UPD(Nov 2011): I thought I will update this review a little bit. Everything below still remains true. The only major change is that now the major competitor seems to be the new Nuvi series. Garmin finally made dramatic progress with their TrafficTrends and the routing on Nuvi 3490 is very similar to what IQRoutes on TomTom would give. I say below that if you live in a big city, you need TomTom. This is no longer a rock-solid statement. Garmin has created a viable alternative.
If you want a connected device, the choice is easy. At the moment 2535 is the only decent device on the market.
If you don't care if the device is connected or not, it's a tough call between 2535 and Garmin 3490. 2535 is still faster and a bit better and more stable in routing , but the gap is not as huge as it used to be. Given that Garmin 3490 has a better UI, it's a hard choice and boils down to your personal preferences. Personally, I will keep both for some time. I trust TomTom a bit more. Garmin is more usable.
The worst single thing about TomTom remains their "myTomTom" website and plug-in. This is the most ridiculous piece of software I have to use which has more bugs than features.
Besides LIVE functions, TomTom's main advantage remains "Map Corrections" feature. Even though map quality is lower than the maps that come with Garmins, you can make corrections like disabling roads, changing turn restrictions, etc. On Garmin you are effectively stuck with whatever Navteq provides them and map updates are painfully slow (custom avoidances don't help). As I say below, on top of map corrections there is also map share, i.e. ability to use corrections submitted by other users. It will work on older TomTom models, but is not available on new ones because of myTomTom...
I also had battery issues and after 6 months of usage TomTom replaced it with a new device with no questions asked. My respect for that.
That's all for the update. The rest is the review as of April.
Overall, a nice device. I'll mostly concentrate on comparing it to Garmin Nulink 1695 as these are the best connected devices on the market. You can check my feedback on 1695 for additional details. Significant part of this review will be generic to any Garmin vs TomTom comparison, so I'll start with LIVE services to knock down the essentials.
Both units do a good job, both offer 1 yr of free services, traffic, google local search and weather.Garmin seemed to be a bit faster but TomTom is ok.
Local search: same functionality on both. TomTom's presentation of results is a bit friendlier.
Weather: TomTom offers weather "near you", "near destination" and "near other point" that can be your POI or a recent destination. Garmin only gives "near you" or near a pre-defined city. TomTom gives more details, Garmin gives sunrise and sunset times. Garmin also offers weather radar for $30 a year. I like TomTom's version more. Miss the radar, but I can get it for free from Intellicast app anyway.
Gas prices: TomTom allows to search prices nearby, cheapest in area, of cheapest on route. This is much better than what Garmin has to offer. Garmin gives "as of" date for each gas station which helps to eliminate stale information. Overall, TomTom is better.
Speed cameras: allows you to view speed cameras and report on-the-fly. It comes for free on TomTom and costs ~$40/year on Garmin. Garmin's reporting is a bit easier.
Traffic: a big plus is that traffic information is received almost immediately and you don't have to wait for FM traffic information to get to your device. Other than that, I haven't seen much advantage of Live trafic compared to ClearChannel FM subscription. Even though traffic acquisition is almost instantaneous on a connected device, the quality of FM data is sometimes better. At one instance FM traffic on my older Garmin warned me about a traffic on NJ turnpike while I was 60 miles away. It took took more than an hour for this incident to be reported through HD traffic on TomTom. The info came too late for the detour to be optimal and incorrect location of the traffic jam made suggested detour useless. On the other hand, when I approached NYC 40 minutes later, HD traffic worked flawlessly, while FM traffic for NYC area was not acquired until I was 10 minutes away from home and successful avoided the traffic using TomTom HD data. This is just to illustrate that there is no "best" traffic at the moment. Both FM and HD can be right or wrong. As I've said before, the only obvious advantage of HD traffic is no delay for available data to get to your device.
Other than using traffic data for navigation, Garmin offers two excellent ways to see traffic in your area or in different cities: you can view color-coded traffic map or list all traffic incidence by distance. TomTom kind of has the same options but compared to Garmin they are too painful to use to be useful. It's a matter of representation only. As for using traffic data for optimal route planning, TomTom is very good.
Other things: Garmin offers local event search for art, music and sport events + movie times + flight status. I actually thought that searching movie times on Garmin was faster than on a smartphone and I liked the flight status option.
Live services summary: TomTom has a bit smaller set of Live features, but those that are available are more user friendly and offer more options. Connection seems to be reliable, delays acceptable.
Now some generic comparison. As I've said, most of it should apply to all new units from TomTom and should be similar to what you might read in reviews for other units.
Screen: bright and clear 5''. Initially I was in favor of smaller screen sizes, but after using Nulink for a while became a big fun of bigger screens. This unit has pretty much the same form factor as 1695, but looks and feels better.
Same cable (with removable connector) is used to connect the unit to USB port or to an in-vehicle DC outlet. In contrast, Garmin requires a separate proprietary USB cable to connect the unit to a PC and requires dashboard mount to connect the unit to the charger. TomTom's dashboard mount is a bit more reliable, while Garmin's is somewhat easier to detach.
Touchscreen is good, but typing is sometimes painful. Garmin and Go 930 are a bit easier to use. It could be my personal thing as other users tend to like the touchscreen a lot, but I tend to make way more typos on TomTom 2535 than on any other touchscreen device I've ever used in my life.
Navigation and route planning: this is where TomTom rocks and Garmin so far was not able to catch up. Thanks to IQ routes the ETA is very accurate. On busy streets you need TomTom if you want to get an accurate estimate of the arrival time. On highways Garmin performs equally well or better.
I have my favorite test routes in NYC that include different boroughs and road types. Here is a sample result of TomTom vs Garmin comparison.
Route 1: Estimated TomTom 22 min, Garmin 20 min, Actual driving time 30 min all due to traffic lights)
Route 2: Estimated TomTom 15 min, Garmin 9 min, Actual driving time 16 min
Route 3: Estimated TomTom 31 min, Garmin 27 min, Actual driving time 50 min 12 minute of bridge traffic that both units didn't know about + 7 traffic lights.)
Route 4: Estimated TomTom 38 min, Garmin 28 min, Actual driving time 39 min
Route 5: Estimated TomTom 16 min, Garmin 12 min, Actual driving time 15 min
I care a lot about accurate estimated travel time because it is necessary to calculate an optimal route. This becomes critical in densely populated areas where there are multiple ways to get between two points. For example, looking at travel time estimates for route 3, one might decide to take Garmin's route because it's estimated to be 4 minutes faster. In fact, following Garmin's directions would make it a 60, rather than 50 minute journey since it underestimates the travel time.
Overall, as you can see, TomTom's time estimate is not perfect either, but in many cases it comes pretty close to perfection.
Route calculation is quite fast, but not quite the immediate recalculation TomTom initially promised. Recalculation is reasonably fast but by no means immediate. Can take 30 seconds or more on a 30-mile route if you missed a turn and keep driving in the wrong direction. This is usually not an issue and recalculation takes just a few seconds if you're not far away from home or if there are not too many roads in the neighborhood. This is still much better than what Garmin used to have with their version of IQroutes.
Map display in browse map mode I would say on par, meaning equally bad. If you own an older Garmin unit, like 2xx or 7xx series, you will have to suffer for a few weeks before you give up and accept the new look.
Map display in 3D mode (navigation) Garmin has more clear indication of the next turn. TomTom often shows a more realistic curvature so that you can use the map on the screen to anticipate a sharp curve at night or in law visibility.
Overall, I think I like Garmin's representation more, except when I'm on mountain roads.
Voice prompts a bit better on Garmin. Always right on time. You can't miss a turn if you listed to Garmin's voice prompts.
Voice recognition works quite well on 2535. Not available on Nulink. The only problems I have with TomTom's voice recognition is that I can't make it understand 4-digit house numbers and that response time is a bit slow and it usually takes a few seconds for it to prepare for voice recognition. One just has to acknowledge that user interface is slow on this unit and one needs to be patient.
Lane assist, junction views and arrows indicating next turn much better on Garmin.
Ease of use on par. Just a few examples: selecting a new state is painful on Garmin. Avoiding/non-avoiding tolls for a given route requires multiple clicks to get through the menus, while TomTom just has an option to ask whether you want to avoid if a toll road is on the route. Saving a new favourite location, viewing the name of the city your are in, browsing POI is much easier on garmin. In general, TomTom made a step forward from 930 to 2535. Similarly, Garmin made a huge step backward when it introduced 1xxx and all subsequent series. As a result, in terms of usability TomTom and Garmin are on average the same, but details vary, so you might want to choose what is important for you.
Avoid part of route: available on TomTom, not available on Nulink(but implemented in newer non-connected 24xx series of Garmin GPS). This is a very useful feature to have.
Map corrections: you can make basic map edits for yourself on TomTom, like changing direction on a 1-way street. With garmin you'll have to wait for at least 6 months for the change to be reflected in the map update.
If you look at the main image of 2535 that TomTom posted here on Amazon, you will see a screenshot where a vehicle is driving on Chambers st in Downtown Manhattan towards Broadway. Ironically, several months ago Chambers street has been made one-way in the opposite direction. This is where map corrections come very handy. And by now I spent like 40 minutes bumping into similar issues and correcting them on my device. On older units you would have "map share" feature that allow you to accept corrections submitted by other users even if not verified by TomTom. On 2535 however, map share and many other features are currently disabled. Essentially, they've taken out a feature that is available on older and cheaper units and for the last 8 months (since the release in Europe) promise to re-enable it. So far it costs me 40 minutes of my time and I expect there will be more. This is one of the factors that influenced my rating. Don't get me wrong, Garmin users don't even dream about anything similar, but TomTom had it on older units, so it's reasonable to expect it now.
POI search and categorization better on Garmin, might be frustrating to find the right category on TomTom.
Map update: free for tomtom, $80 lifetime for Garmin.
Now the downside for 2535: the response is sometimes sluggish. There is a visible delay between the moment you click and icon and the moment the screen changes. It might be less than a second, but enough to make you think that the UI is not fast enough. If browsing multi-page search results, moving to the next page might take a while, especially when a vehicle is in motion. Similarly, if you tried google local search and couldn't find what you were looking for, there might be a 10+ second freezing time after you hit "cancel".
Comparison with TomTom Go 930: I'm not sure that at this stage it makes sense to update from 930 to 2535, unless you really want google search. 2535 has an updated user interface, but also fewer customization options. For example, speed limit indicator turns red when you are driving +5 to speed limit. There is no way to modify this behavior on 2535. I don't see much improvement in route recalculation times either.
All you're getting is a fancier look and restricted capabilities. Not worth it.
Also, as you probably know, no map updates, no voices and no extras can be installed on 2535 at the moment. TomTom released European version more than 6 months ago saying that update functionality will be available in the future. 6 months later the future is still not there.
To summarize: esthetically I prefer Garmin, while TomTom offers superior navigation. You can be happy with Garmin away from big cities. In fact, on a trip to North Carolina Outerbanks I used my old Garmin (255W) more often becase of amazing ease of use and a slightly better ETA on highways. However, you need at least some TomTom device if you're going to drive on NYC streets.
I've rated TomTom 2535 as 3 stars for now. Mostly because of
sluggish response
no immediate route recalculation
no updates.
TomTom has a track record of making improvements with software updates. It's not impossible for this unit to get 4 or 5 starts from me in the not-too-distant future. Regardless of the starts, TomTom is the best in route planning and with connected traffic this device supposedly offers the best routes on the market.
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