I bought TomTom XXL 540S a few weeks ago. This GPS is the big brother to the TomTom XL 340th This GPS is just bigger and brighter 5 "screen.
I have very mixed feelings about the GPS. There are many things I think about it, but there are so many small details and features that are missing on that TomTom has either chosen not to work or decided to exclude. These little things missing drive me crazy sometimes, and I do not know if I can keep them or not. I may consider returning this GPS and have either a Garmin or Magellan instead. I do not know yet. I really hope TomTom begin to address some of these issues.
Some of my advantages versus disadvantages under which I hope will help others trying to decide on a GPS.
Advantages:
+ IQ Routes (TomTom uses historical trails speed data based on time of day and day of week, so it can give you the best possible route)
+ Big 5 "screen that is easy to see.
+ Very speakers. (Optional volume settings to assign volume to your car's speed if you want)
+ Satellite acquition is fast (less than 10 seconds for me). Shows usually about 9 satellites.
+ Card color may change.
+ Can change the color of the car icon in the 3D mode
+ Automatic day / night mode, change the brightness and color.
+ Ability to prepare a route with a departure and destination coordinates.
+ Displays the current street your on the bottom of the screen and the next street to turn in the upper right corner.
+ Advanced lane on the highway looks very nice. Shows an arrow with lane you need to be in, and sometimes shows a 3D character for your exit. It's nice and big, and it stays on screen long enough to be seen, so it is easy to see where to go.
+ The status bar can be adjusted to how you like it. It can be displayed either horizontally or vertically. Can display the remaining time, remaining distance, current time, arrival time, your speed and the speed limit, distance to your next trip, compass, ect.
+ TTS (text to speech) instructions are very useful in letting you know where to go, and also prepare yourself for your next trip also. For example, it will say something like, "After a qurter mil turn right." So when you get closer to the street, it will say "Turn right Main St. then second left"
Cons:
- POI (Points of Interest) maps the screen displays the POI name, street and cross street, phone, city and state. But there is no address! So you do not know address, or which side of the street the POI is on, unless you call well in advance and ask. All you get is a checkered flag in the middle of the street with TomTom said "you've reached your final destination." The Go model POI map screen has a "Details" button that shows the address, zip code, and food kitchens write, for example. Why TomTom decided to remove it on this model, I have no idea.
- No Auto Zoom enable / disable option (as Go-model). You can manually zoom in or out on the card, but about 5 seconds later Autozoom will kick in and take you back to what TomTom want you to see. Its very frustrating, because I like to zoom in and out sometimes, so I can see more map detail, but TomTom will not allow me to for longer than about 5 sec. When I turn on my gps zoom level that TomTom has taken, is so bad that most everyone on the street contours around me disappeared from the screen. All I see is a bunch of street names just float around the map with no streets shown.
- Do not tell, which side of the street your destination is on. (If you enter an address to a destination, but it shows a little arrow on the map pointing to the left or right side of the street as you approach your destination. Together with a small checkered flags on the side of the street your destination is on.)
- Change the screen is 6 pages deep and has only one button to go forward to the next page. There is no back button. So if you happen to say, went past the screen that you would like to be if you have to press the button 5 times just to get back to that page.
- No easy way to get into the Display as text resume lists the screen from the main screen.
- Scroll text route instructions, text and arrows to rotate the list is just way to small. Similarly, there are no auto scroll feature. To see the next page in the new upcoming turns you have to scroll down the list manually yourself.
- POI map screen in Night mode shows intersections text in black, which is very hard to see unless you get very close to the screen.
- 3D function during the day the cards light background is not consistent across the screen. There are visible lines across the screen where you can see the different brightness steps. Towards the bottom of the card its the easiest and then as you pan up on the screen will darken.
- Can not enter the street name until you enter the city. Its bad news if you know the street, but unsure of the city. You can find the street in a city near you or near the city you have written (if it was wrong).
- TTS (text to speech) in multi-word street names sometimes sound distorted.
- TTS pronounce certain words and streets pretty bad.
- Can not change the color of the car icon in the 2D mode.
- Can not find a kitchen type.
- No MicroSD memory card slot for expansion. The room is pretty tight, with only 2 GB of internal flash memory. After all the votes, except for computer voting Susan and remove most of the car symbols. I still only have 105 MB of free space left.
- Only supports USB 1.1 transfers. So when you install the card or carry back its very slow.
Other Info: GPS chipset on my GL2 was a BCM4750 (Global Locate 2), CPU speed 266 MHz. 64 MB of RAM.
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