TomTom GO 730

TomTom continues to show weak support for the US market with its software that touts fantastic features that are not available in this country, which is a constant reminder of the wasted potential of this device. The interface is mostly usable, with big buttons to click on using the touch screen. The TomTom Home software is miserable, coming up with weird errors and an inability to perform anything but the most basic tasks. Additionally, the battery is weak and loses its ability to hold its charge quickly. Finally, the extra features - MP3 playback, bluetooth phone connections, etc., barely work even when you get them configured correctly. Not worth the price.

I bought a TomTom 730 about a month ago for a week-long road trip from the San Francisco bay area to the Los Angeles area. I relied on it completely, and it never failed. The routes seemed strange sometimes, but they always worked. The good: * The interface is easy to use after getting to know it a bit. It was easy to learn. * The screen looks great, and the touchscreen is easy to use. * For complicated freeway interchanges (which LA is famous for), the 730 shows a graphic with which lane(s) you need to be in. Extremely helpful. * The voice prompts are very useful (i.e. "turn left in 200 yards, then keep right"). * There are a ton of useful POI files you can download from TomTom and other places depending on what you are interested in. For instance, all state parks, or Costco locations, or campsites, or ATMs. * The 730 is very customizable, although it requires digging through some menus. It's not something you want to do on the go. * If you get stuck in traffic, it notices y... Read more

Overall this is one of the best GPS units available. Positives: It's very quick to establish the initial satellite connection and even quicker to calculate routes or re-routs. This is critical to any driver who makes a wrong turn on a complicated intersection and needs to be bailed out quickly. In a city the slow GPS would force you to stop and wait until the new route is calculated. With TomTom, the new route will be ready before you reach the next intersection and it will allow you to correct your mistake easily. I also like the bluetooth phone integration provided by TomTom. It not only gives you basic hands-free calling while in a car but also loads the entire phone book into unit to make calls using touchscreen UI and allows to call thousands and thousands of POIs (Points of Interest) that are already preloaded into the unit with the US map. This is very handy when you travel in new place and want to find a nearby hotel and call them to make a reservation all while you are driv... Read more

4.0 out of 5 stars One problem, November 24, 2008 By radman "radman2020" (USA) - See all my reviews I have the 720. The 730 has only minor improvements once you update the 720...so I thought I would tell about one feature that is a problem... Maybe TomTom will fix this if they see that it drives away (no pun intended) potential customers. The features and operation of the TomTom Go series are amazing... I think they are much better than Garmin or my built in volvo navtek system EXCEPT FOR ONE IMPORTANT FEATURE: You can't search with a street address (and state) only. You MUST have the town name or you won't get a result. This is a problem in suburbs where every mile or so, there is a different town name...names that even the people that live there don't know because they go by the Metro area name. If you don't know the name of that small suburb, you are stuck. All the other makers allow you to put in the state and street name and then let you pick from a list of results from ... Read more

The directions, ease of use and excellent routing give this product 3 stars. The reason for not having 5 is the occasional need for a paper-clip hard reset. The unit will lockup from time-to-time, we will lose voice routing or sometimes not shut-off all leading to a hard reset. Maybe we got a bad battery, but brand new the battery never works more then 30 minutes. Also voice at the loudest setting will not work on battery.