TomTom Announces new 930, 730 and 530 at CeBit

[georges99]

Two things come to my mind:
1- Have you tried to use the calibrate the GPS. On the main screen, tap on the GPS strength which will lead you to the calibration window and choose the ?configure? option and choose the degree, minutes and seconds. I have been told it increases the GPS precision...
2- Have you updated the ephemeris folder in Tomtom Home? A short time ago Tomtom screwed up their ephemeris data that could lead to further problems.

When you mention the quarter mile difference, is this in the city or on some country road? Some light populated roads have a wide range of addresses that could lead to substantial errors. Have you tried comparing your ?city, street, address? Tomtom results to Google maps results?

I am puzzled about the map quality. According to the latest map version update information, there are no map information updates for Quebec and Ontario. But, someone here found a missing street appearing in the new version located in Quebec city... Was it a matter of too little new data that did not warrant mentioning anything about the province of Quebec? I've noticed some weird road name ?translations? such as ?Mont?e Saint-Fran?ois? becoming ?Mont?e St-Fran?ois???? I suspect a problem of code page but this should have been uncovered a long time ago!

I have a feeling Tele-Atlas is a recent newcomer to Quebec (probably most of Canada also) and has yet to do its work right when compared to NavTeq that has been at it for a longer time. I guess US major cities to be much better covered by Tele-Atlas as I learned their Boston maps to be better than NavTeq. I expect the maps will get better with time but how much time until something at least equivalent to NavTeq for the areas that directly affect us is something I wonder. With map updates every three months we should have an idea fairly soon I hope...

I had to go to the SPCA, Monday evening, as my Beauceron shepherd dog died unexpectedly in the afternoon, probably when I wrote the message you quote, and the directions were right. I only wonder at some pronounciations such as what sounded like ?Saint-Laurin? for ?Saint-Laurent? using Juliette.

Hi again Gilbert,



1- I once or twice did the calibration, but to be honest with you, am not really sure what to look for when doing it...? I was told by TomTom to let it work for a while, and look for basically Even bars of the same strength.


2- "The ephemeris folder ", that is something I do not know anything about. I installed on the base my GPS for it's weekly fine tuning, but that is all. Could you elaborate on this matter please ?


3- As far as for the address precision, it doesn't matter where we are, City, Country, etc, it always bring me of by 1/4 mile or more. And this is the same for POI, but sometimes POI are not as far away as 1/4 mile, but 500/600 feet for sure.


The way I see it, if they don't really care about Canada, they should pull back from this market, and come back when they will be serious about providing good in formations on there devices.


I had a TomTom GO 910 before and it was really accurate, I also still have a Pioneer Avic-S1 and this little no bells and whistles is super accurate, it brings me to the door steps. Why in the world can Tomtom make it accurate ?



George

 

[Gilbert]

Hi again Gilbert,



1- I once or twice did the calibration, but to be honest with you, am not really sure what to look for when doing it...? I was told by TomTom to let it work for a while, and look for basically Even bars of the same strength.

I would try to do it again choosing the degrees, minutes and seconds option. Some have reported a better precision. I have yet to calculate if there actually is a diference with the number of decimals or a logical explanation to it...

2- "The ephemeris folder ", that is something I do not know anything about. I installed on the base my GPS for it's weekly fine tuning, but that is all. Could you elaborate on this matter please ?

The ephemeris is the ?Quickfix?. It helps your gps acquire the position of geosatellites. Have you tried comparing the position given by your 920 to your 910 or Pioneer? When you tap your screen, it gives the coordinates of that location. If you are at a low altitude, it should give you a fairly precise location with a tolerance of about 10 meters. Another way would be to use Google maps with the satellite view and point to a known place and cehcking the coordinats. I did it for my own home. The address (street name and number) will likely be wrong because they are approximations but, with the satellite view, I could see my car in the driveway and get the exact coordinates (LAT & LONG) and checked it with my Tomtom gps coordinates and they matched.

3- As far as for the address precision, it doesn't matter where we are, City, Country, etc, it always bring me of by 1/4 mile or more. And this is the same for POI, but sometimes POI are not as far away as 1/4 mile, but 500/600 feet for sure.

Which map version is on your 920?

The way I see it, if they don't really care about Canada, they should pull back from this market, and come back when they will be serious about providing good in formations on there devices.


I had a TomTom GO 910 before and it was really accurate, I also still have a Pioneer Avic-S1 and this little no bells and whistles is super accurate, it brings me to the door steps. Why in the world can Tomtom make it accurate ?


George

The hardware in our Tomtom is pretty much integrated in a Samsung chipset and there should not be much of a difference between your 920 and another one because of the hardware being identical, the varying parts are the maps, POIs and the quick fix information.

 

[andyjstewart]

920 Accuracy

Georges99,
I live a bit north of Montreal, and the 920 is quite accurate, within a few metres, even on the back roads.

 

[bobaloolie]

The dealer is telling me "To be blunt, the Tele Atlas mapping details for Canada are not detailed enough".

I have the TomTom 920, and recently bought a Garmin 760 to compare. I punched my little Canadian prairie town into the unit, and the Garmin didn't have it in its database! The TomTom did, with streets (but no data for the streets yet).

Needless to say, I have kept the TomTom.

 

[Nextourer]

Interesting... usually Navteq (Garmin) have the advantage.

HOWEVER, I did some map feedback reporting yesterday and took a look at TeleAtlas' map (cause you gotta locate the problem). I decided to check up on my previously reported stuff and guess what? They're updated!!!

 

[Smokiewolf]

Interesting... usually Navteq (Garmin) have the advantage.

HOWEVER, I did some map feedback reporting yesterday and took a look at TeleAtlas' map (cause you gotta locate the problem). I decided to check up on my previously reported stuff and guess what? They're updated!!!

Hmmm, I'll have to check on the stuff that I sent them!

 

[Westham]

New Update

Seems like a really great asset, it will save the last second lane change mix ups.

 

[timb320]

If the hardware for the 920 and the 930 are the same and assuming Tomtom will not release firmware updates to 920 with the new features i.e. IQ and lane guidence whic I really want. I supposed someone could just backup a 930 Firmware and restore it to a 920 and get these features right?

When I purchased the 920 I was thinking about the Navgon 7100 for these features but decided on the familier Tomtom + other reasons i.e. Navgon reportedly buggy and touch screen was terrible and performance was not good.

I prefer Tomtom overall. I hope we 920/720 folks can benefit from these new features without buying/re-investing on a new device.

 

[CPAScott]

I don't see why these new features would not be available for current x20 models.

The new x30 have the exact same hardware.

I can't say for certain about whether IQ routes will be available to current TomTom owners, but TomTom did offer the update free of charge to current TomTom owners who participated in the IQ routes product trial in January and February. Supposedly, we're supposed to get the update sometime in April. I hope I do, as my not-quite-one-year-old GO 720 already seems far out of date, but the resale value doesn't make running out to purchase a 930 worth it. If I can get the IQ routes for the 720, I'll be pretty happy for a while.

 

[Oldmoose]

Found Tiger taking pre-orders.....

http://www.tigergps.com/tomtomgo930.html

Xmas may be a good time to buy...or after xmas

 

[Stingray]

Best Buy has the 930's in stock, I was playing with one yesterday there. It has Navcore 8 on it.

I alos saw the new version of the One.

 

[Nextourer]

Best Buy has the 930's in stock, I was playing with one yesterday there. It has Navcore 8 on it.

I alos saw the new version of the One.

How was Navcore 8?

what new version? There's a new one after the 3rd edition?

 

[Stingray]

How was Navcore 8?

what new version? There's a new one after the 3rd edition?

Navcore 8 looked the same as 7 to me, except the colors of the icons seemed a little different. I didn't get a chance to go deep into the menus and look for new stuff, plus I have a One 3rd, so I only have Navocre 7 Lite to compare it to.

The new One is version 4, although is said something new on the box, I forgot what it said. They didn't have one on display, just in the box locked in a glass cabinet.

 

[Smokiewolf]

I heard somewhere that the version fours are basically made up from leftover parts of ones and twos...I wouldn't be suprised if this is the last we see of the ONE

 

[pappasbike]

I couldn't resist and went ahead and purchased a 930 at BB on Friday. They didn't have the "T" version but I have the traffic antenna/receiver from my 920 which I was told by TT support will work just the same. I've been at work this weekend so I haven't had it out on the road yet, but I've been playing around with it a little. One thing is nice after TT Home downloaded some file "Operate My Go" works again on my mac. There are glitches with it but many of the functions do work. There is a new version of "Susan" on the device - v.700. I noticed that right away when it pronounced route differently from my 920 Susan.

I'm off on Monday so will be trying out for real.
John

 

[Michael Quinlan]

I stopped at a local Best Buy yesterday to take a look at the 930 and see how lane guidance would work through a nearby interchange with several closely-spaced splits in the roadway. Although it appeared to display accurate information based on my knowledge of the area, it occurred to me that in such a situation the lane guidance could easily become a distraction with having to frequently check the screen for guidance. As it is now with my 920, I can usually rely on the audible instructions - which I could also do with the 930, but in doing so would not benefit from lane guidance.

I think an improvement would be to develop an audible equivalent to lane guidance, such as "keep right, lane 4 or 5", "exit left, lane 1 or 2" or, "exit right, right-most lane". (lane 1 being closest to the opposing traffic). This may not make much of a difference with a single split or exit, but with several closely-spaced maneuvers I think it would be an even bigger improvement than lane guidance is already.

I also got the impression that I would end up turning off (if possible) the static images used for lane guidance. A critical part of successfully navigating through several closely-spaced maneuvers is knowing where you are in the sequence of things, and I think that gets lost when displaying the static image.

Keep in mind that these are all just observations made while "playing" with a 930 at a local store for 20 minutes or so. I have no real-world experience with the 930.

Also, I think that others are right... the anonymous data you allow (or disallow) TomTom to collect in TomTom Home is the data being used for IQ routes. Assuming this to be true, then the more you use your TomTom (or even just have it on while driving - even if it's not guiding you), the more accurate the data will become. Although the necessary data appears to be included in the maps, I think this type of data would be more appropriately handled via a regular update mechanism like Map Share.

 

[pappasbike]

So far on my 930 being distracted by the Lane Assist isn't an issue. I'm in Baltimore and I've yet to see it come on. Now bear in mind that I've had this just under a week. I was starting to think mine was defective until I took the suggestion to run a demo route and I picked the 95/495 Capital Beltway near Washington. Then it popped up. In my opinion the static image will just get your attention that you need to be in a specific lane, the arrows at the bottom left will let you know which one and the distance count down continues there as well the voice direction.

I'm hoping as time goes on that more areas, intersections/interchanges will be included. This specific feature is what really drew me to the Navigon units but I held off on those after reading about some specific issues that I know would have frustrated me. Then I got a TT 720 as a gift and got hooked on using it but still was drawn to the Lane Assist feature so when the 30s were announced I just had to get one. I'm not sure they could make it respond quickly enough to have it speak the lane you need to be in but seeing the arrow display will get the information to you faster.
John

 

[Buddharay]

So far on my 930 being distracted by the Lane Assist isn't an issue. I'm in Baltimore and I've yet to see it come on. Now bear in mind that I've had this just under a week. I was starting to think mine was defective until I took the suggestion to run a demo route and I picked the 95/495 Capital Beltway near Washington. Then it popped up.

baltimore county or baltimore city? because i can imagine it'd be useful in baltimore city, seeing as how many lanes are right or left turn only. i'm really excited to use the 930... i think the IQ routes and the lane assist could be really helpful.

 

[pappasbike]

baltimore county or baltimore city? because i can imagine it'd be useful in baltimore city, seeing as how many lanes are right or left turn only. i'm really excited to use the 930... i think the IQ routes and the lane assist could be really helpful.

I've driven through Baltimore city, the beltway, up 83, down 95. So far I've never seen it activated. I would love to see it in the city and maybe in future updates this will occur. I'm guessing that this is an evolving feature that will gradually become more evident.
John

 

[Telefonz]

The lane separation feature looks really cool and I think really helpful. I really want to see this in action.

I just got a Go730 yesterday and the lane separation feature does not show up on my trip from Greer SC to Columbia SC. Seems like I read elsewhere that it does not work in smaller areas.

Also the speed limit feature works on the interstate, but NOT on local roads in my area.

Also, so far the bluetooth sucks as far as operation. Of course it sucked on a Garmin 680 I tried. Other party tells me it is noisy. Also I have not figured how to route the phone audio thru the radio using FM for the phone audio. The FM works on directions and music fairly well. TT folks says this option is not possible..go figure! Why?

I want to view the altitude, but TT folks say you cant, Garmin does on GPS screen, so it should just be a simple software change. Why dont they think of these things?

I dont understand why these manufacturers dont have people familiar with GPS real world operations in on the planning given it only take an hour or so to see obvious things that need correcting! I am sure they will sayd they do, but I dont see it in the finished product.

Also, my new unit does not have the latest map. To get it online, you have to pay for it. I called and they told me there "might be" an update card in the box. Did not see it there. Called store and had them check another new one and they did not see it either. TT said to fax them the receipt and would be 24 hours and call them again about it. That is bull, why not just tell SN and have them OK a download. That would be too simple would it not?

I would like to see an open source GPS until that you could customize on your computer screen to have it display the screen to what the user wants within reason. My old Garmin 2730 was fairly programmable in this aspect.