TomTom XXL 550 user reviews

Pros Many Features

Cons A system navigation that is a nightmare. Options are hard to find and features are hard to control

Summary It?s worth mentioning that I virtually never write reviews. For me to do so I have to be either amazingly impressed or utterly disgusted. I purchased my Tomtom XXL at a local membership store. At first I was fairly impressed. I set it up in the parking lot, set my home location and said ?take me home.? It did so extremely well but then again I only live about five miles from there.
Here?s my gripe; the Tomtom has a lot of bells and whistles if you can figure out how to find/use them. Other things I felt should be on a $200+ device were not there. For instance the ability to save an itinerary to use again in the future is not available on this model. You can save destinations as favorites but that?s not the same thing. Half the time I would try to scroll the map and ended up accidently taking myself out of the view and into something else. With the map zoomed out to get a feel for the route I would constantly find I had accidently inserted a Via Point I didn?t want. Even if I had not selected Change Route, adding Via Points appears live at all times. Surely it would be easy enough to have an ?on/off? tap point for Via Points. When I spoke to their tech support they were very friendly but not much help. Comments like ?this was much easier to do on the old one? did not bathe me in waves of encouragement.
The PDF that was supposed to be for the product is actually for another model with ?similar? features. Trust me similar is a stretch. Other than for downloading updates the software interface for your PC is virtually worthless. Wouldn?t you think it would be nice to be able to plan a route on their route planner and download it to the device. Nice but you can?t do that. You can use their version of Mapquest which their own support told me is ?hit and miss.?
One of their support people, a very nice and helpful person, admitted to having hand drawn a navigation sheet so she would know where to find things on the device. If she has to do that what chance do we have? Finding where they have buried options is an exercise in sheer frustration. They have taken a device with many worthwhile features and made them a nightmare to use. Other abilities that should be there are missing altogether. They should scrap this and start over. I returned the Tomtom to the store and bought the Garmin 255W which was $100 cheaper. Admittedly it has way less feature than the Tomtom, but at least what it has is easy to use.

Pros BigScreen. Easy Navigation.

Cons I tried updating it two times with two different GPS and both the XXL550 TM's failed. Its very unfair and unprofessional from TOM TOM tha the TOMTOM home software does not work in conjunction with the device.

Summary I would not want to buy a product which is not good in support. Whats the use of getting lifetime map updates free, when it actually "does not work" in laymans term.

Pros Big, bright screen. Some good voices available (for a fee)., Very easy to operate, Accurate.

Cons Biggest problem is TomTom Home software. It causes catastrophic error that makes device un-useable. I returned first one, got replacement after 2 weeks, now same problem again. Support people are nice, try to help. But, a long wait to get through.

Summary Either wait until this is corrected (Maybe a long time?) or get a Garmin. If you already bought one... Don't connect to computer for update (Live with the maps that you have).