Cheapest TomTom GO 720 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator

Back Ground:
I bought the TomTom as a Christmas Present to myself since The Wife gave me an Amazon gift card, A Friend has one he's been using for a few months and it seemed to have some features I liked.

What I Liked:
The Bluetooth, The 4.3 inch Widescreen, The Built in FM transmitter to be able to play sound over your car speakers and the MapShare feature that allows you to upload/download Map corrections.

What I did not Like:
Besides the Fact it was way off in it's accuracy (More on that later) I thought the menus were to confusing, packing too much into each menu, Once I started to get use to it, it wasn't that bad, but the fact it took me a full day just to figure out how to cancel a trip didn't bode well with me. I've used Garmins before and to cancel a trip in a Garmin is a simple 2 step process, Touch menu - Touch Stop - Trip Cancelled. So I found that aggravating on the TomTom since the Trip Cancel is somewhere on like the 5th menu screen. The Bluetooth would not sync with my phone no matter what I tried and yes, my Bluetooth phone was in 'discovery' mode. The Bluetooth was mainly what appealed to me since my job requires a lot of travel time on the roadways I liked the idea of not having to use the cell phone and try to talk and drive. So at this point my reason for buying it was a mote point. The real kicker came when I tried it out for navigation. I first made sure it was charged up, Connected to TomTom Home and downloaded any updates per the instructions and spent the night before familiarizing myself with the menus, features and how to enter destinations etc.

My Trips:
Trip Number ONE was to my Doctor's office, about a 30 mile one way trip using back roads, half way thru the trip after turning onto a side street it kept telling me to turn around, finally it corrected itself only to try and take me on a longer un-necessary route (Luckily I knew where I was going) The Real kicker came when I got to my Doctor's office, the TomTom insisted I was still a 1/2 mile short of my destination. Ok, that was the first trip no big deal, probably just a fluke.

Trip Number TWO: Leaving the Dr's office I'm going to head to downtown Baltimore to my Office. The TomTom did a Good job of getting me there until I got to my office. Parking is in short supply so I ended up driving completely around my office building until I found a parking space. the TomTom still insisted that my office was a 1/4 mile past where it really is, At this point I'm beginning to think I made a mistake buying this thing.

My Last Trip Number THREE: I leave the office and map a route to my house. The TomTom did ok up to the point of reaching my House. TomTom insisted I lived 1/2 mile in the Opposite direction and was in fact telling me to turn the wrong way. And no, it was not a shorter route since there is only one way to my house and that was the opposite direction from what the TomTom was saying, I think I actually did a double take to make sure I didn't drink some bad coffee the night before. Nope the TomTom was telling me to go the wrong way.

The Turning Point:
I ignored the TomTom, drove to my house, parked the car and removed the TomTom to be boxed up and returned to Amazon. I had read a few reviews on Amazon about people having a similar experience but just figured maybe they were just Technically Challenged and went ahead with my purchase, After all my buddy has used his in several States with No problems. From what I've read there doesn't seem to be a fix for the problem and it doesn't seem to be every TomTom, I assume TomTom probably has some bad processors out there, which happens. Hopefully TomTom is taking proper steps to get the bad units off the market and into the shredder where they belong. As an interesting side note, I've noticed that since Christmas is over all the TomToms seemed to have gone up by $50 while the Garmins have come down even more in price.

The Bottom Line:
I have to give this a 1 star rating since it failed at it's very primary function. That function being to get you to your destination accurately. However as stated the TomTom does have some Cool ideas with the MapShare feature being one. I may buy another TomTom someday but for now I'm switching back to Garmin, who BTW has never failed me, and I'll wait for TomTom to work out the bugs in their Gps's. I give Amazon a perfect 5 Star rating for their No Hassle return policy, This was the first ever item I had to return to Amazon and they made it easy. They scheduled UPS to pick it up from house and within 5 days I had a Credit for the full amount back in my account. Kudos to Amazon.Get more detail about TomTom GO 720 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator.