Underwhelmed

[OregonForester]

I've been (for the most part) a happy owner of a TomTom 720 for nearly a month now.

I have, however, had some problems.
The first 720 I bought, worked fine....it directed me to my home, without problems (it even corrected itself when I chose a different route than it did!)
When I arrived home, the first thing that I did was connect it to my computer, and download the upgrades.....wrong...it no longer worked!
I logged onto the TomTom site, and asked for help....2 days they said....2 days later, and nothing, I returned the 720 to CircuitCity for an exchange.
The second one, again, found my home.
This time however, before downloading the upgrade, I did a Home2 backup!
Well, hell, right after the upgrade...it quit working too!
I did the restore, only to discover that the TomTom backup was of little value.
In searching this site, I discovered that one should do a "real" backup, not depend on Home's backup. I also found that there was one file that could be(it WAS) corrupted when downloading the upgrade, so I deleted the file, and all worked fine (thanks to the great support found here, not at TomTom!)

Now....time to download my "free map upgrade".....well shoot! I've tried doing that literally dozens of times....to no avail.....it starts off fine, and then tells me that I have 200 hours left.......
I'm running out of time! I only have 30 days to get the free maps!

Finally, I get through on a call to TomTom......Troy does not know what a satelite connection is.......20 minutes later, I finally am able to explain Hughes.net to him, and he tells me that I need to go to another computer, because they do not support Hughes.net! (WTF??)
Troy did, however, extend my free map upgrade to anytime within the next year......now....if I can only find someone with a "real" internet connection......

Other than that......I like my 720.

 

[ruwafl]

hey OregonForester! i too use hughes net and what a pain isn't it. but alas, their is a solution to your problem. it's a pain also, but if you can manage to stay up untill 2 or 3 in the morning, you have a fap free zone from 3:00 am until 6:00 am. a three hour window that does not count against you. i too wanted to upgrade my map but was faced with the same problem as you are facing. i called tech support at hughes too see if their was anything i could do to get this download done and hughes was no help. the largest plan is 450 meg's unless you have a commercial account and then it still isn't large enough. the techie did suggest the fap free zone and that worked for me. i started my download about 2:30 in the morning and went to bed. when i got up later, the download was done and installed on my tomtom. good luck with it.

ps. you are probably going to be downloading the 2 gig map. maybe start around 2:00 to give you a little head start on that monster download.

 

[Guestwho]

Welcome to my world, hughesnet sucks indeed. I tried to download it between the 3 hour unlimited gap only to find out that It only got half way through. Only two options would be to goto a friends house with a decent isp and get it there or mail it to a family member to update it for you.

Dunno if retail stores such as Circuit city or Best Buy would update a gps with the map but even if they did it defeats the purpose of a "free" map upgrade.

As for hughesnet usage... (Im on the home plan)

12/18/2007 3:00 04:00 56 297.68 ** 0.56
12/18/2007 4:00 05:00 60 369.24 ** 0.63
12/18/2007 5:00 06:00 60 369.24 ** 0.62
12/18/2007 6:00 07:00 35 108.34 No 0.19
___
Total left to download: 555mb
Not even close, Tomtom needs break up the update so it downloads in sections that way I can stop dl after 6am and restart again at night and resume where I left off.

 

[ruwafl]

yep, i managed to get the usa_canada map downloaded starting at about 2:30 that night i downloaded it. i had about the same numbers as you on the download as best as i can remember. the 2 gig map is gonna be a monster to download and doing it from a friends house may be the only option. in best buy i see that garmin puts their maps on a disc for their users to purchase and install on their units. tomtom, are you listening?

i wonder if a download manager would work on tomtom's site for downloading that file. that way you could break the download up over 2 or 3 nights.

 

[Boyd]

LOL - former HughesNet user... I feel your pain! I couldn't get any other kind of broadband when I moved out to the country, but as soon as DSL became available I took the hit and paid off the balance of the Hughes contract to get Verizon.

There were lots of things that didn't work properly with the satellite connection, so I don't really think it's fair to blame that on TomTom. Hope you find a solution to your problem.