TomTom really have the market sussed (TomTom Go 520)

Member Name: Great_reviewer07

Product:	TomTom Go 520
Date:	17/01/09 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great customisation features, big clear screen, easy to use

Disadvantages: Battery life, no wall charger included

I bought this sat nav just over a year ago, I got it from Halfords for £199.99 which yes is very expensive but I had always wanted one of these & had been told that they were very good, better than all the other sat nav makes. They were right & I'm still glad I bought it. I've noticed recently that the prices haven't really changed much, I've just looked this up at play.com & it will cost you £219.99 which is outrageous considering I bought this over a year ago for £20 less. I would normally expect them to be about £120 now. However when purchased from play.com it does come with a £10 iTunes voucher & an iPod cable. So considering the prices of those it would probably cost you around the £200 mark if bought on it's own. I think it's strange to include an iPod voucher & cable with a sat nav but I'm not here to review the voucher & cable I'm here to review the actual sat nav!

Anyway, back to business. I was very excited to get this home to set it up & also used to CD-ROM that came with it, however this is not absolutely necessary. The disc is mainly for downloading things like new voices like Michael Caine or John Cleese which although are nice accessories they're not mandatory & at £5 per voice download I think a lot of people will be avoiding them. The disc can also be used for downloading new map versions, these will indicate all new shops & speed cameras.

One of the things that really stood out for me about this sat nav is that you don't necessarily have to have it in the car with you, you can take it on foot. I have never seen anyone walking around town following directions from their sat nav but it's a nice thing to have there in case you really need it & also I believe you can attach headphones to it so not to attract attention to yourself with the spoken instructions!

This versions of the TomTom includes the latest maps of the UK & Ireland. You can get some TomTom's which have maps of Europe in them, but as I'm not planning on road trip around Europe anytime soon I went for the UK & Ireland version. Another big factor on choosing this one was the fact that the Europe edition was £80 more expensive at the time & after checking just now I noticed they haven't changed in price as I presumed they would have done either.

The TomTom Go 520 has a 4.3" touch screen, this is bigger than a lot of the competition brands of sat nav & one more reason I went for the TomTom. The touch screen is very easy to use & extremely responsive. You don't need one of those special pens like I've seen with other sat navs, you can simply do this with your fingers & is a lot easier for it. The screen is extremely clear & the layout is very simple & easy to master. When you turn on the sat nav for the first time it will ask you if you would like an introduction to all the features, I tend to skip these kinds of things & I prefer to just get to grips with it myself. It will ask you to input your address, this is not essential but is good to have it stored as if you have used to get somewhere you can simply click on home & it will give you directions to your front door... simple!

A nice feature included with this sat nav is the Bluetooth connectivity. You can connect it to your phone when you are one the move & will work as a speaker phone, displaying all calls & incoming texts up on the screen & of course you can either use your phone or the sat nav screen to answer incoming calls. It will even read out texts for you, this is optional though, you can either decide for it to inform you that you have a text & ask if you would like to read aloud or it can be read automatically. I prefer to choose at the time whether to have them read aloud or not as you never know who's going to be in the car with you at the time! The Bluetooth device on the sat nav is extremely easy to set up, my only problem with it is that it can take a while to connect to your phone. My TomTom sometimes stops at 40% for about 20 seconds or so then connects up within about a minute or so or sometimes when it stops at 40% it says connection failed, try again? Which can be very frustrating.

A great feature with this sat nav is the voice recognition it comes with, this is especially great if you are driving at the time of operating this & saves you from taking your eyes off the road. It recognises your voice with great precision although it is a good tip to have the radio off & windows shut to avoid interference. You will need to speak quite slowly & clearly when using this device but that goes without saying!

This device stores in all your previous destinations for ease of use. You can find them by simply pressing the screen when you are on the map screen this will then take you to the main menu where you will see the options; Navigate to, find alternative, help me, mobile phone & change preferences. There are more options if you click the arrow on the right of the screen but to find your previous destination you simply press navigate to & then recent destination. You then simply scroll down the list to find the one you're looking for.

Inputting address couldn't be more simple. You click on the screen when you're viewing the map, press navigate to then press address. On this screen you have options like city centre, spoke address, postcode, crossing or intersection or street & house number. I mainly use the street & house number feature & occasionally the postcode feature. The spoken address is good but of course not everyone's cup of tea & some people will prefer to do it the old fashioned way.

I love the fact that if you have a memory card with your phone you can put it in your sat nav & you can view photos, videos & listen to music, this is extremely easy to do & you will find the memory card adapter at the bottom of the device next to the charging port.

The customisation of this sat nav is brilliant & I was very impressed when I first came across it as I didn't know it was included. There are lots of things you can change to match your preference. To do this you simply click on the screen when on the map, press change preferences & there you can change everything from the colour of the map (you can also have night colours to make it more visible in the night, this also stops it reflecting on the windscreen so much which is a great feature, you can show points of interest like petrol stations, garages, restaurants. You can change the voice preferences or you can turn off the sound altogether. I would only recommend this if you have someone in the car with you to tell you the directions as it can be a pain & also extremely dangerous to keep taking your eyes off the road to look at the device. One of my favourite customisable feature is that you can change your symbol that shows where you are, you can have arrows, motorbikes & lots of different cars which is a great touch.

The battery life isn't that great. I like to use it without the cable plugged into my cigarette lighter although I always have it with me just in case. The battery will only hold out for about 2 hours, which I suppose isn't bad but if you're on a long journey isn't great either & you will have to pull over to put in the cable to charge it unless of course there's someone else in the car to do that for you.

Another thing that bugged me a little bit about this device is that it doesn't come with a wall charger, it comes with the usb adapter which charges it & of course the car charger but I had to go back to Halfords on the same day to buy a wall charger for it which set me back another £20 which is extremely expensive just for a charger.

Overall I think this sat nav is excellent, the features are great. The spoken instructions are very easy to follow, the maps are very clear & the address input is extremely easy to do whichever way you choose to do it the only thing that brings this down a little but in my estimation is the battery life, although as long as you always have the cable with you, you will not have a problem & this is only a problem on very long journeys anyway.

Summary: Get this & you will never get lost again!