The TomTom XL 325 is my first car-based GPS system and my second overall GPS system. I have owned a Garmin eTrex hiking unit for about nine years now. I don’t have the knowledge to compare this to other car-based systems, but I’ll mention what I like and dislike about it for that. I’ll then focus on what I think of it for hiking use (which is a big reason that I got it). If you hadn’t considered using this for hiking, you just might want to!

1. CAR NAVIGATION

As this is my first system for this application, I think that the TomTom is really cool! I’d probably think that about any of them are, though, so here are some specifics based on my experiences with it.

What I Like:

– Locks on to satellites within about ten seconds

– Recalculates routes in about two to five seconds if a turn is passed

– Multiple voices from which to choose, and the default (that I’m using) is easily understood and has variable volume settings

– Screen is easily viewable in the car when not subjected to direct sunlight

– The preloaded points of interest (such as restaurants and hotels) are quite nice

– Can overlay your own images to make it easier to find new places (more information below under “HIKING”)

What I’d Change:

– When testing it during my drive to/from work, the calculated routes weren’t that efficient (but they would get me there)

– I tried to select a navigation using an intersection, and if I picked the highway as the first entry, the unit locked up for about ten seconds and then rebooted (it did it twice, so it wasn’t an isolated glitch). I don’t know what caused it, but it seemed to run into an algorithm issue and just shut down.

2. HIKING

Here’s where I really like this unit. The Garmin eTrex that I have has some great features (small, rugged, fairly easy menus), but it lacks an ability that I really wanted – overlaying of aerial or satellite maps on the display. I was eyeing the Garmin Oregon 550 3-Inch Handheld GPS Navigator with 3.2MP Digital Camera, but at over $400, I couldn’t justify it. The TomTom isn’t a dedicated hiking unit so it lacks some of the features, but it can overlay images, has a larger screen (but equivalent resolution), and costs quite a bit less. It’s not weather proof, so the TomTom is more of a fair-weather type of hiking unit. Here are some details given my experience.

What I Like:

– Can overlay images, allowing you to see the terrain around you from a bird’s eye view as you hike (I use satellite images from Google Earth). I can’t emphasize enough just how excited I was to get this working (and it’s very easy to do). This is an _extremely_ important and useful feature to me. Sometimes my dog and I have been at a local state park and gotten a bit turned around, and life would have been much (much) easier if I could have seen where the closest trail was to us. I normally know exactly where we are, but there are limited occasions when I’ve been unsure, and an overhead view would have let me know an easy way to go (as opposed to the difficult ways that we actually took).

– Can specify at which zoom levels the overlayed images are visible. So, you can have a less detailed image used when zoomed out, and more detailed images used when zoomed in. The images can also be overlapped.

– Unit size is nice and portable

– Screen size is excellent

– Menus and screen scrolling is easy for me to do, even when walking a trail and holding a dog leash

– Locks on to satellites within about ten seconds, which is much faster than the eTrex that takes a couple of minutes

– About two hours of rechargeable battery life. Because it locks onto the satellites so quickly, I only turn it on when I want to get a look at where we are.

What I’d Change:

– The screen has poor visibility out in the sunlight, even when not in direct sunlight. Shading the unit does help and makes it usable, but it requires some extra work and focus to see image details when it’s even mildly sunny out. This is the only real complaint that I have about it.

– Not weather resistant. I doubt that a little mist would hurt it, but I won’t be testing it out on purpose.

– The scroll bar used to zoom in/out on the overhead map view is a bit difficult to move one notch at a time

In summary, I think that it’s a decent car navigation system and also a decent hiking unit. If you haven’t considered adding your own images, you might want to. You can use it for hiking or just to make it easier to find your way around a neighborhood or downtown area. It’s easy to do (search the web, or write me a comment and I’ll provide info), and I think that it’s a very useful feature.
Rating: 4 / 5

GPS Systems have been around for a while now, but in the past I’ve never really been a fan. Most of the systems that I saw were either somewhat awkward (harsh sounding voices, ugly coloring, annoying chime sounds) or fiendishly expensive (observed in someone’s Lexus I happened to be riding in back when I lived in Orange Country California. My father got himself a relatively higher-end independent GPS (Magellan purchased in 2007) and has used it for some time, but I’ve never taken him up on his offer of borrowing it for my use. Since receiving this device, I have decided that this is the time when I make the switch to using a GPS from now on.

First of all, this device is on the inexpensive side (around $130.00) so it’s naturally going to lack some features in my dad’s Magellan that he paid closer to $400.00 for, but on the other hand enormous strides have been made in ease of use in the past two years. At least that’s the way it appears.

For my test purposes I activated both his Magellan and my TomTom and compared them side-by-side while he drove. The Magellan picked up a satellite signal immediately, while it took about one minute for the TomTom to pick up a signal. This was less of a problem than you would think as te device still gave directions from it’s previous map the last time it was turned on. In general, both devices gave identical directions, but my father’s device said the street name, while my device simply said “Turn right.” As twilight descended, both devices switched to night colors at exactly the same moment. The Magellan made a chime sound every time you took a turn. The TomTom did not. One thing I particularly liked is the more plain-English directions of the TomTom. For instance when the Magellan said turn left and then the street name, the TomTom said “At the end of the road, turn left.” Personally I found this a little easier to understand and make use of after dark.

My father’s GPS has a nasty green color scheme that I personally cannot stand, and it talks in a snobby sharp female voice that I find unnatural. My TomTom on the other hand has EIGHT color schemes and EIGHT voices to select from, all of them more soothing than the voice on his Magellan. I selected the U.S. coloring for daytime and Africa for nighttime, and absolutely love both (the daytime looks like a modern map you might by from Rand McNally and the nighttime looks like the computer read-out from Ghost in the Shell). The TomTom also seems slightly more 3D to me, but your preference may vary. The female Irish voice I selected is incredibly soothing and never grating. I look forward to downloading more voices to try out (celebs anyone?).

The directions of both of the GPSs are accurate as I mentioned, but the Magellan has some features the TomTom does not. The Magellan allows you to choose a route based on shortest time, or most use of freeways. The Magellan, on the other hand does not allow you to choose multiple routing options (other than alternate route) for your primary trip, but does allow you to set a time you would like to arrive at the destination (and if the device sees that you repeatedly say no to the option it helpfully offers to stop dispalying the message asking and make your default no). One feature that my father liked in the TomTom was the option to navigate to a new destination by way of a previous one (which he either can’t, or can’t figure out how to do on his GPS). On the other hand, he liked how his good old Magellan would say street and freeway names.

When it comes to selecting a point of interest the two devices may be about equal, but I prefer the TomTom. I had a terrible time trying to find a resteraunt in our area on the Magellan because unlike the TomTom, it didn’t suggest the correct city name for me when it mis-spelled it. It took about 5 or six steps to find a restaurant in the TomTom vs. 10 in the Magellan (in both I could not find it from close resteraunts and had to search by city). Also the Magellan listed GPS tables and other more technical information, but I saw no practical use for it. The TomTom had more features that actually seemed useful, such as changing the display of compass direction, safety features, horizontal or vertical display of information, ect. Of course if you can afford subscriptions to services such as traffic checking, ect. it can do even more, but most people will probably just use the out-of-box features.

All things considered, I would not have purchased the device my father did, but I find the TomTom well worth the money. While it doesn’t give names of streets and freeways in spoken direction, I find this made up for by a friendlier interface that makes the right assumptions and is easy on the eyes and ears. Some people will probably also appreciate how it has a dial you turn to make its suction cup release from a windshield (so you can transfer it from car to car). The deal-breaker for some will be the lack of speaking location names in my opinion. Otherwise it’s a stellar unit that is very well designed (it even has a cute little picture of you putting it away and an X over a picture of someone making off with the device like Santa Claus when you turn it off. I’m liking this device more all the time. Now to connect to the device website and download Dennis Hopper’s voice direction..

Rating: 5 / 5

*The good:

Finds satellites VERY FAST. We live in a stucco house (wire covered and thus hard for signals to get through) and the Garmin and Microsoft GPS (for laptop) have to be propped in a window to lock in and often take five minutes. This TomTom locks in within 10 seconds inside the house.

You can download straight from Google Maps to this device. That is really useful.

You can download map corrections that others have made for free.

You get a free map upgrade if a new one is released within 30 days. It does take a while to download, with DSL it took mine an hour and a half.

You can pick the voice from a half a dozen for free and download many more online. Some are free, others require payment.

Mount is really clever, base suction cups to window but the unit can be easily twisted off and removed.

Comes with both car charger and USB charger.

Lots of preloaded places of interest. I was quite surprised by how well the TomTom indentified restaurants, gas stations, libraries etc out in the rural area where I live.

You can choose to allow the device to notify you when you exceed the speed limit, when near schools and for other safety issues. My children like changing the noises that the TomTom makes and notifying me that it says I am speeding.

The menu is not that complex. My thirteen year old can operate it without instruction.

*The bad:

Does not say the street names when giving directions. This is the biggest negative. It does show the name on the device, but the street name is not spoken.

We live on a gravel road. Every time we set up to leave it asks us if we really want to take an unpaved road. I spent half an hour online looking for how to change the default to allow unpaved roads and could not find how to change it on this model. So we have to “allow” it every time.

Battery life listed as 3 hours. Not a problem if driving (just plug in the device) but would be too short for long hikes.

*The ugly:

If you want traffic info you need to buy an antenna which is fairly expensive. And the traffic info is not available in all cities all the time (you can check the TomTom site to see where it is available. Where I live it is available during “rush hour”. I do not really care about this myself, as where I live there is not enough traffic to be worth monitoring . However, if you live in a major city this may be an issue (go to the TomTom website to find out the info for your city).

Summary

I would give it 4.5 stars if Amazon allowed, half a star off for not saying the street names when giving directions. But the fact that it locks onto and keeps the satellite connection is a huge plus and makes me round it up to 5.
Rating: 5 / 5

I was excited to get the Tom Tom XL 325. I’ve used a GPS before, my mom has a similar model Garmin, and I’ve driven to New York from Birmingham, Alabama with that one. So I felt I had some experience with a GPS. I was with my mother when she got her Garmin, and we were able to pretty much use it straight out of the box.

The Tom Tom has not been quite as easy as the Garmin. I’ve only used it around our area of Birmingham, North Shelby County. Right off, our church/school (Catholic) was not listed. It’s been there, in the same location, for well over 25 years now. However, the Baptist church that just moved in across the street was coming up at the same address! That was weird–I suppose someone from that church updated the maps online perhaps? But this was straight out of the box. While driving to the school, I noticed the library was listed in the completely wrong spot. Later, I discovered they also had the old library location still on there, from where it was located over 10 years ago. Very strange.

I found trying to enter in an address to be very frustrating. It kept asking for the city, which I had already thought was entered. Every time I used the back button (which I would think would take you back to the previous page) it would go back to the map, causing you to try and start the whole process over again. Very non-intuitive navigation of the system, and frustrating.

While heading across town to go to a meeting at yet another public library (that was listed as a point of interest, unlike our school), it told us to turn around and we weren’t even out of the driveway yet. I purposely took a different route then the Tom Tom was suggesting, because I knew the traffic would be bad by a large shopping mall on that route. It took the Tom Tom several miles to get over that fact and stop telling me to turn right at every single street and neighborhood I passed, to turn around. It did have the correct directions from there however.

The other thing the Garmin does which the Tom Tom does not is call out the street names you need to be turning on to. It just tells you to turn left or right in so many yards/feet, which could be a problem. And everytime you turn on to a highway, it tells you to stay in the right lane: “Make a right and stay to the right”–I found that advice bizarre, especially when I know I am going to have to get over to the left to make a left hand turn.

This morning, I had decided to use it to pick up my daughter from the local Catholic high school–again, although the school has existed in Birmingham for years, and at this location for probably over 15 years, it was not listed as a point of interest, and it did not come up when I manually (and with the usual difficulty) entered the address. I plugged the thing into the computer to “update” the maps. Still, nothing. I am not paying for additional maps, and my mom’s Garmin seemed to have a lot more info. right out of the box–and she doesn’t even have a computer to hook up to. It did provide the correct directions, however, and corrected the route quickly when I went a different way, again, due to the heavy shopping area I wanted to avoid.

The Tom Tom seemed to lose the satellite signal quite often, and for know apparent reason.

This is not a bad device, it just isn’t as good, in my humble opinion, as a similarly priced Garmin GPS. I’ll continue to use it, and perhaps we’ll get used to it. It had some great features–I liked the many points of interest and the way they’re categorized, and I love the help option, which gives the nearest places to get help and distances if you have to walk. Great if you are in an area you’re unfamiliar with.

Having a GPS is a luxury that we now take advantage of every day, just like cell phones. It’s a good thing to have. The moderate price and possibility of useful downloads for traffic and such (most at a cost to the consumer, but handy if traveling and planning trips) are definitely worth the cost to some folks I’m sure. The Tom Tom XL 325 is neat little gadget.
Rating: 3 / 5

As with any electronic equipment, much depends upon your personal preferences. In my family we have 2 other GPS’s, so I was able to compare this TomTom to the Garmin nüvi 350 and the Magellan Roadmate 1340. First concern is price, the nuvi is $250 more than the TomTom, and the TomTom $20 more than the Magellan.

The TomTom was the best of the 3 to set up; but then I found trying to set up how to find an address confusing, having to change 2 or 3 screens to get to the screen I wanted. I even had to download and print out the 61 page direction manual from the web site because the directions included were very vague, and even after using 2 other GPS’s it was frustrating to not be able to figure this out and still after a few days of travel and use – to keep going back and forth to find the screen I wanted. I really had to struggle to get a shop address and find the directions to it. I have to assume it just needs much more practice than the others. I also found it harder to add these addresses to favorites, again it just seems to need more practice than the others

The magnification is hard to use, many buttons are small and the slide is almost impossible to control, much less do it quickly at a stop light. The TomTom also took almost twice as long as the nuvi to lock onto satellites, the Magellan a little less time than the TomTom.

One feature the TomTom has which is wonderful is the Help. Wherever you are you can press this button and find hospitals or other places to find any assistance you might need.

The TomTom also does not turn off automatically – when you have it plugged into the charger in the car, if you turn off the engine both of the other GPS’s will automatically turn off the TomTom stays on which could lead to it running out of a charge.

One important thing a GPS can have is giving turn directions – telling you to move in the left lane on an interstate for a left exit is highly desirable to say the least, telling you that the road is a slight left, like a Y, instead of just left is what I mean by having better turning directions, that is my only complaint against the nuvi – that it only says left or right, besides price. The TomTom is very specific and shows which type of turn you need to take. The Magellen also is more specific than the nuvi on directions. However the TomTom does not announce street names nor label as many streets as the 2 others. The TomTom does not announce when you have missed an exit like the nuvi does by saying ‘recalculating’, it just does a quick change, personally I like knowing when I’ve missed something, but another member of my family wants to throw the nuvi out the window when it says ‘recalculating’.

The TomTom has a bigger screen, but it is also the hardest to see in bright sunlight, the nuvi’s shows the best in direct sun. The TomTom has a round attachment on the back which makes it harder to slip into a pocket or case. Even with the attachment off it won’t lie flat. The nuvi came with a small carrying case which is wonderful to protect it if you slip it into your pocket. I really wish these GPS’s came with a charger for inside the house, it is extremely handy; but at least they are readily available and not that expensive.

The conclusions I’ve come to is the TomTom is superior in giving turn directions. If maps and more detail of street names and simplicity of use is important and clearer speaking, choose the nuvi. The Magellen’s maps are better and clearer than the TomTom and turn directions are better than the nuvi. The TomTom has more options for searches. All will get you there with some practice.

Rating: 4 / 5