TomTom Via LIVE 120 4.3″ Sat Nav with UK and Ireland Maps

Good hardware, beware of TomTom Home, 9 Aug 2009

By 

Michael Evans (London, UK) –

  

I got this because it did everything I wanted, had LIVE but wasn’t as expensive as the Go models. Turned it on, found GPS very quickly and downloaded traffic updates brilliantly.

Then I did what was asked and tried to update the maps and the firmware with TomTom HOME….I have a Vista machine and it all went fine, said that it had downloaded all of the updates and latest map and then on rebooting it froze at startup, therefore making the satnav a complete brick.

I did everything TomTom support told me to do but to no avail at all. I was on the verge of sending it back as faulty when I happened to find an article which said that if you use a wireless connection for your internet, TomTom HOME has real problems updating the satnav and doesn’t do it properly and therefore, you should use a wired connection to update.

I did this and, hey presto, it is working again as before.

The moral of the story….the unit is great, but TomTom HOME is awful and to avoid any problems make sure you update only with a wired connection. Hopefully TomTom will look into this and ensure that it doesn’t occur in the future because it has the potential to ruin people’s experience with what is a fantastic piece of kit.

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 Comments (11)

Promising but lacking, 8 Feb 2011

By 

K. Taylor “Keith” (United Kingdom) –

  

I purchased the Tomtom Via 120 EU after owning a Tomtom One (the origonal)for 6 years.
I drive for a living and use my satnav every day, this unit had everything I could want including voice activation.
I was certainly impressed with the unit when I got it home and soon had it up and running…..BUT, I soon noticed that it did not plan routes anything like as quick as my old TT One.
Undaunted I used it the very next day and planned my 1st delivery trip, it loaded the route eventually and informed me of delays on route which turned out to be very accurate, I found the live traffic feature very good.
Not so good when I came across a turn I could not go down, so I set the unit to roadblock 100 yds and it re-calculated…….after 30 seconds it finally sorted a new route…..terrible, my old TT One took about 5 seconds.
I tried this several times to see if it was just a blip, no, it takes ages to recalculate, I was not impressed.
I then found it froze when I decided to ignore the direction it gave me…I was getting fed up.
Add to that, 1hour 43 minutes battery life compared to 4 hours from the TT One was really making me doubt my purchase.
Tried it on day 2, same results so I have returned it and will be using my old trusty TT One for a while longer.
If you are someone who uses a satnav on the odd occasion then this device is hard to beat with all of its features for the price.
If you are a professional driver driving a vehicle where it is limited by weight limits and height restrictions and the need for quick re-calculation is needed, forget the Via 120, you will be tearing your hair out waiting for it to re-calculate.
Also, no itinery routing available, delivery drivers use this facility a lot to enter multiple delivery addresses and can then calculate the total distance and time it will take, a very poor effort fromm Tomtom imo.
All the features work well, Bluetooth, Traffic warnings, voice control, Google search.
Its a pity the most important things like screen response and route planning take so long.
Very dissapointing Tomtom, I was hoping that after 6 years on from my 1st and still only satnav things would have moved on, not gone backwards.

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