Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1863 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: TomTom
• Model: 1CF7.011.00
• Released on: 2008-11-17
• Dimensions: .49 pounds

Features

• TomTom LIVE Services - HD Traffic, Safety Camera Alerts, Real Time Fuel Prices, Local Search with Google, TomTom Weather, TomTom QuickGPSfix
• Voice Command & Control
• Hands-free Calling
• IQ Routes, the smartest route any time of the day
• Advanced Lane Guidance, for navigating difficult junctions
• Active Dock
• Maps of UK & ROI and Europe (32 Countries)

Manufacturer's Description

TomTom LIVE services

The latest innovation from TomTom helps you drive smarter with a live connection to the most up-to-date real time route information. With TomTom LIVE services you are always connected to real time information, with premium services such as High Definition Traffic, up-to-date mobile safety cameras locations, local search with Google and Live fuel prices. This means you will always have access to the latest information on route.

This service is available as a FREE trial for the first 3 months, with the choice to continue on as a subscription at £7.99 per month.

TomTom is powered by Tele Atlas Quality Maps
Tele Atlas is a leading worldwide map data provider for personal navigation solutions. In a rapidly expanding industry and changing world, Tele Atlas continuously produces rich, fresh and accurate quality maps. Tele Atlas brand promise: find more, reflects how we see a world where people do not just want to move from A to B, but want to find interesting things and places on the way: restaurants, hotels, petrol stations, museums and so on. It's not about just guiding users to destinations but also helping them easily find the people, places and products that interest them the most.

Box Contents

• TomTom Go 740 Live satellite navigation system
• Active dock
• Car charger
• Docking station
• CD ROM
• Documentation

Customer Reviews

Very good product, but some flaws
I bought the device in December, and have been happy with it so far. This device is the first of its kind connected on the move, and gives us some taster of the functionality to come onboard cars.

However, there are a few flaws, which will hopefully be fixed by a software update:

Pros:

- Very nice, slim device
- Quite responsive and fast to calculate routes
- Very easy to read maps, clear instruction. Nice lane guidance.
- Computer voice (not pre-recorded messages) is quite impressive, and can read destinations, SMS messages received etc
- Very powerful, sturdy suction device, to use on windscreen. It's actually quite hard to remove.
- Fuel price search seems to work well. I was on the M1 in December, and saved 10p per litre by going to a service station off the motorway, only a few miles away. Tomtom's marketing is clever, claiming that the subscription (£7.99) will pay itself off by just using the fuel price capability (probably only true for people doing a lot of motorway driving).
- Voice recognition is not bad, and device can understand the driver even when there is background noise (radio)
- Hands-free capability with bluetooth link to mobile phone also works fine, and callers seem to get a good sound
- Device GPS reception is very sensitive (works even indoor, away from a window) and very fast (usually, full reception within 5 seconds)
- Tomtom home software is user friendly, and many additional items can be loaded on the device (new POIs, voices, pictures etc)
- it is possible to use the device out of the box (even the live functionality), without registering or connecting to a computer first

Cons:

- For some yet unknown reasons, the device does not want to navigate to/from a few locations, which are business parks for instance. Tomtom support advised to manually wipe and update the software, but it didn't resolve the issue
- Sometimes, if the device can't get a mobile phone signal when starting, or cannot connect to Tomtom's server, it does not try again until restarted. Happened to me several times, and the device would not reconnect, even after an hour. Device had to be stopped and restarted
- I got a few times some warnings about subscriptions being out of date (not the case). Had to reset device.
- Resuls from Google local search are uneven, pretty useless sometimes. Often, the result list would just show the same names several times, without location information. Searching for some store chain names would return their headquarters or offices.
- Device can adjust screen brightness automatically based on a lighting conditions. However, this not smooth, and done by quite visible steps
- Voice sometimes stops reading. For instance, when receiving a text message, the voice would start reading it, then would be disrupted by traffic instructions, and would not resume the previous task automatically
- Once on a motorway, the device advised on some traffic ahead and made me leave the motorway...just to come back on it again. Since the device does not advise on the new route or changes, it's hard to know if those are genuine/justified
- For two days, device indicated the M4 motorway from junction 1 to 3 was closed, which was not the case at all. I lost 45 minutes the first day following the device route, while the motorway was perfectly fine. Tomtom support had no justification for this, but similar issues will mean people losing trust in the HD traffic information.
- So far, the device appears to have been good at detecting traffic, even on small roads, but much less good at providing new routes to avoid traffic
- In order to give the device audio instructions (voice recognition), there is a need first to click on an icon on screen. Sorts of defeats the point of controlling the device without touching it. It works better when it prompts user for some decisions, such as rerouting due to traffic ahead
- Fixed cameras cannot be updated wirelessly (only when connected to a PC). Same applies for map share corrections. Mobile cameras are updated on the move.
- Device does not understand some roads are only open specific hours each day. For instance, Richmond Park is closed at night, but the device would try to go through it anytime.
- Tomtom does not have a mobile roaming agreement abroad, so the device will only work offline outside of the UK
- Tomtom had a promotion for a £40 fuel card in December, but they made it quite complex for people to redeem
- There isn't much in the box for the high, premium price. No case or even pouch for instance, no proper user manual
- Device is sold in the USA for roughly the same price, but includes the first year of subscription (only 3 months in the UK)

Overall, there are indeed some glitches, but surely those could be fixed by Tomtom in an upcoming software update.

Also, it would be good to extend the information available on the move: for instance, display stores opening times, cinema movie times, news alerts, weather alerts, Tomtom software updates available (along with list of new features), or other information useful on the move.

Very impressed and don't believe everything you read!
I've had the 740 for a week and have been really impressed. It does everything you would expect plus a little more. One reviewer on here has a few fundamental facts wrong, so I thought I'd correct them. The 740 connected seamlessly with my mac (I can even connect my iPhone 3G via bluetooth which surprised me!) also the LIVE services are not £7.99 each but a flat fee for all the services "...users can register for a monthly, flat-fee subscription of £7.99 with no hidden costs, so they can continue to receive all LIVE Services directly to their device". I used the cheapest petrol facility yesterday and via a very minor detour (1-2 mins) I found petrol that was 5p per litre cheaper saving me £2.50 on a fill up! The voice activated search works really well and means you can concentrate on the road. I've already used the Google search facility a few times and it came up with the goods (including giving details of the search and a phone number). The HD traffic works although not entirely accurate (having said that it has already saved me time). Overall Superb and would highly recommend.

Go 740 Live
Having previously owned a 500 series TomTom, I was expecting great things from the new live service models. My wife bought me the 740 for Christmas but I'm unimpressed. My principal gripe is the HD Traffic Service which has, so far, failed to warn me of a number of major problems, including the recent closure of the M25 in both directions. Even though the motorway had been closed for several hours, the device was keen to route me straight into the problem. This is currently under investigation by TomTom.

Apart from this, I was peeved to note the lack of a charger. I took my 510 to Austria last year and it gave good service, being plugged into the mains via an adaptor as needed. Now, with the 740, I need to lug a PC or Mac about with me too so I can charge it off a USB port. Also, the screen seems much harder to tap than my old model. The screen sucker is fine but needs the stregth of a gorilla to detach it after use. Battery life is also poor compared to the old model and, when it gives out, there's no warning - the device simply turns itself off!

Plus points (yes, there are a few) are the enhanced lane guidance at M-way junctions and the reduced thickness of the device - you really can now pop the thing into your pocket.