I'm no GPS expert, but I am an aerospace engineer and spent a lot of years in quality assurance, and I'd be proud to have this TomTom Go 720 as one of my products.
I looked for a long time for a unit with a certain feature-set including good sound quality, a good 3D display, fast position acquisition, multile waypoints, the ability to pre-plan a trip with an intinerary, and some extra features such as a variety of voices and icons to personalize it. And I defintely wanted something that looked as good in my Porsche 911 as in my Hummer. No toys! I wanted a primarily black body with a quality fit and finish, and I found all these in the TomTom Go 720.
Just a look at the packaging told me the unit would be nice. The quality of the box and packing was excellent, and I hadn't even gotten to the GPS yet.
Everything was in the box that I needed except for an iPod cable and a protective case which I bought separately from Amazon. The TomTom Home software was a little clunky, and took a long time to perform certain functions, but hey, it's not like I'm going to be using this every day, so I won't fault them for it. It works, and that's what counts.
Using it the first time was a little awkward, but that's mostly my fault because I never read directions. But I still had some concerns even after a bit of reading: Specifically, when I came to a stop at a light, the unit would "drift" well to the left of the roadway, although I wasn't moving. And while driving, it would sometimes display my car moving well off to the left of the road, as if in a field. Finally, I would sometimes notice that my route would move to a closely parallel road, such as a service road, and then the unit would tell me to turn to get back on the main road. Hey, I was already on that! All these seemed related, so I decided a telephone call was in order.
I also noted that after arriving at a destination, there seemed to be no way to cancel the route. The 720 always wanted me to go back to the original destination or start a new one. The only solution seemed to be turning it off.
I came home and called TomTom expecting a lengthy hold time, but got a great technician within minutes. After explaining the issues with drift, he diagnosed this as a software issue, helped me upload a newer version, and all trouble with stationary drift AND parallel routes went away.
He also told me to tap the screen until I saw a Clear Route icon which cancelled a trip and let the unit just idle along with me as I drove or until entering another destination. By "idle", I mean that it kept track of where I was at all times, but didn't give any directions.
I also chose a voice for my unit that was British, which I thought was a touch of class, but found that I needed a computer voice to announce roads by name, so I opted to go back to a US-accented computer voice. I really like the directions it gives which are timely, and with the road names, are so much more meaningful.
It's really a great unit, and I'm very happy with it. Wall Street Photo got it out to me right away, so hats off to them for a good price and quick response. I highly recommend this to anyone wanting a mid-high end GPS that looks and works great in that nice car.
KLR
Alexandria, Virginia
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