Go 950 vs Go 920

[beastro]

Hi,

I am looking into buying a TomTom car navigator. I used to use TomTom 6 on my PDA, but find it too cumbersome lately.
However, I live in Spain and here there are no live services available, which makes me wonder whether there is any point to buy a Go950 instead of Go920. Another issue is that Go950 is not compatible with my Nokia N81, while the 920 is.

I would appreciate any opinion on that matter.

Thank you

Berthold Hamburger

 

[canderson]

Hi,

I am looking into buying a TomTom car navigator. I used to use TomTom 6 on my PDA, but find it too cumbersome lately.
However, I live in Spain and here there are no live services available, which makes me wonder whether there is any point to buy a Go950 instead of Go920. Another issue is that Go950 is not compatible with my Nokia N81, while the 920 is.

I would appreciate any opinion on that matter.

Thank you

Berthold Hamburger

The trick would be finding a new 920 ... or for that matter, a new 930 which aren't in plentiful supply now, either. The 930 is a very capable unit, but probably won't be seeing any new firmware upgrades down the road.

Apart from Live services not being on your list, do you have any other requirements for your new unit?

 

[beastro]

The trick would be finding a new 920 ... or for that matter, a new 930 which aren't in plentiful supply now, either. The 930 is a very capable unit, but probably won't be seeing any new firmware upgrades down the road.

Apart from Live services not being on your list, do you have any other requirements for your new unit?

Hi,

Thank you for the quick reply.
I found an Ebay site that sells 920 supposedly refurbished: TOMTOM GO 920 CAR GPS NAVIGATION UK EUROPE MAPS and BAG bei eBay.de: GPS Systems (endet 09.07.10 03:16:06 MESZ)

Generally speaking I am not really a friend of buying old technology. However the live service being an integral part of the 950 and implementation in Spain not being foreseeable according to TomTom, I wonder whether it is worthwhile to spend the extra 100? for the 950.
I was pretty happy with my Navigator 6 on the PDA, but it is always a headache to go around with a seperate GPS unit and the maps available for that version are so hopelessly outdated (6.75) that short of using the cracked versions, which I don't want to do, there is no way of updating. Version 7 og navigator is not even available for PDA anymore anyway.

As for features, I kind of liked the ability to use the hands free option, the display of separate lanes and IQ routes.

I am wondering whether there would be a way to make a Nokia N81 (Symbian) work with the 950. I am a little puzzled about why the hands free would not work with that phone.

Thanks

Berthold

 

[canderson]

Beware of "refurbished" units from eBay. Was the unit actually factory refurbished by TomTom? If not, stay away. You'll find yourself in need of a battery replacement sooner than later. We can help with that here, too, but you really don't want to pay for something and have to take a screwdriver to it right away.

Again, I'd look around for a new 930. They're still available but in very limited supply.

For the same reasons you don't see the value for the extra cost of the 950, you will find the 940 with the same "Live" features. But if you could find one cheaply enough...

As to why you can't get paired with that phone - no personal experience with that. That the 930 is known to work and offers all of the features you think you'd want still points in that direction.

Of course, I am assuming you need both European and N.A. maps. If you need only the European maps, you should really be looking for a Euro version of the 7XX series, not the 9XX series with the extra cost of the N.A. maps.

 

[beastro]

Of course, I am assuming you need both European and N.A. maps. If you need only the European maps, you should really be looking for a Euro version of the 7XX series, not the 9XX series with the extra cost of the N.A. maps.

You are correct, I don't need currently NA maps. Great suggestion!

I found a 730 TomTom Navi Go 730 IQ Europa XL 42 L?nd. RADAR NEU 8.45 bei eBay.de: GPS-Systeme (endet 04.08.10 18:47:09 MESZ) that looks pretty good and even accepts normal SD cards.
Another one would be a 750 for 207? or a 930 with TMC TomTom Navi Go 930 T GPS Traffic Europa & USA TMC Pro ! bei eBay.de: GPS-Systeme (endet 02.08.10 12:43:16 MESZ)
Difficult to decide...

Thanks a lot for your help!

Regards

Berthold

 

[mikealder]

With the 730 you get the FM Transmitter to play instructions via your car radio and the mp3 player built in to the device.
From the x40 range ONLY the 940 has the above capability.
From the x50 range NONE of them have the above capability

The 930 you are looking at has the FM Tx and mp3 player, it also comes with a remote control and has the Enhanced Positioning Technology fitted which dead reckons your position while the GPS signal is missing such as through tunnels - Mike

 

[Hardgrafte]

Whilst Spain does not have HD Traffc, it does have the ordinary traffic services. See Route Planner - the best route, maps and traffic info from TomTom. So TT 730 with either a TMC radio cable or bluetooth phone with data and Live subscription should work.

 

[beastro]

Whilst Spain does not have HD Traffc, it does have the ordinary traffic services. See Route Planner - the best route, maps and traffic info from TomTom. So TT 730 with either a TMC radio cable or bluetooth phone with data and Live subscription should work.

Hi,

Thank you all for the good advice! I decided on a Go730T TomTom Navi Go 730 T Traffic Europa XL TMC Pro +Blitzer bei eBay.de: GPS-Systeme (endet 04.08.10 18:54:38 MESZ) and placed the order today. I figured that the FM-radio option is important to me and thus eliminates the newer models. I will get the one above with bag, remote, TMC and shipping for 228? which seems a fairly good deal.

Best regards

Berthold

 

[canderson]

I noted in the descriptive copy the line "Kartenupdate 8.45 (Nueste Version)". That's not quite true - the current European map is now at 8.50, and was fairly recently released, so you should avail yourself of the Latest Map Guarantee as soon as you can. Be sure to do a full backup of your unit to your PC (using a Windows copy, not the TomTom Home backup/restore method) before updating anything, though.

 

[mikealder]

I would also suggest you get a 4GB (SD or SDHC) memory card for the device for the newer V850 maps as TT have made a bit of a dogs breakfast of the new Western_Europe maps - having a larger memory card will simplify the map install - The device can support up to and including 32GB capacity and can also be used to store mp3 tracks - Mike

 

[beastro]

Hi Mike,

I noticed that despite having a 4GB card inserted, map update still tells me that I have not enough space for the entire map. Is there anything I have to do to tell the program to use the SD card?

Thanks

Berthold

 

[canderson]

Don't know what OS you are using. I'll assume Windows for the moment, but please let us know exactly which OS you've got. Just had an interesting thread with a guy running Win7 who had the same problem and it required a rather different solution.

When you plug your 730 in and make connection to the computer, do you see TWO additional external drives show up on My Computer or just ONE? There should be two: one associated with the internal memory on your unit, and one associated with the SD card. Just trying to be sure your computer is even seeing the SD card as step 1.

 

[beastro]

Yep, Win7.
I see 2 drives. One internal memory and one for the SD card.
When I startup in TomTom home, I am asked which one I want to use, but even after selecting the external memory it will install the map to internal mem.

I found the following Map Zones - How can I install the full map on my new memory card? on TomTom support. However, for now I will install a partial map on internal mem, but would like to have the full map available when needed. Is it possible to switch between 2 storage locations on the fly?

Thanks

Berthold

 

[canderson]

NO! Don't let them trap you into doing the "zoned map" thing. Your unit has more than enough memory to deal with the entire Western Europe map. No, you can't swap zones on the fly. It's TT's bandaid solution to a problem of units without enough memory given the current map + POI memory requirements.

Here, BTW, was how the other Win7 problem was rounded out. The symptoms were slightly different, but it was similar in that Home couldn't deal with the SD card even though Win7 clearly saw the card and had accepted that it was an external storage "drive".

You might want to try running home as the Admin to see if that solves it. If so, a Home reinstall may get the permissions straight. If that doesn't improve things, let us know and we'll continue to work on it.

Q: What maps do you have now (Europe + ???) and where do you normally keep it(them)?

---------------------------------------
Stumbled across the reason for the problem... Widows-7 UAC.
If I started TTHome by 'Run as administrator' everything worked fine.
So the TTHome program security permissions must have gone weird.

Reinstalling TTHome, as you suggested, tidied thing up,
I now have full integration of TTHome and the 720 SD card.

Thanks for all your help and advice
Ghillie

 

[beastro]

Hi,

I have the Europe map (8.50)and nothing else so far. I keep the southern part on internal memory. According to TomTom, I would have to move that map to the SD card and then download the full map to the SD card. Right now I only need southern part of Europe, so maybe it is not worth the effort.

Great device BTW (GO 730). Only battery live is not as good as I expected. I only get about 1.5 hours with hands free, FM + MP3 + remote control.

Regards

Berthold