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MNHQ

TomTom GO 5000 feedback thread NOW CLOSED

532 replies

AngelieMumsnet · 13/10/2014 17:02

This thread is for the MNers who've been trying out the TomTom GO 5000.

Below are some questions to get you started but please feel free to add other comments too.

In terms of your first impressions...

  • What was your initial impression of the TomTom GO 500?
  • How easy did you find it to set up your TomTom?
  • What journeys have you made so far with your TomTom?

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

Thanks,
MNHQ

OP posts:
lougle · 22/10/2014 13:43

SarahSnail did you say '1', '3', etc., or did you say 'number 1', 'number 3', etc? It only understands if you say the word 'number' before you say the actual number. It took us a while to figure that out.

whoops · 22/10/2014 17:43

In terms of your first impressions...

  • What was your initial impression of the TomTom GO 500?

I thought it was a nice size and clear.

  • How easy did you find it to set up your TomTom?

I found it quite easy although a little slow to update but now updates don't seem to take too long

  • What journeys have you made so far with your TomTom?
I have so far made mainly regular journeys to work, the hospital and the kids schools. Yesterday I gave my Tom Tom probably the biggest test I could by driving into the centre of London! It got us there really well but as someone else has said when you ask for it to find a car park it just give you distances which isn't helpful if you don't really know a place and also the first one I chose I couldn't find the parking but we were successful with the next. On the way to London there was a huge traffic Jam on the M3 and it started to take me round a quicker route but that was also stacked up with traffic due to road works so I kind off ignored it and carried on completely the wrong way but we did find our way back with a little help from ds looking at my ipad map!

Not impressed with Stephen Fry's voice so we've gone back to Serena. Heading to Poole at the weekend so will see how that goes if the A31 it jammed!!

whoops · 22/10/2014 21:51

I've also found a couple of times the voice recognition has cut in when nothing has been said!

ChillingGrinBloodLover · 22/10/2014 23:03

Whoops I have been having major hassles getting VR to work. Yesterday I was at small persons violin less and bored out of my brain so thought I'd plan a route I need later in the week. All of a sudden the bloody thing says, at the top of its voice, I'm listening. I've no idea what the violin teacher said I'd zoned out but it certainly wasn't fecking 'Hey Tom Tom' Grin Mortified I turned Tom off and shoved him in my bag, hastily. Little bugger!

RunsWithScissors · 23/10/2014 08:34

Is it ok to add to our initial feedback? Driving to one of DDs activities yesterday, I realised that tontine was taking me via 'my route' and not the one it suggested the first time (which I ignored). I saved the location to 'my places' list the first time. I know the original route it suggested was clear, so am I correct in thinking that tontine can learn the way you prefer to drive, or was it a coincidence that I attributed to a smart sat nav Wink

Also, dd keeps requesting James as our voice. The tag line about sunnies has her in fits of laughter. She calls him Mr Nonsense

RunsWithScissors · 23/10/2014 08:36

Tontine? TomTom!!!! Realise my post isn't clear. Will try again after school run

Squiffie · 23/10/2014 09:29

I really wish there was a printed guide, like a pocket version or something. An online version is not much use if you're stuck out at the arse end if nowhere and wanted to quickly see how to change something. I like paper versions of things.
A case would have been very useful too because I haven't already scratched the back of mine, no not me.

Floralnomad · 23/10/2014 11:43

My DH has been using it for the last couple of days ( I'm out of action) and he says he will stick with Serena . We love the VR and are managing very well with it ,I've been to a few new ( to us) places and only once needed to put in a postcode . The screen mount stays firmly in place which is better than any I've had before and the unit wakes up and responds really quickly .

CMOTDibbler · 23/10/2014 11:50

DH took Serena to Bristol yesterday, and she let him down Sad. She got him to the right location OK, but could not find herself at all when coming out of the underground car park. He had to reboot her, which was not ideal while negotiating the city centre.
She's now talking to him, and me, but refuses to talk to ds which is a good thing

alemci · 23/10/2014 13:08

Bristol is awful. Earlier in the year I had a printed google map and got totally lost after one wrong turn, was trying to drive towards Bath. no signs

iwantavuvezela · 23/10/2014 13:26

I have posted earlier but just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed using this new TomTom (bigger screen, clear graphics, I even enjoy switching it on - unlike our old tom tom which would show a dreadful picture for ages). I am really impressed how quickly it finds the satellite (a major bug bear of mine with our old one)
I still have to download maps etc, I have an ipad, my Dh has a laptop but he uses it at work so have not found time to do this yet - the length some have spoken it takes has put me off! I know I need to do this. Do I just go to the Tom Tom site to do this? Sorry, but the lack of information (even a printed getting started pamphlet makes this difficult)

However despite all of this, thank you for letting me try this updated piece of kit. I am really enjoying it and am very pleased ....

SophieBarringtonWard · 23/10/2014 14:06

looking forward to taking it on the M6 tomorrow!

EddieVeddersfoxymop · 23/10/2014 16:25

I cannot understand how the tom tom is planning routes. We tried it coming from our nearest city back home and it kept trying to make me turn off the main road that leads straight to our village and take a series of smaller roads, through various other villages, that would add miles on. This keeps happening - routes are taking unclassified roads rather than A roads, diverting across country when a straight B road gets us where we are going. If we didn't have local knowledge, these routes would be adding miles and minutes onto each journey. The device is set for the fastest route....why would an unclassified road be faster than an A road?? Oh, and Stephen has gone and Serena is back in action......

stealthsquiggle · 23/10/2014 16:59

I had lost the thread for a while there.

Ok, so I am about to download Stephen Fry because DS thinks it will be really cool, but in the meantime, a couple of "challenges"

VR stopped working! It just didn't listen, and when I went to voice control on the menu it said something along the lines of "voice control is not possible with your screen language" - except that the screen language was as it always had been, set to UK English Confused. I have brought it inside to charge (see next point) and it has now randomly started working again, but DD was most disappointed not to be able to show VR off to Granny and I am not sure she is going to forgive that one any time soon.

The other is a general gripe. It is plugged in all the time in the car. Admittedly my power socket shuts down when the ignition is turned off but I have done some pretty long trips in the last week (>3 hours a day for 3 days in a row) and yet the battery is completely empty and I have had to bring it in for a top up charge. Surely the power is gets in the car should be enough - it is asleep the rest of the time, so the implication is that it is using power faster than it can charge, which would be a fairly fundamental design flaw IMHO.

I do love the accuracy though and the traffic mapping is awesomely accurate, on the whole - the only downside is that when it says I am going to be late, I know it is right (unlike my old sat nav, when I could kid myself that I could improve in the time it gave me....)

WarriorOne · 23/10/2014 18:05

The mount fell off when I was driving last week, and the TomTom went flying. As it goes to sleep after 10 secs, and it was dark, so I couldn't see it in the car at all. Luckily I knew where I was going.

The traffic was horrendous on my home journey tonight, but TomTom was saying that the route was clear in long stretches when it was totally snarled up and vice versa. It's been a lot more accurate than that until now!

I'm sometimes offered an alternative route in the morning, that is predicted to shave a minute or two off my route. However, the alternative is route is a stressful journey through the city centre, with tons of traffic lights - I'm not convinced it would be any quicker, and I know I would hate driving it, so I ignore it.

I haven't downloaded Stephen F, can't bear him, so I won't bother with that one!

VR has been mostly fine, bit more erratic this week, even with a raised voice and careful enunciation.

LadyWithLapdog · 23/10/2014 18:32

I mentioned upthread as well about the ETA. Very accurate. It seems to right itself within minutes of leaving the house, usually by adding another 5 or 10 minutes, and then that's it! No chance of 'beating' it. Very clever.

Nicename · 23/10/2014 18:57

Can it warn you about congestion charge zones? I always forget then thing 'hmmmm, is it 6 of 6.30? and whats the time now?

LadyWithLapdog · 23/10/2014 19:20

Interesting about the CC. I don't know. I'm driving through/near on Monday. A reminder to plan the route to avoid it.

Nicename · 23/10/2014 19:47

I just thought about it today when I was plotting a route through the centre for this evening. I couldn't see if the zone was highlighted or if you could plot a journey avoiding them. Very useful if you are visiting somewhere you don't know.

And bus lanes. It would be useful if it shrieked "get outta the bus lane!".

AFingerofFudge · 23/10/2014 20:29

Sorry - very late joining the thread as haven't used it much - yet!! We received it the week before last, had a few days of using it for everything, and then this week with a combination of meetings, unusual work training days and illness it hasn't been used, but we are heading to Bristol at the weekend and then on holiday by car next week so it's going to get some long outings and will report back in full when we get back - hope that's ok?

Initial impressions though were very good on the screen and how it responds to touch. The instructions felt quite minimal - it would be great if they could supply a little card with the basics on to refer to rather than to have to look online.
Oh and in agreement on the case issue - the first thing DH said when he took it out was "oh there's no case". For a high-end satnav this is a suprise.

nightswift · 23/10/2014 21:51

In terms of your first impressions...
- What was your initial impression of the TomTom GO 500?
That it was quite swanky, I've never had a sat nav before and I liked the quality.
- How easy did you find it to set up your TomTom?
Hard - I really struggled with it for a week - it stuck at 97% and wold go no further. Luckly DH is techy and after lots of googling we managed to get it all uploaded- it took the shine off it and I think without DH I would never have got it up and running.
- What journeys have you made so far with your TomTom?
I live in Scotland so we have already had our half term. It took us to our holiday cottage with ease - the speed camera warning on the A1 was particularly great as many are on the opposite side of the road. An unexpected trip to A&E (thankfully all okay) was a great test for it and again even though I missed a junction (my fault) it was well.

Only problems I have had so far are:

I can't get the voice direction to work - my machine is silent and no-one talks to me even though I have all the voice stuff turned on.

When we left A&E to go home it took over 5 minutes for the sat nav to start working - it seemed like it couldn't get a signal.

The voice control for addresses is really terrible and frustrating - I switched it off and relied on my own navigation at one point. I struggled to add a stop into my route home, but that could be lack of knowing what to do.

Overall I like it though - the live traffic is a fantastic feature especially with no data charges.

MyNameIsInigoMontoya · 23/10/2014 21:56

I have a question. If TomTom says it has found a faster route and asks if you want to take it, are you meant to be able to say "Yes" using the VR? I noticed there was a microphone icon showing, but it didn't seem to react if I said yes and also didn't show the alternatives for long, so I often missed them before I could manually do it safely.

Also - in the manual, it looks like you can only use VR with a computer voice that does street names (i.e. Serena) - though it did seem to work when I selected other built-in voices, by just switching back to Serena when I used VR.

But since downloading Stephen, I couldn't get VR to work well for me today so I'm wondering whether that is because of using that voice?

Thanks.

Rishi79 · 23/10/2014 22:50

Thanks for choosing us to review TomTom GO 500. It replaced our old TomTom which is quite small in size and lacks zooming and traffic indications.

  • What was your initial impression of the TomTom GO 500?
Perfect sized, colourful screen. I feel happy seeing that colourful screen (though the traffic shown on it frustrates me) and makes those busy and awful school runs a bit easy. Easy to reach charging port. I still feel we should find an easy way of mounting such devices. May be it is only me who still struggles to fit it right. The larger screen definitely has a plus though it gets more attention from me (quite often because of it's size) and I love looking at it quite often (Haven't missed the road yet). May be I will get used to it over time.
  • How easy did you find it to set up your TomTom?
I haven't read the instructions. I am a geek mummy and love to explore the options myself than reading from a booklet. Only when I am stuck and not happy with the results (or if I break the software during experiments), I go back to the manual to read it. And usually any new device Hubby and me love to sit together and set it up for the first time. GO 500 was not an exception. The set up went quite well though we are still sticking on to the basic setup. I left the device to update over night as I am not quite happy with the speed we get from our "two lettered" broadband provider. By morning it was all done without breaking anything. I am not still quite happy with the voice recognition (is it not understanding my accent! :(, I would be more worried though) and I am trying to push it hard. I will update more as I proceed further with the advanced setup.
  • What journeys have you made so far with your TomTom?
Local school run, extra curricular classes for the children and today we drove with it to Chessington for the preview of their Halloween theme :). I love the way it tells me to avoid "Road 1" and take "Road 2" instead as it has a few less cars queued :) We save a minute :). But you know, every second counts when you are rushing in the morning. GO 500 was used for local school runs and the usual other runs mainly to know the traffic and it did help save me 15 minutes when A316 was stuffed with Traffic one day. Today's Chessington run clearly indicated us that we will be late to the event by 50 minutes due to Traffic though it was only a 45 minutes ride but then took us nearly an hour and half. Before we used to have the Tom Tom and on top of it the Google Maps on my iPhone 4S for Traffic information. Now everything is in One and I was happily tweeting while hubby was driving. He did ignore me and relied upon on the huge screen in front of him. I think GO 500 managed to build trust. :)

I would love to add photos ... but not today ... too tired to look at the camera now for perfect pictures. Hope I can edit this review to add pictures later.

Tequilamockinbird · 24/10/2014 11:29

Sorry that my feedback is late, I've been working away.

Firstly thank you so much for choosing me to test the TomTom!

  • What was your initial impression of the TomTom GO 500?
It was bigger than i expected, and with a much clearer screen than the ancient sat nav I'd been using previously. I too was a little disappointed that it didnt come with a case or a little bag to stop the screen getting scratched in my bag or in the glove compartment when not in use. The screen mount is good, and sturdy, although I can't work out how to charge it whilst it's in the mount - the charger doesn't fit when it's mounted?!
  • How easy did you find it to set up your TomTom?
Very easy, it was more or less plug and play. I didn't need to do any updates (at least it didnt say i needed to!) and I had great fun playing around with the voices. The instructions in the box were sufficient and easy to follow.
  • What journeys have you made so far with your TomTom?
I've done the horrific commute which I do every day when I'm not working away. Sadly it didnt find a quicker route for me, nor did it manage to avoid the traffic. But I don't think that was TomTom's fault as there's traffic everywhere at the time of the day anyway. I've also taken it further afield on a 200 mile journey to Sheffield and it was great. There was no traffic on the route anyway but it picked up all the speed cameras and the instructions were very easy to follow.

I'm impressed so far!

lilyloo · 24/10/2014 14:01

Am loving my sat nav. It got me to ds football match in the middle of nowhere without a hiccup. Also used it to find me a petrol station which is one feature I really like (often driving on fumes).

Dp had a problem with it going to work this week as it wouldn't update the traffic , still not sure why.

Looking forward to taking it on lots of half term trips next week.