This product is so great that I bought this for my son after owning mine for a year. I took mine Back East and was able to get around on a vacatiion with no problem. It's the absolute best: Light weight, portable, easy to figure out. Love it!!!

While this is not the best GPS navigational system out there with tons of bells and whistles, it gets the job done. Newer and more expensive models include voice recognition and text to speech features. I feel that these are overkill and not really needed, especially text to speech. How often are you able to actually read street signs before the intersection anyway? It is much easier to just be told right or left. A quick glance at the screen also shows the street name and your exit is overlayed in red. This is great for confusing highways with multiple ramps in one place.

I do have two issues I do have with this device. First, it would be nice if it told you which lane you need to be in. There were several times where I did not realize the lane I was in suddenly became an exit or split into another highway. The device does try to help by instructing to exit left or right far enough in advance to get you to move in that direction. One nice feature that I really never thought about before is that depending on your speed, the device gives you more or less warning on turns. At highway speeds it gives at least 2 miles warning. But at city speeds it gives yards or feet.

The second complaint is that the device saves your personal information on volatile memory and sips on the battery to keep it stored. If you do not charge the device regularly, the battery will eventual run out and your home information and preferences will be lost. I have no idea why this can't be stored on flash memory with the maps.

After four other GPSs and countless reviews I decided to but the XL as it was offered for $185. After receiving it and installing all of the updates, including a new map, only released a few weeks ago, I took it for a test spin.

Boy, was I disappointed. First the good bits :) -

It picks up a signal very, very fast, is easy to use and has legible maps. It also had some nice features such as speeding alert, a selection of voices and many customizable features. And now for the bad :(

Its navigation system failed four time out of five to get me to the correct destination. For example, I drove to an in-town hotel by using the hotel's street address. The system guided me without incident, but told me that I had arrived several miles away from the destination. As I said, I used multiple addresses and it only took me there 20% of the time. To me, this is make or break for the GPS. No amount of fancy features is superior to basic guidance. Any GPS will get you to the freeway, but its the last mile that separates the quality products from the bad. And this was bad.

I also found that the POI, points of interest, were limited and not very accurate. It's a shame that they couldn't link with Google to extract the Google POI database and import it into the entire TomTom line.

As an editorial note, I wonder why the car icon is centered in the middle of the map when using 2D screens, but at the bottom for the 3D version. Since you are always driving forward, having the icon at the screen bottom would allow a lot more map to the visible and let you manually select a better route. After all, isn't that what the wide screen if for?

I still like TomTom, but I would pass on the XL. Perhaps the 3rd edition would work better.

I caught this unit on sale for $214, but it would be a great value at its "regular" price of around $249. The Tom-Tom works as well, if not better, than the factory-installed unit in my Acura - the screen is a little smaller, but after a while you don't notice this. I would rate the Tom-Tom as good as any of the more expensive Garmin units.

Well, I've had a tomtom one xl and a garmin nuvi 250w for two weeks now and have tested both out in Canada and the US, both on streets I am very familiar with and in areas I've never been before. They both cost exactly the same when I bought them so that isn't a consideration in my evaluations. My feelings on both devices are mixed. A quick rundown of winning points for each is given and then I will go into more detail below. I still haven't decided which one I'm going to keep (I still have 10 days to return the one I don't want).

Garmin Wins: Battery Life, Mapping System, Screen clarity in sunlight, Windshield Mount

Tomtom Wins:

Features, Voices, Satellite Acquisition

Details on some of the above:

Itinerary planning - Garmin only lets you program one waypoint, but Tomtom lets you save iteneraries. It's not a true route planning system where you can program several stops and it will tell you the best route taking them all into account, however it will let you program multiple stops so that after you reach one it will direct you to the next. With Garmin the only way to accomplish something similar would be to go to your first destination and then go into favourites and then click the next place you want to go. I like though how if I have some regular stops on a regular route, I can save that itenerary with a name and it will be saved until I delete it. Garmin has no option close to it. Even if you use the faves option I listed above, it won't save that route for future use so it would all have to be redone and you'd not only have to try to remember every stop, but you'd have to punch each in individually again, whereas tomtom will have it saved to go back to with a couple clicks. Plus you can add to a tomtom itenerary later so if you find a new fave stop you can add it in or delete parts of an itenerary you don't want in there anymore.

Voices - Garmin gives you a choice of different languages, but I have yet to find a way to get different voices on the Nuvi 250W. It gives me an American English voice and that is it. I have looked on their website and even hooked up my nuvi to the WebUpdater tool they have and it has no other voices avail. that I can find. The tomtom one xl has quite a few voices to choose from to begin with, plus you can download for free a bunch of fun voices off the internet. I currently have Yoda and Darth Vader taking turns giving my husband and I directions.

Battery Life - Garmin easily wins in this regard with approx. 4-5 hr. batt. life, Tomtom only lasts a couple of hours.

Garmin's screen is easier to see in bright sunlight and the windshield mount is more reliable.

Size - both are small, but garmin is slimmer which is good if you want to put it in your pocket. Tomtom has a bit of a bulge in the back (not huge by any means but still not flat like the garmin. The bulge is handy if you want to stand it up in front of you though.

Satellite acquisition - Garmin satellites can locate me inside my house, garmin I have to go outside to get a signal. Kind of a pain when you want to program a route and have to go out in the freezing cold on your porch or to sit in your car to wait for it to acquire a signal. I like the convenience with the tt one xl of being able to sit inside my house and put in a location and see the directions while still warm and cozy sitting on my couch. Then I can turn it off and when I go to my car the info is all set to go and I already have perused the directions to get an idea of the steps in my route. Also sometimes even outside the garmin takes a few minutes to acquire a satellite, whereas the tomtom always acquires a satellite within seconds.

Detours - tomtom comes out on top again. Garmin lets you hit a detour button and gives you a new path to follow, but tomtom lets you choose how far you want to avoid something. So for example, if road "W" is the best one to follow to get to your destination, but there is construction for a couple blocks, you can choose to avoid that route for just that period where there is construction, and then get back on it. The garmin gives you a whole new route that may or may not get you back on the original road.

Other misc. pros and cons - tomtom comes with a usb cable, garmin does not and considering how cheap they are and that it is necessary for charging if you want to charge from your computer, I think Garmin really cheaped out on that one -- tomtom lets you use a qwerty keyboard format, garmin does not -- tomtom lets you search by zipcode, the garmin makes you enter street name and number

Navigation - both units get you from point a to point b in my experience thus far, though the majority of the time the garmin seems to take the most direct and logical route, whereas tomtom seems to lead you a bit astray to get to your destination. However there have been a couple times when the tt brought me to the doorstep of the place I was going when the garmin was a bit off. Overall though I do feel safer taking the garmin's directions. Tomtom apparently does have some kind of map downloading/sharing feature but I haven't checked it out yet. That may be a great feature and help if you can download maps from others who know the backroads better than a computer system ever could.

So right now I am having a tough time deciding which one to keep because they both have their pros and cons. Both get you where you need to go for the most part, but I do feel the garmin navigates better, which is why you buy a gps right? However the tomtom picks up satellites quicker and more reliably thus far and that is important too when getting somewhere. The tomtom seems to come out leaps and bounds ahead of the garmin in options and features though and that is what is hanging me up on the decision. If my garmin had the features my tomtom has or my tomtom had the navigation system my garmin had the decision would be a no-brainer. Luckily I still have 10 days to decide which one to keep, but it's going to be a tough decision. I think either one would be a good choice though in the end, just different pros and cons to each.

DO NOT update the software. TomTom still has not addressed the problem of using the 'home' software to update the GPS. If you do this, even if you made a back up, the GPS will be an expensive paperweight that flashes a big red X. (This is as of 8 November 07)

I bought my TomTom recently when I knew I'd have to deal with a city I don't usually go to, Cambridge, MA. Cambridge has all sorts of crazy streets and cow paths and one-ways and things. I avoid it as much as possible, but I had to go to a reception there. I bought the TomTom and tried it out on places I was already familiar with to get used to how it worked. Some things take a bit of getting used to. It may say "Right turn ahead" when you know there is only a fork in the road, but when you approach, it says "Bear right". It pretty much got me everywhere, not always by the way I'd have chosen, but it got me there. I haven't hooked up the traffic or weather things yet, so I can't comment on those, but it was fairly easy to use and got me where I needed to go with a minimum of muss & fuss. I consider that success!!

With regard to the reviewer who got old software into his TomTom by accident, the FIRST thing I did was back-up the TomTom to my computer. I too had my unit freeze up, but because it was backed up, I was able to restore it from my computer. I owe a debt of gratitude to that reviewer or I'd probably have had a tantrum over that.

I'd say buy this unit, but I hear a newer version, which announces street names, has come out. You might want to take a look at that one first as hearing the street names can be helpful. Then again, this one may be upgraded for that feature too, but I haven't heard anything about it yet.

This Review is for the Tom Tom One XL (larger wide-screen version of the Tom Tom One).

I have had this product what I believe to be around a month. I wanted to wait so I could form a good idea of how I felt because my initial desire was to run back to Amazon and just put five stars and that would be that. However I do believe that I owe it to TomTom because of their great product to do a more in depth review.

Out of the box the GPS (global positioning system) works flawlessly. There are no (zero) charges (monthly or otherwise) to use this item once purchased. Many people ask me this and so I put this first thing. TomTom does offer "Premium" services like Traffic alerts and such but you decide to sign up for these things yourself. To use the included maps and get point to point navigation you simply buy this GPS (TomTom One XL) and plug it into your cigarette lighter for power and off you go. Without the power cord (which IS included) the TomTom One XL will run for about 2hrs and then will require a recharge. I always use the plug-in so I do not know how close to 2hrs it will last.

Functionality:

The TomTom One XL is extremely easy to use. It has a "touch screen" and that is how you put in ALL information that you want to look up, search for, and/or find. You simply touch the screen and a menu comes up and you choose from what you want to do. If you are wanting to go to an address it asks CITY then STREET then HOUSE NUMBER in that order. A ON-SCREEN keyboard comes up and you type it in using the touch screen. It is VERY easy to do and very intuitive to learn. Those that are not computer literate and/or have problems with techno-babel or geeky things need not worry because a few hours of "tinkering" with this device and you will be able to use it like a pro. Setting up a "favorite" location is simple as hitting the screen (to bring up the menus) then hit ADD FAVORITE and then you can add it from a variety of ways (either by address, lat/long, your present GPS location (the way I normally do it), and other ways. Once you have done this you can NAME the favorite what you want to. I love this feature because even though I can look up restaurants, bars, nightclubs and such in the Points of Interest index (which is VERY full and VERY up2date) it is many times easier just to add a nice "new" place to favorites and put a name you will remember to it. Like you visit an out of town steak shop and want to go back some day you can name it "Nashville Steaks 12oz sirloin Milly ate." Just an example. The "favorite" names can be detailed and helpful. I don't know how many you get but I have put in quite a few already and I know the system's memory is no where near being used up.

Why Buy:

Value. Hands down the value you get with this system for each dollar spent (I paid around $300 bucks with free shipping, thank you Amazon.com for the great price you couldn't even advertise at the time) is many times over what you get value wise with systems that have more "known" names like Garmin and the like. Because something has these names means little when you look at what you end up with. Many times you get over-glorified techno-crappy overly complex systems that because a hassle to use and face it if it isn't easy to use you WON'T use it. With the TomTom One XL you are getting something so easy to use you will enjoy putting in directions, adding favorites, and do the many other things to "make the system your own." It has a very nice and easy to read large screen and the touch screen is extremely easy to use. I have the TomTom One XL with the larger wide-screen and I suggest this version to everyone...you will love the larger screen, trust me.

Additional (advanced) features:

-You can add voices from the web of famous people, robots, cars, etc. Of course my absolute favorite is K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider series but I am completely biased by my love of that show when I was a kid. You can get (if you use google and search) free celebrity voices while at the same time TomTom does offer "premium" voices at their sight. These voices also come is MANY (and I do mean MANY) different languages. There is also differences in the "American English" and the "British English." One cool thing is the British call it a motorway and we call it an interstate.

-You can change the color schemes, screen brightness (separate settings for day and night), type of voices (male/female and language), add an opening splash screen that says owner info (name, address, phone) and even lock that info in the system if you have a PC to attach it to over USB (probably for more advanced users and NOT needed to do unless you want the newest maps and/or other "online" features).

-You can HELP update the map system. Say you drive into a new development and in the TomTom Mapping software a road is not named yet (Unnamed it normally says). YOU can goto "Map Corrections" under a menu and actually put that road's name in. Beyond this when/if you ever sign up for TomTom HOME (PC connection over USB FREE by the way) your corrections are shared with a main server and then ALL OF US who are using TomTom's around the country are helping to improve and update our maps and make them the best in the country. (And my goodness I have put in TONS of info with my job...)

Any what do I do for a living?

I'm a cab driver. Yep, you heard right. I drive all around the area I live/work in and use my TomTom One XL constantly. I am inserting data, correcting map errors (telling them about road changes, new roads, adding road names, etc.), looking up POI's(points of interest including bars, restaurants, nightclubs, hospitals, and more and more and more), correcting POI's (YES! you can do that too!), adding NEW POI's, adding favorites, looking up favorites, looking up "recent addresses," and perhaps giving this little GPS the workout of a lifetime. It is an exceptional piece of equipment and perhaps one of the best investments I have ever made.

I give the TomTom One XL my highest recommendation and completely trust that anyone who buys it will love it just as much as I do. I researched many other systems and not a single one came close in this price range. And even those in higher price ranges with "additional" features seemed to add complexity to a system you DO NOT WANT TO BE COMPLEX. The last thing you want when you are trying to find a place is to accidentally start an audio-book and/or call your house. Such additions to GPS should be thought of carefully because many times you already own the Ipod and have a blue-tooth system with your phone. Therefore to have those "extra" and more complicating apps/features on a GPS is simply either redundant or superfluous.

Buy with complete confidence as TomTom also has great customer support but don't take my word for it visit their web-site (google for it or www DOT tomtom DOT com) and see the quality they put into their online presence. They really care about quality and it shows in their maps that they use, in the frequent updates, in their product value, and in their online customer FAQs.

Suggestions: Get some "free" voices to spice up the directions, KEEP that thin plastic screen cover that comes on the screen with the unit as long as you can, it offers great protection and you can STILL use the touch screen even with it on. When/if it ever falls off GET ANOTHER SCREEN PROTECTION plastic cover to give you a small "safety" net in case it gets bumped (I change cars plenty and it just happens with USE). I kept my plastic on and it is STILL on and still works great. And all the little scratches on it AREN'T on my GPS main screen which is great. Don't forget you can turn voices up or down in volume from the main screen (lower left side of screen tap once and the volume control comes up). Helps if you need to turn down to hear customer directions/radio and up if hard of hearing (like me).

On Driving safer:

You talk on your phone you will sooner or later have an accident. Four years is the average time it takes to have one. If you have driven and talked on your phone for four years and have not had one yet, you are 100% likely to have one soon...if that doesn't scare you what will?

You increase your chances of dying at the wheel whenever you do ANYTHING but drive, even chatting with a passenger. Because you have a GPS in the car doesn't mean you should be using it while in motion. Red lights perhaps (even then risky) but NEVER while in motion. Make it a point never to do so and I promise you it is very tempting to try it. The TomTom One XL has great safety features built into it and you can allow the screen to shut off until you need a command if you would like it to, there are other safety features as well please be sure to read the manual and get acquainted with them. Only you can make sure you are using your GPS system to make you a safer, more alert, and less directionally challenged driver. DO NOT LET YOUR NEW GPS GET YOU KILLED. Teens are the worst ones. Make it a rule that they can NOT use their phone, use the GPS, or have more than 2 friends in the car at a time. 15,000 kids a year is too many. Parents, THINK about the feeling you'd have if an officer knocked at your door and take it upon yourself RIGHT NOW to lay down the law about how your child should drive and what is expected of them. And if they won't listen, take the keys until they will. Then you will get to watch them walk across the stage...instead of getting their degree posthumously. It is time everyone took better care of their on-road actions. One last thing: GPS systems DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS A SAFE ROUTE OR NOT. They take (most of the time) the "quickest" route. Many times that could be through gang areas of a city you are "new" to. DON'T let your GPS lead you into a bad situation.

THINK. PLAN. KNOW. Be careful where to are going to and how you get there.

Thanks for reading...safe driving!

I travel to numerous cities in my work in aviation sales, and I bought this product in order to cut down on wasted time asking for directions, getting lost, missing exits, etc. The unit provides a time to destination featurs which allows me to call ahead and avise my next appointment when I'll be arriving as a courtesy.

The satellite acquisition time is not an issue if you do what the directions tell you and plug the unit into your computer to allow updated satellite positions to be downloaed via the internet.

The feature which enables the user to upload routes, preferences, etc through the computer keyboard makes programming a snap.

Like other users have noted, it would be nice to include text-to-speech as a download extra or as part of the basic package.

The wider screen of the XL unit makes programming through the unit and visibility a breeze.

Battery life before needing to recharge has not been an issue, so far.

Bottom line is that I'm quite happy with TomTom One XL and would recommend it to others.

works great glad i bought this item , one point you have to recharge it too much.