just added the x-post to TT

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I bought a Tomtom GPS a while back, and I have found it to be beyond
> useless. It's so bad, it tells me to turn into corn fields in the
> middle of freeways, and has gone so far as to lead me completely the
> wrong way, or down roads that dead end after 10 miles of driving down
> rural gravel roads. It's less than a year old, so it's not outdated.
> I think the Tomtom is just plain garbage. This past weekend it nearly
> went bonkers on me. I knew the route I was traveling, I just had the
> Tomtom turned on to see if it lead me the right way. It was so poor
> that I have decided to never use it again. I'm going to sell it at
> our garage sale, and in all honesty I doubt I'll ever buy another GPS
> after this horrible experience. But just for grins, I was told that
> Garmin is much better. Is it?
>

On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 15:20:12 -0500, "ps56k"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>just added the x-post to TT
>

And your point is?????

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 15:20:12 -0500, "ps56k"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>just added the x-post to TT
>>
>
> And your point is?????
>
sorry -
thought you wanted an intelligent discussion
concerning the pros and cons of GPS devices - Garmin vs TomTom

---
I'm selling my Tomtom One at the next garage sale. It's worthless and
was a waste of money. I'll just sell it for whatever I can get and
take a loss on most of the money I spent. I refuse to let this thing
direct me wrongly and waste my time and gas money. I've changed the
settings, and done all the things needed, and it's proven to be worst
than useless. I've used it for the last time. I've been driving
about 40 years and will use paper maps as I have always done. No more
GPS for me. It's become nothing but a source of annoyance.

Before I sell it, I want to remove all my personal data such as my
"Home" and all the "archives" of recent trips. In other words, I want
to set it back to factory defaults. Is this possible? How? Do I
need to remove the batteries, or let them totally discharge, or is
there another way?

On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 18:00:04 -0500, "ps56k"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>sorry -
>thought you wanted an intelligent discussion
>concerning the pros and cons of GPS devices - Garmin vs TomTom

Yes, I do want an intelligent discussion. I'm not trying to make one
brand look better or worse, but I am being honest about my horrid
experience with Tomtom GPSs. I got much less lost and confused when I
had to just rely on the old paper maps. This Tomtom is majorly
f***ked. I can no longer put any trust in it whatsoever, so it's got
to go. I dont need something else to clutter my closet, so I'll take
the few dollars I get at the rummage sale and save it for a better
GPS, or just purchase a new Road Atlas. If I hear that Garmin is
reliable, I might get one if I find one on sale. So far I have heard
little bad about Garmin, but I want lots of honest replies. Not just
what the salesman has to say.

I guess your cross posting does make sense, so thanks.

JW

On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 21:56:10 -0500, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 18:00:04 -0500, "ps56k"
><(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>sorry -
>>thought you wanted an intelligent discussion
>>concerning the pros and cons of GPS devices - Garmin vs TomTom
>
>Yes, I do want an intelligent discussion. I'm not trying to make one
>brand look better or worse, but I am being honest about my horrid
>experience with Tomtom GPSs. I got much less lost and confused when I
>had to just rely on the old paper maps. This Tomtom is majorly
>f***ked. I can no longer put any trust in it whatsoever, so it's got
>to go. I dont need something else to clutter my closet, so I'll take
>the few dollars I get at the rummage sale and save it for a better
>GPS, or just purchase a new Road Atlas. If I hear that Garmin is
>reliable, I might get one if I find one on sale. So far I have heard
>little bad about Garmin, but I want lots of honest replies. Not just
>what the salesman has to say.
>
>I guess your cross posting does make sense, so thanks.
>
>JW

You talk very loftily of honesty, yet you are seeking to sell to some
unsuspecting dupe an item you know to be faulty.

d

On Fri, 08 Oct 2010 05:35:38 GMT, (E-Mail Removed) (Don Pearce) wrote:

>On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 21:56:10 -0500, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 18:00:04 -0500, "ps56k"
>><(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>>>sorry -
>>>thought you wanted an intelligent discussion
>>>concerning the pros and cons of GPS devices - Garmin vs TomTom
>>
>>Yes, I do want an intelligent discussion. I'm not trying to make one
>>brand look better or worse, but I am being honest about my horrid
>>experience with Tomtom GPSs. I got much less lost and confused when I
>>had to just rely on the old paper maps. This Tomtom is majorly
>>f***ked. I can no longer put any trust in it whatsoever, so it's got
>>to go. I dont need something else to clutter my closet, so I'll take
>>the few dollars I get at the rummage sale and save it for a better
>>GPS, or just purchase a new Road Atlas. If I hear that Garmin is
>>reliable, I might get one if I find one on sale. So far I have heard
>>little bad about Garmin, but I want lots of honest replies. Not just
>>what the salesman has to say.
>>
>>I guess your cross posting does make sense, so thanks.
>>
>>JW
>
>You talk very loftily of honesty, yet you are seeking to sell to some
>unsuspecting dupe an item you know to be faulty.
>
>d

Did I say whether I was going to tell the buyer whether this thing
works properly or is defective? NO I DID NOT MENTION IT.
Only an ASS ASSumes what others will do !!!!!

If I put a $5 price tag on it, with a warning "not accurate", it's
still works for knowing what road someone is on. Just kill the speech
(sound) and watch the screen. I just want it out of my life and not
in the closet. If no one pays $5 for it, I'll get $5 worth of stress
relief smashing it with a hammer. That's after I try to salvage the
built in battery, and saving the cord, which may or may not have any
value. This thing has ****ed me off more than once, so I might just
smash it to get it gone if we dont have a rummage sale soon.

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> If I hear that Garmin is
> reliable, I might get one if I find one on sale. So far I have heard
> little bad about Garmin, but I want lots of honest replies. Not just
> what the salesman has to say.

My first Satnav was a Garmin - given to me by a friend. Every time I
turned it on it told me my maps were out of date (which is fair enough
because they probably were) but every time I went on the net it said
"there are no updates available".

Every time I deviated from the route it wanted to take, it screamed at me
"RECALCULATING, RECALCULATING" My TomTom just gets on with it quietly and
continues to give me directions.

Every time I wanted to go somewhere it insisted I had to put in a full
address with postcode and house number. Not all houses have numbers,
especially in the country. My TomTom doesn't do that, I can just put in
the name of a town, say, and find a car park. I can browse the map and
just select a point where I want to be. As someone who likes walking in
the hills and open country this is useful as I can just select the
starting point for the walk and it gets me there.

I am on my second TomTom because the first went AWOL but in three years
/only once/ has it made a mistake.

I had been to an exhibition in Birmingham (UK), not a place I normally
drive, and the area was completely unfamiliar to me. It was a dark night
in December and the traffic was very busy. It brought me to a traffic
light controlled junction and told me to turn right. There was a right
turn lane so I moved into it, the filter light turned to green and I made
the turn. It was only as we made the turn that my passenger noticed a
small sign on the opposite side of the road that indicated only buses
could turn right. Why, escapes me, as we were turning onto a road that had
normal two-way traffic and was a busy route in and out of the city.

My advice is to go to the website of any manufacturer you fancy, download
the instruction book for the devices you are interested in and read
carefully what it can do and how to operate it properly before you buy it,
and then make your decision.

Den 08-10-2010 10:25, Stuart skrev:
> My advice is to go to the website of any manufacturer you fancy, download
> the instruction book for the devices you are interested in and read
> carefully what it can do and how to operate it properly before you buy it,
> and then make your decision.

But what fails to inform from instructionbooks, is the ease of use, and
the general feeel. I've been using TomTom as well as Garmin Nüvo, and
the latter stinks in sound (I'm Danish-spoken) as well as in
actuality(updates), - beside the screaming "RECALCULATING" :-)

//finn

Stuart wrote:
> I had been to an exhibition in Birmingham (UK), not a place I normally
> drive, and the area was completely unfamiliar to me. It was a dark
> night in December and the traffic was very busy. It brought me to a
> traffic light controlled junction and told me to turn right. There
> was a right turn lane so I moved into it, the filter light turned to
> green and I made the turn. It was only as we made the turn that my
> passenger noticed a small sign on the opposite side of the road that
> indicated only buses could turn right. Why, escapes me, as we were
> turning onto a road that had normal two-way traffic and was a busy
> route in and out of the city.

Maybe that right turn is too popular and clogs up the road with vehicles
waiting to filter. Unless restricted to buses. And perhaps the alternative
long way round is not suitable for buses. But there should have been a
warning sign further back; maybe you missed it in watching the traffic...

Mike.
--
If reply address is invalid, remove spurious "@" and substitute "plus"
where needed.

(E-Mail Removed) wrote on Oct 8, 2010:

>
> Yes, I do want an intelligent discussion. I'm not trying to make one
> brand look better or worse, but I am being honest about my horrid
> experience with Tomtom GPSs. I got much less lost and confused when I
> had to just rely on the old paper maps.
[snip]
> If I hear that Garmin is
> reliable, I might get one if I find one on sale. So far I have heard
> little bad about Garmin, but I want lots of honest replies. Not just
> what the salesman has to say.
>
Well here's one (hopefully honest) reply:

I can't make any direct comparison between the two brands as I've never used
a Tomtom, but I can say that I've used a variety of Garmin units to navigate
all over the UK and western Europe, and had very few errors of any kind.
Occasionally the unit has got traffic regulations wrong (i.e. one-way streets
etc.) and sometimes new road developments are not up to date, but this is
quite rare. Certainly I have *never* had the kind of problems you describe -
being directed onto non-existant roads etc.

*However*, I would not necessarily dismiss Tomtom in favour of Garmin on the
basis of this. With respect, I think that you are confusing two quite
separate issues here. The first is the design of the gps unit itself, and the
second is the accuracy of the mapping data that is installed on the unit, and
I think it is the latter that is the problem in your case. No sat-nav unit
can function properly if the maps are not accurate, and this will vary from
one geographical region to another. My impression is that map data in Europe
is generally a lot more accurate and up-to-date than in the U.S. but I may be
wrong about this.

There are two major organizations producing digital mapping data for satnav
units. The first is Tele Atlas (used by Tomtom) and the other Navteq which is
used by Garmin. It *may* be that Navteq produces more accurate data for your
area than Tele Atlas, in which case a Garmin unit would perform better, but
this is by no means certain.

You should be able to find ou yourself if it is indeed the map data that is
at fault on your unit. There should be some way in which you can browse the
map installed without doing any actual navigation (all Garmin units will
certainly do this). Examine the map on your Tomtom in the exact place where
it directed you along a non-existant road for example. Does the (imaginary)
road exist on the map? If it does, then that is the problem and not the unit
itself.


--
Mike Lane
UK North Yorkshire
mike_lane at mac dot com