–I found that advice bizarre, especially when I know I am going to have to get over to the left to make a left hand turn.

   This morning, I had decided to use it to pick up my daughter from the local Catholic high school–again, although the school has existed in Birmingham for years, and at this location for probably over 15 years, it was not listed as a point of interest, and it did not come up when I manually (and with the usual difficulty) entered the address. I plugged the thing into the computer to “update” the maps. Still, nothing. I am not paying for additional maps, and my mom’s Garmin seemed to have a lot more info. right out of the box–and she doesn’t even have a computer to hook up to. It did provide the correct directions, however, and corrected the route quickly when I went a different way, again, due to the heavy shopping area I wanted to avoid.

   The Tom Tom seemed to lose the satellite signal quite often, and for know apparent reason.

   This is not a bad device, it just isn’t as good, in my humble opinion, as a similarly priced Garmin GPS. I’ll continue to use it, and perhaps we’ll get used to it. It had some great features–I liked the many points of interest and the way they’re categorized, and I love the help option, which gives the nearest places to get help and distances if you have to walk. Great if you are in an area you’re unfamiliar with.

   Having a GPS is a luxury that we now take advantage of every day, just like cell phones. It’s a good thing to have. The moderate price and possibility of useful downloads for traffic and such (most at a cost to the consumer, but handy if traveling and planning trips) are definitely worth the cost to some folks I’m sure. The Tom Tom XL 325 is neat little gadget.