back to article TomTom Start2 satnav

TomTom’s entry-level Start satnav got the RegHardware treatment back at the tail end of 2009, with the overall judgement being that it was a decent enough piece of kit but just a little too pricey. TomTom Start2 The Start2 – TomTom’s update to its no-nonsense satnav Now TomTom has released an updated version in the form of …

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  1. John 62
    Flame

    Road Sign font

    Gah! they used Arial on the road signs!!!! UK road signs use a fantastic font called Transport*, which is FREE (though there are paid-for versions with extra weights and unicode support). Not to mention the French and German road sign fonts are free, too, which would be a good way to make the traffic signs look more authentic.

    * for a road sign font, the interesting thing is that It's largely based on Akzidenz Grotesk, the precursor to Helvetica, and was probably developed to reduce the amount of Akzidenz Grotesk on the roads - geddit?! lol :D oh, typography jokes are the best

    Flames to burn Arial.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Serious Question...

    Whats the point?

    I'm really struggling to see the point in dedicated sat-nav systems these days. I use Ovi Maps on a regular basis and have no problems at all with it, iPhones have sat-nav apps, pretty much every smart phone these days comes with the capability to run decent sat nav software with voice navigation, for little or no extra cost. So how can TomTom justify £120 for something that many people can get much cheaper?

  3. \\\
    Unhappy

    Removed third party POI support

    I've also read somewhere that these new TomTom's no longer support third party POIs. So if you want speed camera alerts, etc.. you are stuck with using their offerings.

  4. P Zero
    Linux

    Interested

    If only to not have to worry about the spate of car chargers on the previous Start blowing their heads off and losing the fuses. I know it's not the customers, I got one out of the box pre-killed. Don't get me wrong, Tomtom are my favourite GPS maker, but that did irk me.

  5. Alex Wright 2

    Igo 8 is still much better

    I still don't see anything to drive me back to using TomTom after experiencing the marvel of Igo 8. Much more configurable, takes poi's from just about anywhere, has some great custom skin support (check out the GJM skin, it's amazing) and seems to get more frequent map updates. Much more reasonably priced than TomTom too. Also supports TMC out of the box with no need for extra hardware (providing your GPS supports TMC of course). Igo FTW!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lane assistance

    Hopefully it will tell drivers to keep to the left hand lane unless overtaking.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just got a new Tomtom this morning

    I ordered up a TomTomXL 335s from NewEgg for $100 on Friday. it was delivered yesterday, and I used it for the first time this morning. It has the lane guidance feature, shows the speed limit when you go over it and claims to switch to night colours automatically when it gets dark. It even turns itself off when I turn the car off, which is one of the features that they removed from TomTom One 3rd edition.

    Just as well I persevered when TomTom HOME screwed up the update, not once, not twice, but 3 times when I plugged the device into my PC this morning. Each time I read the error details and deleted the file it was complaining about and told it to try again, but god only knows what a "normal" person would have done.

    I was also a bit perplexed by the "slim" mount. The diagrams in the manual are useless at explaining how it works, and it was only by accident that I realized that twisting the ring causes the pad to "suck" itself to the windscreen.

    I was also a bit disappointed to find that the screen looks a bit washed out in bright sunshine. My wife uses a Nuvi that pisses me off every time I have to drive her car (forever rabbitting on about recalculating) but it seems to be much brighter even in sunlight.

    So far, that's my only quibble with the hardware - if only the TomTom HOME software was half as good as the hardware.

    1. Boring Bob

      Rabbit

      "(forever rabbitting on about recalculating)" Why do you have a GPS if you keep ignoring its directions?

      1. Al Jones

        Because the Nuvi's directions suck

        I don't keep ignoring it's directions, but in the case of the Nuvi, I missed a number of exits because it's "lane guidance" was crap, and the perspective on it's maps is just weird.

        The TomTom just recalculates, it doesn't feel the need to keep announcing the fact.

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