After being led astray one too many times by Mapquest directions (not to mention how hazardous it is for me to try and drive and read directions simultaneously), I finally gave in and ordered the Tom Tom One GPS system.

I gave the Tom Tom One the ultimate baptism by fire. It arrived the night before a family vacation. I opened it (the near impenetrable clamshell packaging almost required a chainsaw and blowtorch), turned it on, and after answering a few questions on the touchscreen it was ready to go. I haven't encountered a gadget so intuitive to use since the Flip video camera. Instead of bringing a sheaf of Mapquest printouts on our road trip, I just plugged the addresses into Tom Tom, which navigated us successfully and efficiently (and with a delightful British accent) to each destination, whether rural or urban.

It's a little annoying if you intentionally go off-course to find a restaurant or gas station, but I was impressed at how quickly it recalibrates the directions to get you back to where you need to go. It's also pretty good at identifying various stores and restaurants in the immediate vicinity, though some of its information was a bit off.

You get pretty much everything you need right in the package, including a car charger, USB cable, and window mount. The pocketsize unit is small enough not to be too obtrusive while driving, and is easily detachable so you don't leave a tempting target for thieves.

The Tom Tom One proved its worth on its very first voyage (especially given Amazon's impressive discount rate), and I know I won't be traveling anywhere without it in the future.

PS - At the moment, John Cleese is the only celebrity voice available. If anyone at Tom Tom is reading this, I'd love to have Samuel L. Jackson shouting directions at me. James Earl Jones would be another awesome navigator voice.

I confess; I had GPS-phobia. Being a techie, this admission was embarrassing but seemingly well-founded: much of the GPS market features overpriced, clunky products bogged down by confounding user interfaces.

The TomTom One 3rd Edition (TT3), however, changed everything. This amazing little device is a GPS masterpiece; easy to configure, even simpler to use. Arguably the foundation of its success lies in the terrific PC/Mac-based, TomTom Home Software. (It's VERY Mac friendly) Regularly updated and fully featured, Home makes map updates a breeze, likewise the addition of different voices. Regarding the latter, there is a surprisingly rich selection of free voices provided by TomTom users. (You haven't truly experienced a road trip until Yoda insists on, 'left turn...you must make!') The TT3's crisp speaker admirably relays these voices even over excessive road noise.

The in-device menu system echoes its computer-based counterpart. In only a few minutes' time, it becomes second nature to customize appearance, find points of interest and/or edit existing maps on the TT3. The touch screen is very responsive, arguably the perfect combination between appropriate sensitivity sans hyperactive touch recognition.

Moreover, the TT3 is one sturdy device. I certainly don't baby the thing; it regularly goes on/off my windshield and into the glove compartment. Related, the TT3's USB cable port and accompanying charger are surprisingly durable. Not a sign of give and/or deterioration.

Still, the TT3 isn't perfect. It occasionally hiccups when initializing routes, requiring re-entry of the destination. Also - akin to any GPS - not every street is [obviously] featured. It is admittedly a bit disconcerting to find yourself on an unnamed path. Also, the TomTom Home software has a tendency to provide peculiar error messages when doing updates.

These shortcomings aside, the TT3 is a steal at Amazon's new price point. (I spent $45 more for my unit.)

a tech friend of mine once said, "a car without a GPS is like a cell phone without an address book." he's a pretty smart guy, so when i bought a new car i thought i'd just order in a factory GPS -- then i saw that would be another $750. so after a little research, i bought the tomtom one 3rd edition here on amazon during their black friday sale in 2007.

here are the up-sides:

* it's frightfully easy to use.

* it's tiny enough for travel.

* it's tough.

* it's REALLY fast at picking up satellite signals -- even when i've had it off for a long time or have travelled a long way without the device on.

* it comes with several choices of what you use for day and night colors.

* the menu items can be re-positioned from the horizontal bottom to the vertical side.

* the default turn-off screen (which can be disabled) reminds you to take it off your dash so it won't get ripped off.

* by default (though adjustable), the voice gets louder as you travel at higher speed.

* you can turn the animation of the screen off above a screen you determine.

* software upgrades (free) and maps of foreign countries (charge) are available online.

here are the down-sides:

* the software is very obviously european in design, so a few nuances are missing. for example, there are two hierarchical menu items in their main menu, but you don't know that until you tap them (which means you sometimes forget what item you want to change is in what specific place); and you have only one direction of navigation through the menus (meaning if you want to go back to something on the last screen, you have to keep tapping to the right until you see it again).

* there are some tiny bugs in their "shortest path" algorithm. it looks like extremely sharp right turns are somehow either ignored or wrongly compensated for so you can find yourself driving around a block to get to a destination (or possibly turning right and then doing a u-turn) rather than going a few extra feet and turning a sharp right.

* there's a "walking map" mode, but no good way to hold the device without touching the screen. since the screen doesn't have a "ignore touches" mode, it can't really be used this way.

* the outlet for the power cord on the bottom isn't recessed -- this would make the plug easier to push in in the dark (which is the way your car is half the time).

* it doesn't automatically switch night/day mode, nor does it automatically adjust for time zone. both of these are very possible since it knows where you are withing 3' on the planet. i'm guessing this is something available on higher level models.

* the built-in points of interest aren't always accurate (it's directed me to out-of-business gas stations and headquarters of restaurants that weren't actually restaurants, but business facilities).

i've had several other friends look at it and we've compared units side-to-side on long drives. the tomtom is definitely the easiest to use out-of-the-box of all major brands.

text-to-speech (TTS) is certainly nice to have, but not necessary. i actually prefer not having TTS and glancing at a map when i drive if i'm not sure -- only because (for me, at least) spaghetti interchanges are easier to understand as you look at them than to be talked through robotically.

the size of this device is fine. i think that if you're going to use the device only in one vehicle, and never move it, you want the biggest screen you can get (bigger than this one) -- you can install it permanently (or semi-permanently) in a place that doesn't obscure any portion of the windshield. certainly your fingers will appreciate it as you type. if you're going to take it with you as you travel, you want a smaller screen both for travel size and the overall real estate it covers on various car windshields.

i've used it for trips to CO and FL and in both cases it lets me navigate like a local, which is really great. of all the devices i've compared this against (a couple of garmins and a magellan), it's easily the biggest bang for a buck.

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addendum 3/24

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oops, i forgot to mention ... i wasn't happy with the tomtom choices of carrying cases because i wanted to take the stand, the power cord and the USB cable with me as i travel ... so after crawling my local electronics store for two hours i bought a case logic "compact camcorder case." (you can't buy here, but the sku is DCB-36 if you want to take a look.) it's just a tiny bit big (the extra space does add protection in your luggage, though), but the great thing about it the moveable central divider -- you can snug the unit right on down against the inside of the case. the suction cup will fit over the top of the power cord in the main pouch. the USB secures in the side pocket. it comes with a very useable carrying strap and a 25 year guarantee. i've been as happy with the bag as i have the tomtom itself.

thanks for reading.

I was deeply impressed when I was first handed a TomTom One Version 3 in June 2007. It accurately took us over the river and through the woods along winding, Upstate New York country roads between a wedding site and the reception site. When It said, "You have reached your destination," our car was ten feet from the sign of the restaurant where the reception was held. Awesome! With printed MapQuest or Yahoo Maps, we would certainly have gotten lost and arrived frazzled. Now, after a year with my TomTom, and I am still in love with it. But, like a favorite relative, it can be annoying and even intractable at time. But considering that the built-in GPS systems of five years ago cost thousands of dollars, ran off 5-CD changers, cost thousands of dollars, and required $75-$150 annual map updates, the TomTom (now around $160) is a fantastic value. Not to mention that all map updates are FREE online, and that you can move it from vehicle #1 to vehicle #2 just by plugging it into the cigarette lighter outlet. Is it perfect? No. Do I love it? Yes. Would I buy the next version? Probably - depends on the extent of the upgrades and how the competition (Garmin, for example) has upgraded their units. Richard N. Côté, Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464.

Good points:

* Crisp, clear color display that the owner can personalize to taste.

* Adjustable volume and brightness controls enable you to adapt it to day/night and sound preferences.

* Map zooms let you adjust for long-range driving (large overview) or short-range, densely-populated urban environments with frequent turns.

* If, while using it, you make a wrong turn, it immediately recalculates the way to get you back on the right route. Typically, it takes less than six seconds to do so. And unlike your wife or husband, it never chews you out for having taken the wrong turn!

* All GPS systems get their position information from a number of GPS satellites in geosynchronous orbit around the earth. When turned on in my car, it usually takes 15-20 seconds to lock onto the satellites, but I haven't had it lose them yet while underway.

* It comes with two English male voices, two English female voices, and one each in Spanish. There are other voices available for $4.95 each. My favorite was - for a week - the low, sexy voice of "Sylvia," a seductress who, at the end of your trip, purrs, "You have reached your destination. But don't stop yet....!" After a week, I tired of her and went back to "Richard," an American male voice with no "attitude"!

* I comes with complete maps of the U.S. and England, with maps of most of Europe available by download for a reasonable fee.

* It gives you accurate advance "when-to-turn" info, taking into account how fast you are going. It includes warning you well in advance when to change lanes to avoid being forced off your route by traffic. I think this is awesome, especially when navigation spaghetti-like urban Interstate highway routes involving frequent, high-speed turns.

* It rarely tells you to drive into lakes or through swamps and forests with no roads, but this is not always the case! A couple of times when using MapQuest, I would have needed a boat or ATV if I had actually followed the maps that MapQuest gave me.

* The built-in battery will run the unit for about two hours without being plugged in. And you can back up everything in its memory on your PC via the TomTom to PC USB cable. It enables the TomTom unit to talk to the TomTom "mother ship" on the Internet, and download map and software updates as often as you like.

Weak and bad points:

* It doesn't recognize non-public roads well. If you punch in a store's address, and the store is in a huge shopping mall, it will tell you that you've arrived - even though you have to drive another quarter mile and make eight more turns before you are actually at the store.

* The suction-cup mount won't stick to most dashboards (with their fake-leather veining) - only to glass. I prefer a dashboard mount, which takes up less visual space, and in addition, my Honda van had such a sharp windshield slope that the suction cup base wouldn't work on it. The TomTom unit comes with a 3.5" round plastic plate with adhesive strips that enable it to be mounted on dashboards, but I found that the suction cup, even when moistened, often would not hold the TomTom in place on the flat plastic surface and it fell onto the car floor. I solved the problem by putting Velcro strips on the top surface of the plastic plate and the same on the bottom of the suction cup. That home-made fix works like a charm. BTW: these GPS units are very attractive to thieves. Put yours under the seat and out of sight when you leave the car.

* If you know better than it does about the best way to get to there from here, TomTom may disagree--and is very hard to train. Although it took us flawlessly from a Charleston, SC suburban address along a 275-mile route to a suburban Charlotte, NC address, it won't give me reasonable directions from the Charleston, SC suburb to a downtown Charleston, SC address!

* Although it has a "calculate different route" option, and may come up with six alternate routes, the "best" one may not be one of them. If you know better than it does, just go your own way for a few blocks and it will usually catch on and recalculate the proper directions.

* Although it gives the "when-to-turn" directions in advance, it will say, "After 400 yards, bear right, then take the highway," instead of "After 400 yards, take the on-ramp for Interstate 526 East." The screen clearly shows the "Interstate 526 East" red-and-blue symbol, but TomTom can't convert the visual information it displays into speech commands. Maybe the next version will.

* As you will read below in the other reviews, the how-to-use-it documentation is AWFUL. It explains virtually nothing about how to use many features. Nothing. If you buy a TomTom, be prepared to poke a lot of touch-screen buttons if you want to use the more advanced features, because you won't find any instructions built into the unit or on the TomTom online site.

PRO: Clear voice, good screen, great map.

CON: Had to press the reset button once.

This is the second unit I've bought and the fourth I've played with.

There are at least 4 versions of TomTom One: version 1, 2, 2 "new edition" and 3. They are very similar electronically but quality control and software issues plague versions 1 & 2. Some Version 3 models malfunction within days of purchase, stuck on its infamous 'white screen' that persists until machines are reset, but reoccurs. Its likely a production batch with serial numbers containing 46,47,48; e.g. Y12448Cxx. Tomtom Home v1.x has caused some machines to completely lose data, but no reports of issues once users upgrade to Home V2.x.

"New Edition" US version is noted as having the US/Canada maps preloaded, few to no bug reports and ready to run, out of box. The recent model in this series is Version 3; it has no SD card slot but has built in capability to make some corrections to its maps. The US/Canada version ships in a hard plastic 'skin pack' that is difficult to open and can cut your fingers from sharp plastic. Beware. Prior versions shipped in a cardboard box, with an easy to open, plastic shrink wrap.

I strongly suggest users leave their units on for 2-3 days connected to computer USB port to 'burn in' their units, and allow for premature failure, while under warranty.

Not documented by TomTom, the One series will charge via any computer USB port.

Navigation Test

I did a "Turing Test" by comparing my favorite known driving routes against the TT1 recommendations.

My often used routes are optimal for time and distance. In planning mode, TT1 gave many identical recommendations, from 0.5 - 500mi away.

On test trips, I purposely pulled over to a side road that I knew reconnected to the planned route some distance ahead. After the 'turn around if possible' warning it automatically re-routed my trip to take me back on track. On other tests, it simply rerouted me directly back to my plan, without other warnings.

I hit the 'road block' option that suggests I'm stuck in traffic for 'X' miles. TT1 would tell me get off the next exit, turn around, make a turn here or there and follow a new route to bypass this X miles jam. I did this numerous times to check how it would reroute me in local driving & highway driving. Expectedly, it gave 'reroute not possible' when my destination was within the minimum distance required to reroute, about 0.5 mi.

After preliminary testing in local roads, the TT1 went on a road trip of over 2500 mi.

I entered GPS coordinates for addresses I had not been to but expect to visit. If faulty coordinates were given that terminated without roads, the TT1 quickly reported a route could not be plotted to that destination: you can navigate to the nearest turn off road if the coordinates are known. I arrived at all the plotted destinations flawlessly, following TT1 directions instead of what I would be told.

In a notorious area in Washington DC, traffic jams that cause over 1 hour trip delays were very common ... TT1 routed me around DC easily, so my arrival time changed by under 5 minutes. In prior trips, I had no choice but to stick it out on the traffic jam. On the return trip, part of the bypass route also had traffic, I hit the 'road block' feature and again, TT1 navigated me around the block through local roads and to the highway with ne'er a change in the arrival time. Anyone who has driven through the confusing DC inner roads will know how difficult such navigation is without detailed knowledge or maps of downtown Washington. The TT1 easily saved me 1 hour wasted in DC traffic that I had done many times for years prior.

As I sped down south, I simulated jams on the highway, and the TT1 would quickly route off the next exit into local roads, some of which I saw easily paralleled the main highway. Some bypass routes were complicated. I did this off and on, through 2000 mi of highway travel, passing through 8 states.

At my rural destination a few roads were non-existent, often dead ends or into housing development. You could plot a GPS location to a main road before a turn off. The locals had preferred routes, but the TT1 would route me through existing known roads, dirt or otherwise, that still got me to my destination regardless of what other route a local recommended. Rarely, the road names on the TT1 was different than that posted on the road signs. I spent about 500 mi traveling through these country roads.

The supplied TT1 POI database is practically useless. Except in exceptional cases of carelessness, gas or rest stops marked were far from a preferred road stop: I knew some of those stops had poor food, rest room or gas prices, while the better stops were like a mini WalMart with gas prices often lower by as much as 25c/gal. TT1 allows the user to make their own POI database, and this I did. On the return trip, TT1 tools easily allowed me to optimize my stops. In the end, I reduced my travel time by 2 hours, each way!

After over 2500mi driving the TT1 recommendations, I can say the TT1 has been accurate and invaluable. Lastly, the TT1 is actually a Linux PDA type computer, and it can be 'hacked' to add or repair it in ways it was not designed to be! More info can be found on the 'net.

I got this item for christmas gifts as I work for direct sales company and do many numerous "cooking parties" and needed to find a way to get to the hosts homes without getting lost. I have not had any previous experience with gps prior to my purchase but the first time I used it I fell in love with it. My first destination was to a business that was on a four way divided hwy and the tom tom told me I had to make a u-turn at the break in the island to get to where I needed to. Once at my destination others who also were there said that their gps does not do that and that it will let them pass and then tell them to basically go around the block to get to where they need to go. Just this week I went out of state and rented a car with a gps. They gave me the Garmin Nuvi and I would not purchase that at all. The darn thing ran us around in circles numerous times. I have read some reviews prior to my purchase and the biggest complaint I have read was that it does not give street names but instead will tell you your turns in distances which is something I prefer because street names change. I would definitely buy the tom tom one third edition again.

I bought the TomTom One 3rd edition with the leather case and home charger for $162.00. It's my 4th GPS device; two are built-in units and one is a Garmin i5.

The TomTom is ok; I don't miss the larger screen because the screen quality is fine. It's very easy to set up and get going, and TomTom's website is nicely coordinated with the products and very easy to use, unlike Garmin's site that seems ancient and unfriendly.

However, there are a couple of issues that new GPS owners should be aware of. First, although the TomTom One 3rd edition is simple, it's almost too simple. It gives very few spoken instructions. "Right Turn Ahead" doesn't tell you much at all when it's given a couple of miles from a turn. The next warning is "Turn right in 800 yards."

800 yards?? When's the last time you measured anything in yards? My old Garmin i5 says "In 3 tenths of a mile, turn right." Much better -- car odometers are in tenths of a mile, not yards! But then the TomTom waits until the last 100 feet or so to tell you "Turn right." I found this warning to come too late on the 2-3 lane state roads in busy south Florida while on a trip.

There are no options to change the measurement from yards to tenths or feet, only meters. I can understand not having text to speech (although I'm sure every GPS will have it probably within a year, even the cheap ones), but how about some more instructions to help us get around?

I found that I have to look at the TomTom GPS much more than any other GPS I own, which is dangerous. It just doesn't give me enough verbal information. Although the map is clear (3D is a gimmick, use 2D instead) and it has a neat feature to zoom in as you approach an intersection, it doesn't give enough information on the upcoming roads. Mine seems to always display the road I'm on, both on the bottom of the screen and the top. It should display the street name of the next upcoming turn on top, but it doesn't.

All in all, it's an ok device, but as an experienced GPS owner, I can't recommend it for first-time GPS owners. My 3 year old Garmin i5 provides more information, although Garmin's upgrade policies, awful software that crashes every computer I try it on and their unfriendly website forced me away from the company.

My advice? Spend the extra money and get something with text to speech that provides more verbal info. You don't really need to look at a gimmicky map and instructions on a tiny screen -- you should be watching the road. Verbal instructions are way more important, but this fact is hardly emphasized in any GPS reviews. Take it from me...

Update - The GPS recently got updated to a more recent version of software (the update process landed up being confusing). I haven't re-checked on the errors I mention in my earlier review after this update - but I can tell you that it does take a while longer to cold boot now (I thought it had hung up). In terms of functionality, the routing now seems to work better. It made no mistakes while I was driving around in Monterey (California) and that too on vague streets. It really was a life-saver late at night in a strange place. I'd up the stars to 4 now. Lack of tactile buttons for common functions is still a negative - so one star taken away..

Also - I dropped the GPS from my car roof to the garage floor in a bad way. Well - nothing happened. I was amazed. Quite tough..

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Earlier review below -

It does get me where I need to go - but in a sort of convoluted way on some occasions.

Case in point - to travel from Sunnyvale Fry's to the Walmart in Mountain View - (UPDATE ADDED LATER - Following its directions, I landed up at the Target in Mountain view rather than the WalMart which is on the other side of the road - it told me to make a left when I should be making a right. This type of mis-routing is happening in a fairly urbanized setting. Wonder how this will fare in less travelled locales?)

Firstly - the GPS unit POI thinks that Wal Mart is in Los Altos (a neighboring city) while the WalMart web site lists it as Mountain view. How does this get a POI as big as a Wal Mart wrong?

The most sensible and fastest direction is to take Central Expwy almost all the way to the Wal Mart, and this is what Google Maps tells me - but this unit makes me take Central Expwy then exit Middlefield Rd and then take an extremely slow road (El Camino Real) to the WalMart. A rather suboptimal solution both in terms of distance and speed of travel.

On another occasion I had to make a slightly convoluted left turn. The screen indicated the left turn, but the voice directions got confused and told me to make a right turn!! There sure was a right turn as well over there - but going opposite from where I needed to go.

OK - so the routing certainly has problems - and these were fairly simple routings. (update added later - tried to find - "whole foods store" "near me" - while in Cupertino, CA. It didn't find any. I asked a passerby - he pointed to a large building almost across the street. A store as big as "whole foods" is not in its database. Incidentally - I did multiple searches - using just the world "whole" for instance)

The other thing I don't like so much about this unit is that there are absolutely no buttons you can push to make certain adjustments. Everything is touch screen based - meaning you have to touch the screen and look at it (instead of the road) when you are trying to adjust the volume or get the screen to dim. This is ridiculous on a device meant to be used in the car while driving!!.

Tom Tom allows you to update the map - Once - within 30 days after you buy it. I don't know how Garmin and Magellan do this - but the devices are basically disposable unless you pay a stiff premium to keep your maps updated.

Otherwise the unit works well. Acquires satellites fast (from even inside the office) and the display is clear. I don't like the map graphics that much but haven't yet experimented around to see if there is any other option. It appears to be sturdily built.

I am yet to find out if the screen on this unit will dim automatically to the "night mode". Mine certainly does not do so out of the box.

I don't like its suction cup mount too - a lot of force is needed to make the unit slide off the mount and in the process the suction cup comes off most times I need to take the unit out. A better solution would have been a spring based latch that hooked to the suction mount (so that force is not needed) or some kind of magnetic mount. I am investigating my own magnetic mount solution using a bunch of hard disk magnets I have lying around.

I don't agree with the leading consumer reporting publication that gave this model (rather its earlier incarnation) a "best buy".

PRO: Fast route re-calculation, Download Updates, Maps, voice

CON: Poor customer service, Outofdate list of Gas Stations/Stores