TomTom 1EN5.019.00 TomTom VIA 1505 5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

Buy online TomTom VIA 1505 5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

Excellent price makes up for some inadequaciesBy J. YorkMy wife has been harping me for a GPS in her car for some time. After a recent stint in a loaner car equipped with a factory GPS, I began searching in earnest for a good GPS to fill the need. I originally was looking at the Garmin Nuvi line but some of reviews commented on "commercials" appearing when the driver is stopped and I was totally unwilling to pay top dollar for a GPS just for the privilege of stairing at advertisements. When I saw the new GO and VIA lines from TomTom I decided to take a closer look.I ended up picking up both a GO2535TM and a VIA1505. The GO model is more of a "top of the line" model compared to the mid-grade VIA1505. I'll talk about some of the differences below but first let me give a brief summary of my findings with the 1505:Pros:Very affordable.Very fast re-routing.Very large screen.Very thin/svelte.Really helpful intersection detail screens pop up when going through a route.No problem with polarized sunglasses.Cons:Screen washes out badly in the Texas sun.Battery life is less than 90 minutes.Suction cup mount is permanently attached.Speed limit data is often inaccurate.User interface is kind of slow.MyTomTom service is barely beta quality.Very slow acquisition of GPS signal (> 90 seconds)FORM FACTORThe VIA1505 is a very svelte GPS with a large screen. It's so thin and light (with such a big screen) that you can't help but recognize it features the very latest technologies. The price of the VIA1505 is low enough that I am willing to forgive many of the flaws I'm about to describe.MYTOMTOM SOFTWAREThe first thing I will comment about is the MyTomTom application that one uses to perform all firmware and map updates. TomTom is kind enough to provide an initial free map update for the VIA1505 through the MyTomTom application. I installed the MyTomTom app on both a Macintosh and a Windows 7 system. The UI was similar on both computers and I didn't detect any difference in the quality or features. The application had an annoying tendancy to keep launching even though I had changed the setting to tell it not to launch each time I turned on my computer. That is the first of many bugs. I initially activated my TomTom GO2535TM. This went smoothly however it did not find any map updates. I then tried to add the VIA1505 to my account but I received a very cryptic error "something has gone wrong". I'm serious, that was the error message. I googled but could not find anything. I tried about a dozen times and continued to get this error. I tried on both the Mac and Windows and continued to get the error. Finally I thought "maybe I need to create a separate login on MyTomTom for the second GPS?". Upon creating a second login on the TomTom website, the VIA1505 linked without error and proceeded to download firmware and map updates. Of course, this leads me to wonder why my GO2535TM is not seeing map updates!SCREENI took the GPS out to my car to go for a spin. I ... »» Read more about TomTom VIA 1505 5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator.

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