TomTom Go Live 750

The term “GPS” has been successfully assimilated into our collective consciousness more firmly than Charlie Sheen’s shenanigans. Even our grandparents are more than comfortable bandying the term about and indeed the devices themselves are becoming as common as cell phones. This brings me neatly onto TomTom, one of the most popular brands. Indeed it is fairly safe to say that the only brands you will really have heard of are TomTom and Garmin.

Recently I’ve had the opportunity to test out a couple of TomTom’s latest inventions over a few weeks. Firstly, the TomTom GO LIVE 750 and secondly the TomTom GPS software for the iPhone.

Now I actually own a TomTom product myself, one of the much older models now, the TomTom XL, which has put me in the perfect position to see if they have actually made any improvements or if it’s the same product merely repackaged in a pretty box with a bigger price tag. To start with, the general look and feel is one of a more solid and robust feel, mostly due to the mechanism with which you attach the device to your windshield. Previously, it came with this weedy little suction cup, which more often than not would fall into your lap at the least convenient moment. Now however it comes with an industrial powered clamp – and yes I do mean industrial, as our little game of “who can pull the clamp off the table” soon became really boring as we realized this was an impossible challenge. So top marks to TomTom for that and indeed the design in general.

But what about on a journey, how is it to use and can you rely on the directions plotted for you? Well to test this I went on a weekend trip to Kruger, which unfortunately brought up a few problems. Firstly the maps are not updated to what they should be and while you can update them by connecting to your PC and downloading the latest ones, I feel that on buying and particularly the launching of a product such as this, at the very least the maps could be up to date.

Now before you go thinking, oh well I’m probably just complaining over little nonexistent roads, hold your horses there. I’m talking about fairly major changes, like when driving through Nelspruit and the huge highway changes made to accommodate the new Football stadium at which point the GPS basically gives up and you’re left to fend for yourself.

Secondly is the voice command system. The idea is you press a button and speak a command, for example “navigate to”. The system should then ask you where you want to go with an appropriate response being something like “home”, which should then automatically take you to your preprogrammed destination.

This is great in theory, however in reality when in a car with tyre and wind noise I could not get it to recognize what I was saying even once. Indoors in a quiet environment it is much better, getting things right about 75% of the time, however this is pointless considering the only time you’ll ever want it is on the move. Now I know this is not that big of an issue, but why include a feature that just doesn’t work? To me this can only harm your product rather than improve it.

What I discovered in fact is that these new systems are designed for city driving. You see the key is in the word “LIVE” and it’s actually quite cunning. What it does is not only plan your route but also tell you what the traffic will be like on the way. This then means not only will you know about any delays along the way and therefore your real arrival time, but also throughout the duration of your journey it constantly checks for quicker routes and asks if you’d like to use the quicker one instead.

Now I have absolutely no idea how it works, some form of witchcraft satellite mixture probably, however what I do know is that it does in fact work and work rather well. I tested a number of times to see if the traffic delays were accurate and also if the quicker routes were in fact quicker and it got it right every single time. I also tested it against my current GPS, with which my favorite game is to see how much time I can shave off the original destination time. Now my current GPS I can always beat, however this new one is just astonishing. Every time no matter what I did it was always bang on target of its original predicted time, which got a bit spooky frankly.

Now as I mentioned in the beginning the GO 750 Live wasn’t the only product from TomTom I tested. The other was the TomTom app for the iPhone. Now this was significantly more basic than the dedicated GPS unit and did not have any of the fancy LIVE functionality. However I found the menus easy to navigate and understand and the cradle to attach your phone to the windscreen works well, especially as it allows you to have the phone upright or swivel it onto its side.

My two complaints with all of this however is that firstly the buttons to back to the previous menu are way to small making them impossibly fiddly to use on the go and infuriating if you make a mistake. Secondly that the cradle for the phone is incredibly cumbersome and takes up a large portion of your windscreen when compared to a conventional unit.

Now comes the big question. Would I actually spend money on either of these products? Well personally I like things to have a dedicated purpose. So while the iPhone option is very clever and works perfectly well, I just really prefer using a proper GPS. But if you’ve gone and spent the absurd amount of money needed to own an iPhone, don’t have a GPS of your own yet and are a huge Apple aficionado, then yes this is a serious option for you.

As for the GO 750 Live, well in the beginning I thought it was silly and certainly not worth the extra money. However after spending time with it, you begin to see that where it counts is in the detail. All those little extras, not to mention the amazing Live functionality, means that if I was to look at a getting a new GPS I’d actually have to try and persuade myself not to get this.

Pricing (Recommended)

GO 750 LIVE: R3199.00

TomTom App: R500.00

iPhone Cradle (with Bluetooth and Built in Microphone): R1100.00

Nick Hodgson