UK Mumsnetters needed to test TomTom’s top Sat Nav - the GO 5000 worth £259.99 NOW CLOSED

[AngelieMumsnet]

We have been asked by the team at TomTom to find 100 UK MNers to try TomTom GO 5000.

We're looking for Mumsnetters who are regular drivers.

TomTom says: "We all know that traffic jams can take seconds to build up and then last for hours. There is nothing more frustrating than sitting in a jam or in slow moving traffic and not knowing how long you will be there. Especially, when your time is tight and you have children to pick up or drop off.

TomTom satnavs know the precise traffic situation on most UK roads at all times, in real time. The satnav you’ll be given to test is a “live device,” this means it is constantly searching every possible route option to find you the fastest route available. So, if the traffic situation suddenly gets bad on your “normal” route, it will automatically search other options to find a new, faster route and give you a new arrive time."

If selected, you'll be sent the TomTom GO 5000 to try for a few weeks and so long as you add feedback as required you will be able to keep the product.

If selected, you will be sent the TomTom GO 5000 at the end of September, and asked to try it for two weeks. You will then need to try it and add feedback to a thread on Mumsnet. At the end of the testing period, we’d also like you to post a review on the Mumsnet review pages and fill in a short survey. In order to keep the product, you would need to add your feedback by the 26th of October, so please only apply if you are able to do this.

Please also note that TomTom may use your anonymous feedback comments on their website and social media channels, as well as elsewhere.

If you'd like to take part, please add your details here: www.surveymonkey.com/s/RKBRB3K

We will be in touch with selected MNers ASAP.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Sparkling I'm sure the people at TomTom would be entertained by our creativity. I'm so doing this if I can work out how to post a picture.

Got mine on Friday and managed to get the updates done in just over half an hour so we could take it on a trip to Devon for the weekend.

It gave us a good diversion round some known nightmare traffic but then sent us back into the end of the bad traffic and didn't come up with any alternative quicker routes. We turned round and took the back route that I use to avoid this nightmare traffic, it then picked up several traffic jams at the end of this route. So a mixed experience so far in respect of offering alternative routes.

The screen quality is good and it's really easy to navigate around the screen and menu, especially compared to the last more basic TomTom sat nav we had. Also it seems really easy to stick to the windscreen, again much easier than the previous one. It didn't recognise the place name of where we going in Devon but found it when we put in the postcode. Also the traffic info is a bit slow to load up at the start but comes on eventually.

I've found a suitable little pouch to put mine in for now but the on/off switch must keep getting touched as I quite often find it on when I get it out which ran the battery down today.

I ignored what the TomTom said today as I knew where I was going (there are two routes, it had chosen the quickest and I decided to go the most scenic) just to see what happened and it only told me to turn around once and then quickly made a new route. The last time I borrowed a sat nav it just repeated endlessly "turn around" so this is an improvement.

sparkling yes it is :) I'm one of the weirdos who love having the class bear!

IAMA I'm sure you'll make it up to him, but does this mean you can work out how to get out of the NE??

Thanks look lovely wine :) Do I have to switch it on to 3D? Did you buy anything nice at BC?

I'd join in with the pics too, but my phone doesn't have a camera (yes, I know) and my laptop (as mentioned before) is 100% full so I can't down load any photos

Shelly Devon for the weekend - lovely :) Though your Tom didn't really behave himself did he!

Blue - yes the re-route is really good.

Chipping yes, some bras, but all going back as I bought in haste with toddler! Are you using a Nokia 3310?!

I feel we may be derailing their thread somewhat...

Think 3D is the default, have only seen the 2D option in the VR menu.

Anyone heard about free voice download? Fed up with the current choices already!

I've used it today and it was ok. So far, I didn't try the VR of the linking to traffic, though this feature would be fantastic (I hope) for the kind of journeys I do.

The ultimate test this morning - commuting through Monday morning traffic... However I am having ongoing problems with it not connecting to the traffic server. I do live in the country, but we have pretty good mobile signal so I'm getting a bit hacked off with it constantly failing to connect.

VR variable, but better now I'm used to having to be quite precise and well spoken...

It knew where B&Q, the local garden centre and McDonald's were. It also found a quicker route home from the tip that I hadn't considered before, so pleased about that.

Not a huge fan. Unsurprisingly it found no alternative to the traffic jam on the way to work.

It pronounces the road at the end of my street wrong

And I can't get it to stick to the windscreen.

The kids love it though "get your car computer to tell us where to go mummy" and it is pretty resistant to them playing with it. They love the voice activation thing "say please mummy" when I try to talk to it.

Oh but it did tell me there would be lane closures on the A1. Lo and behold there were in exactly the place it said.

The weekend before it arrived I got horribly lost driving round Bristol. I would have liked it then as google map printouts weren't very helpful. Am trying to think if I am going to make a journey where I don't know where I am going as I suspect when I do I will be very keen on it indeed. A map book might be a cheaper option though.

So, jury out.

Also the battery doesn't last very long.

How can I turn thr volume up on it??

Doctor Bristol is awful, I got very lost there too.

I agree Bristol is a horrible place to get round!

This morning we managed to avoid the queue on the main road by being diverted one of the ways I would use, it didn't ask if I wanted to use that route but I wasn't bothered!

It would be nice if you could use the voice activation to get to other saved places not just home as I drop the kids at school this morning which is the opposite direction to work so don't want to put work in when I leave the house to the be told to keep turning around!

Tom and I are going to fall out if he keep updating the traffic once I am past the point of no return! Sitting in traffic for 25 minutes when you know the alternative would have got you there on time!

I'm currently failing to understand why its so much better than the one we have, which is a mio spirit 485 and which costs about £75. The screen is a bit clearer. The interface a bit nicer. It sticks to the windscreen better. And yes there's voice control which I'm pretty sure I haven't figured out yet as I actually have to touch the screen to find the voice control button before i can use that function which must defeat the purpose.

However using it for the purpose its intended, I have become really frustrated. I typed in the name of the clinic we were going to the other day. Didn't recognise that. Why not? Its been there for at least a decade. It doesn't recognise the street name of where I work, or the name of the business park its on either - had to use the postcode.

It didn't highlight the massive queue of traffic on the street I drive through every morning (which I luckily can avoid but I drive into it to start with) It tried to take me a bizarre route to work this morning, multiple times (although yes it recalculates quickly as I just ignored any suggestions it made)
It didn't recognise a wood we wanted to go to either. Which frankly should have been in the points of interest box if nothing else. I need to test whether it 'remembers' previous routes taken like my Mio does as well. ( I don't mean previous routes searched for, but actual routes driven on a frequent journey - as the Mio adjusts to your most frequent route)

The boys wanted a different voice, so I changed it to James the Aussie, but he repeats the same annoying 'sunnies' sentence over and over and the kids told me to turn it off. Which I did. Why just the one sentence - can TomTom not add in about 20 of them and generate randomly at the end of a journey? Sheesh.

I will keep testing. We will be going on longer journeys to places we don't know in half term, so I'm hoping it gets us to our destination reliably.

Getting increasingly frustrated, I have an old crappy htc phone and I must admit it's easier to use the navigation on that. No it doesn't tell me about the traffic ahead but I just type in where I want to go and it takes me the simplest route and it's never not recognised anywhere.

Tom doesn't understand me half the time (strong yorkshire accent???) It hasn't recognised a few places which means I've had to look up postcodes and it's not very touch sensitive which drives me mad!

I've used mine a number of times.

It took me on a back street route to a place I regularly go and I got there earlier than usual, was definitely a shorter route.
It's also saved me time by getting me to places quickly. Usually I check google maps and will have to pull in a few times. I can't believe how much easier having a SatNav in the car is.

I also love how he repeats the instructions again and again. I have James the Australian and love his voice.
Going to use a French voice tomorrow.

I have 3 more new places to find for work this week so have a great chance to test from Wed onwards. Will update then as some are long and in rush hour.

Mine behaved nicely this morning in a tricky city centre journey where I've had sat navs get lost due to going under multiple railway lines.

I would like to be able to set it to not offer an alternative route if the difference is less than a certain amount.

i left it for H to set up. He suggests it is not so MAC friendly. When do we get the novelty voice?

i used mine to travel the county and i didnt go the route he wanted. He coped.

i want to use mine on battry so i can use my itrip thing on the car charger. How long till the battery can do that?

Hi everyone :) Just to update you: we'll be starting the feedback thread in the next few days, and I'll send a link over once it's live. TomTom are in the process of organising voucher codes for the winning custom voice, so I'll be in touch about this soon too :)

Mine's just arrived, along with 4 other parcels off people in my street as there was no pretending I wasn't in!

I couldn't take delivery last week, so changed to today and it arrived exactly when it said it would.

Typically, my car is in for a service today and I need a couple of things fixed, so hopefully will be able to out it to good use at the end of the week. DS has a football match in the arsr end of nowhere and I'm off to the other end of the country at half term, so really looking forward to resting it on that route.

[LooksLike - it needs a bit of derailing, there's only so much you can say about dear old Tom PITA re the bras! Umm it's a Nokia, yes. The 3310 is in the drawer having only just died, this is some £10 jobby from Tesco until I get my act together and get an iPhone. Can't decide between the 5s & the 6, but I think I'll get the 5s as the 6 is just too big and I will put it in my back pocket and end up with a Bendy!]

All things TomTom

• Yes, 3D of a small part of my trip today.

• No, haven't heard about the voice yet. Haven't heard anything at all - which is odd, I'd have thought the Official Feedback Thread would have been up by now and a bit more detail of what they would like feedback on, if there's anything in particular they'd like to know.

• I'm getting the hang of plugging the wire into the unit now, but getting it out is still difficult, I forsee needing to replace the cable due to the wire breaking. I still think it would be much better to have the wire connecting to the actual Tomtom in a position where you can still mount it on the holder plugged in.

• VSM It didn't do any lanes for me today either, not even when I was at a couple of large, busy, unfamiliar roundabouts where it would have been good to know which lane I should be in approaching them.

• Unresponsive again today too, for quite a few minutes.

• Sorry to ask (and I can't look on Tomtom as his battery is flat and we're not supposed to charge it via the laptop... [ an ordinary plug would have been very handy!] but do we need to do something to get it to respond to traffic? I assumed it would do that automatically?

DoctorG - I hate to ask, but have you taken the protective bit of plastic off and are you twisting the bit that presses against the glass? It's quite a positive movement and locks/unlocks the seal.

ilove tap on the ... and the volume bar is there, just slide it along with your finger :) Make sure you haven't/don't hit the 'lips' though or the sound will go right off (and on again if you tap it again).

lynnie I have most of those problems too! It hasn't recorded any of my well travelled routes. I'm assuming that we have to do something to tell it to do that??

mary - same with me, a few places that have been here for years it hasn't found and aren't even on it when I get there. One was a garden centre that's been there at least 20 years and is a big one! I've given up on the VR.

I'm getting a little bit annoyed by it saying 'Turn right at the end of the street' then turn right before you even get to the end of the street, by quite a way.

Has anyone worked out how to plan a route?

I want to be able to put a route in from A to B when I'm not actually at A. I would also like to be able to see the route options and choose one (like you can on google maps). Does anyone know if either of those things are possible?

i was thinking the same. yesterday i tried to do that before i went out, doesn't seem to save the information.