My initial impressions

[Bitgod]

Picked up a 720 yesterday using a 12% off coupon at BB, haven't used it yet, I'm still in the setup stage. I have to say the initial setup is a little confusing, they don't give you much info. It's odd that the version of Home on my CD is actually newer than the version they have online, duh. Though once the 1.6 installed, it asked if I wanted to upgrade to the 2.0. I didn't use the 1.6, so I don't know what I'm missing, I kinda liked the look at it, but since this is all new to me, I'll just stick with 2.0

They needed to be clear that you should turn the unit on before plugging it into the computer, plugging it in, it just sat there and it couldn't find drivers. Luckily the 1.6 Home told me at the top to unplug the unit, so I did, ran through the setup, then plugged it in. I hope 2.0 has that kind of info. After I got it home I got a case of the "oh craps", because I'm using Vista 64 and don't have device drivers for my iPhone or Sony eReader, and didn't think about that when getting the 720. I'm happy to say it works fine in Vista 64-bit. Too bad Apple and Sony are such small companies that they can't spare the resources to make drivers...

The 2 really dumb things I've run into at this point is A)I'm used to manuals that have the "Before you start..." section at the beginning of the manual. In this case, that information is on page 36 of the manual. Tom Tom apparently expects you to pull out the unit, turn it on, and start using it in your car immediately. And B) the reason I was looking for the info is that the guide and the manual mention charging the unit for 2 hours when you first plug it in. Ok, that makes perfect sense. But...Is there a way to know when the unit is fully charged??? There's no battery indicator on the screen. The green LED light on the front turns on when it's plugged in, and I'm going to assume it's always that way, instead of the traditional charging scheme of either amber when charging, green when charged, or blinking when charging. And there's no info on this in the manual. WTH? So I guess I'll wait 2 hours and hope it's fully charged. Is this really what you have to do?

 

[ptco911]

Thanks for the review. I purchased a 720 last week but haven't opened it yet. I'm still contemplating its return. Keep us posted on your impressions and the pros and cons. I still have some time to return mine if necessary.

 

[JimT]

Picked up a 720 yesterday using a 12% off coupon at BB, haven't used it yet, I'm still in the setup stage. I have to say the initial setup is a little confusing, they don't give you much info. It's odd that the version of Home on my CD is actually newer than the version they have online, duh. Though once the 1.6 installed, it asked if I wanted to upgrade to the 2.0. I didn't use the 1.6, so I don't know what I'm missing, I kinda liked the look at it, but since this is all new to me, I'll just stick with 2.0

They needed to be clear that you should turn the unit on before plugging it into the computer, plugging it in, it just sat there and it couldn't find drivers. Luckily the 1.6 Home told me at the top to unplug the unit, so I did, ran through the setup, then plugged it in. I hope 2.0 has that kind of info. After I got it home I got a case of the "oh craps", because I'm using Vista 64 and don't have device drivers for my iPhone or Sony eReader, and didn't think about that when getting the 720. I'm happy to say it works fine in Vista 64-bit. Too bad Apple and Sony are such small companies that they can't spare the resources to make drivers...

The 2 really dumb things I've run into at this point is A)I'm used to manuals that have the "Before you start..." section at the beginning of the manual. In this case, that information is on page 36 of the manual. Tom Tom apparently expects you to pull out the unit, turn it on, and start using it in your car immediately. And B) the reason I was looking for the info is that the guide and the manual mention charging the unit for 2 hours when you first plug it in. Ok, that makes perfect sense. But...Is there a way to know when the unit is fully charged??? There's no battery indicator on the screen. The green LED light on the front turns on when it's plugged in, and I'm going to assume it's always that way, instead of the traditional charging scheme of either amber when charging, green when charged, or blinking when charging. And there's no info on this in the manual. WTH? So I guess I'll wait 2 hours and hope it's fully charged. Is this really what you have to do?

Welcome aboard!!! I have a 510 so I am not sure what your 720 looks like when first turned on. On my 510 , after your present map comes up, you can touch the screen in the lower right hand corner and it will show the state of battery charge as well as the system version. I believe that that they should be similar at least in some way.

 

[tundra914]

I ran into the same issue with my 720. The best thing to do is turn on the unit first and set it up before plugging it into the computer. The tomtom may have its quirks, but it still blows away my garmin nuvi any day. The 1.6 interface is close to a standard desktop interface. the 2.0 is more like the interface on your 720. I went back to the 1.6 coz the 2.0 keeps screwing up whenever I try to control my tomtom from the desktop.

 

[Bitgod]

Well I've had a chance to use it a few times this weekend, it's pretty nifty. I think I'll end up getting a Pro Clip mount for it, I don't really care for suction cups on the windshield. This isn't my first GPS, but my other ones have been handheld Garmin units, this is my first "car" unit that talks to you. I found the screen easy to read, most of my testing was at night using the red "night" color scheme. I'm using the US female computer voice because I want all the streets spoken, and I just kind of like it the best. I tried some of the other voices, including the female UK ones (what can I say, I have a thing for Brits), but between the lack of streets and those other voices using yards instead of feet, I didn't like them. I tried making a few destinations, the unit would make valid choices, but not particularly the choices I would normally choose. But I found that it can adapt to changes pretty well. I started off my first trip going the opposite direction on my cross-street than it had planned for, and it quickly came up with a new route to match my direction, and as it so happened, it was the route I would have normally chosen anyway. So that'll take some learning, I guess if you're in a area you know nothing about, you're going to have to trust it's choices. They may be logical choices, but not always the best, such as if I wanted to go from Sacramento to San Jose, I'd usually go south on I5 to Tracy, then head west. The unit chooses to go west on I80 and then going south on 680. That's valid and apparetly 20 miles shorter, but I think you hit less traffic going down I5, plus I5 has a higher legal speed limit than the 80-680 route. So, it'll get you there, it just may not be as fast as it thinks since it doesn't know things like traffic that a human that knows the area would know.

Anywho, no gripes for basic useage so far. My 2 biggest knocks so far are 1)can't sync the BT to my iPhone. I'm not going to hold that against it though, because I've tried 2 other hands free units, and neither one of those will work with my iPhone properly. I'll have to test the unit out with my old phone to make sure I'm not having any BT phone issues like others have reported, if so I'll exchange it while I have time. 2)The thing I'd like to see TT add at this time, they give you a bunch of POI catagories, but left out one important one, grocery stores! If I'm in a new city, I might like to know where I can pick up groceries at. As it is, if I want to search on store names, I can do that, but that's not going to tell you what the closest store is, or if you're in a region that you're not normally in, you may not know the store names.

I found the map already on the unit, 705, to be fairly new. It had a sandwich shop near my house that's been open for no more than 6 months. Anyone know if 705 is the current map or not? I'm wondering if it might be better to not register the unit and use the free map code for say 6 months. I guess if I knew there was a newer map, and I end up moving out of town in the next month or so, then I'd update then, since I'd want to be as up-to-date as possible for an area I don't know.

 

[Bitgod]

Update, I got my iPhone working with the 720 ok, it just required the latest software for the iPhone, once I updated to 1.0.2, it was able to pair and work witht he 720 ok. Can't use it for data of course, maybe that'll be hacked someday. I did pair the 720 to my previous phone, a Cingular 8125, and that worked fine and the 720 said it could be used for data, though I didn't play with trying to get the 8125 set up to do that. That might be for another day.

 

[ptco911]

Update, I got my iPhone working with the 720 ok, it just required the latest software for the iPhone, once I updated to 1.0.2, it was able to pair and work witht he 720 ok. Can't use it for data of course, maybe that'll be hacked someday. I did pair the 720 to my previous phone, a Cingular 8125, and that worked fine and the 720 said it could be used for data, though I didn't play with trying to get the 8125 set up to do that. That might be for another day.

Glad to hear you got it working for you. I have had mine for about three operational days (1 returned unit) and have no real complaints to this point. I don't think any device is 100%.

By the way are you getting a rebate for your iPhone?

 

[Bitgod]

Heh, yeah, dunno what I'll spend it on. Tech prices always change, so people shouldn't B&M so much, it always happens whenever Apple comes out with some new product. The only thing that made this worse than normal was that it happened 2 months later, even that kinda irritated me. Had the price drop been after X-mas, then that's just life. On the plus side, now that the price is cheaper, I might get one for my mom, heh.