Basic GPS Features
The TomTom 910 comes preloaded with complete maps of the USA, Canada and Western Europe preinstalled. There is a fee upgrade to the latest current maps, despite their latest map guarantee. You will have the latest map - designed for that unit.
Navigation is simple. Your destination is selected by choosing a favorite, `home' or an address. You don't even have to know the exact address. You can get close to where you are going by choosing a city center, zip code, or intersection as well. If you have an idea where you're going on the map, you can zoom in to the area that you are going and tapping that spot on your screen. Favorites can be saved by knowing the exact address, tapping on the map, or plugging in coordinates.
Points of interest can be directly navigated to, but require that you search in the proximity of a destination already selected. In other words, you can't navigate straight to the San Diego Zoo (unless you know the street address). Rather, you select San Diego as your destination, do a search for zoos near your destination, select San Diego Zoo and then tap Go To.
Once you start saving favorites, you can manage them. The icon to manage your favorites is not in the most intuitive location. It's in the settings menu. I think that a subset menu of favorites would be the most logical location to manage - not the same place where you pick what voice you want to narrate your trip.
Many GPS units only allow the user to select their current location as the starting point of route planning. The 910 will allow me to plan a trip between San Diego and Seattle, even if I'm sitting in North Carolina. The itinerary planning feature allows the user to go from point A to point B via point C instead of going direct.
Navigational preferences allow for fastest route, shortest route, and avoiding toll roads, among others. If your route does include a toll, you can ask to drive around it. The 910 will then compare your original route to the toll route in distance and time. If you don't believe the GPS and want to take your own `short cut', it will allow you to and recalculate your route from your current position. This may not sound like much, but my mother-in-law's built in GPS on her Toyota doesn't feature this and becomes very angry with the driver if you miss an exit. It wants you to go back and pick up where it (incorrectly) wanted you to go in the first place.
One of the first things that I did in the settings menu was to turn on all icons. This is the only way to see the icon that allows you to cancel navigation so that you don't have to power off or smash it once you get to where you are going but want to drive around a bit.
Almost Premium Features
The 910 comes with a few extra goodies that require you to use the Bluetooth feature of your GPS in conjunction with your phone. You can get traffic alerts in select cities, add TomTom buddies, download options and premium features such as fuel prices. Even if the service, like buddies, is free, the GPS will use the data transfer feature of your phone to download the information it wants. If you're on an unlimited data plan with your cell provider, then that's great. No worries. But if you pay per kb, you can incur additional fees on your cell phone bill that you may not expect. As for traffic alerts, the cell phone data fee can be circumvented by using a special "TMC" antenna. This is only $160 and will save you from those pesky data fees. In fact you don't have to have a cell phone at all for traffic alerts with this antenna. Unfortunately, it doesn't download any other data.
TomTom Buddies is a unique feature that lets you pair up with someone else that has a Bluetooth phone and TomTom GPS. It will allow you to text message each other (please don't, if you're the only one in the car!) and will allow you to see where they are on your map.
The Other Stuff
The TomTom 910 has a Bluetooth connectivity option. This allows the user to use their Bluetooth enabled phone for hands-free talking, the aforementioned data downloading, and other audio devices. The hands-free features the ability to pair with a cell phone, but you can't unpair it without either deleting the profile, turning off Bluetooth altogether on either your phone or unit, or by switching to another phone. In other words, it's pretty inconvenient to just get in the car and not use your hands-free if you've already paired your phone to it.
The condenser mic supposedly has echo-cancellation, but was extremely sensitive to ambient noise. Adjusting the volume should help, but attaching the included mic to your visor may be a better choice.
The 910 also has a built in MP3 player. Note that this is ONLY an MP3 player and doesn't support any other music format. TomTom Jukebox is an attempt to organize your music, but it's pretty archaic. The MP3 player also supports audio books and has a function to directly download a book to your machine through either your phone or TomTom Home, the PC based docking application.
The built in speaker volume adjusts itself to ambient noise. Use the Bluetooth to connect to your car stereo for a better sound.
Finally, the 910 supports bmp and jpg photos. You can transfer as many as you can fit on the hard drive.
While you're out driving, you can have a slide show of your favorite photos while your favorite music is being played, and still not miss a turn. The GPS will interrupt your show when an upcoming turn is closing in.
The Hardware
The TomTom 910 is an older unit of about 2004-2005 vintage. This is one of the original TomTom form factors and is much bulkier than it's contemporary models. It's orange-wedge shaped and weighs about ? of a pound.
The 480 x 272, 16-bit screen is 4" across and is very visible. Its anti-glare screen is visible in most light conditions, even direct sunlight. It also has a light sensor to adjust itself to ambient light.
The 910 has a 400 MHz processor, 64 MB RAM and a very unusual 20GB hard drive. With 12 GB available, there is more than plenty of room for thousands of high quality songs and photos. You can easily take the unit from car to car and even carry it with you with it's 4-hour Li-Ion battery.
The 910 is also compatible with most 3rd generation and newer iPods (except the shuffle) with a separate adapter. You can access the menu on your touch screen and play the music through the GPS or through the Bluetooth audio device you have paired with it.
At Home
The TomTom 910 comes with TomTom Home, the PC based dock where you can download certain features with a USB cable connected your online PC.
Shortfalls
Overall, I like this GPS. The icons are large and easy to use, but there are some big problems that are probably very much uniform across the TomTom line that I would definitely be aware of before making a final decision on such a large investment.
Other than the favorites, there is no waypoint database that would be something compatible with Garmin or Magellan units. The unit is strictly for auto travel and unlike similarly priced newer units, is ineffective for hiking or other outdoor activities like geocaching. You can't store a track log, you can't download a list of waypoints that someone wants to share with you.
You also must always install the latest firmware to your GPS unit and have the latest version of TomTom Home if you want to continue using both together. Even if that means the incorporation of a change you don't like. For instance, the latest firmware update included a music icon the size of a nickel on the main navigation page. Though convenient to access your jukebox, it's annoying if you don't listen to music. There is no way to turn it off.
Another feature with regards to hands free calling is that it can import your entire phone database. While this is useful in that you can dial from your contact list on the 910 instead of your phone, there is no way to manage that database. You may want some numbers on your phone and not on your GPS. You can't delete individual entries or change the phone number or spelling without changing it in your phone first, deleting your whole paired device profile and starting over again.
As mentioned before, there are some neat features, but some are just not available in the US. As TomTom is marketed for different countries, it's really silly to continue selling the safety camera alert on US and Canadian websites and packaging when that feature isn't available outside Europe.
You can't plug in a USB or power cord directly into the unit itself. You MUST have the window or desktop mount. You lose these, and you can't charge the unit, talk to it, or hook up any other accessories. It also would have been nice to be able to charge the unit from the USB dock without a separate power cord.
Finally, customer service is just about nil. Reaching them by phone is difficult, and to contact them by email is very frustrating. Most FAQs on their website are for things already clearly spelled out in their manual (which is very much lacking in substance). It's simple to use for navigation, but fully utilizing all the available features will be a nerve racking and irritating learning experience.
Final Words
This unit was originally $600. I paid less than 1/3 of that for mine because it has been discontinued. If you can find it for less than $200, grab one! It's a great way to get into the world of GPS navigation. It's got a lot of great features, and if you don't care about its deficiencies, then no harm no foul. It's especially useful if you need to have a GPS with European maps preinstalled. But if you're willing to pay full retail, there are many better choices out there for less money and I would definitely steer clear of probably most TomTom products. Look towards Magellan for a line of fully functional thin-line GPS units in the $400-$500 range.
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TomTom Go 910 Portable GPS Navigator (Factory-Refurbished).
