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TomTom Go 930 GPS review
Promises a lot but sadly flawed in
execution
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One of the distinctive features of the TomTom Go 930 is
its extra graphical help guiding you through freeway interchanges and
exits.
But - alas - this feature is limited and sometimes
unhelpful. Part
of our series on GPS - additional articles to be
published in coming weeks - see links on the right. |
The TomTom Go 930 is an
attractive unit, but there's little to like about it, and it
disappoints in just about every one of the so called premium
features it offers in return for its high asking price.
Not recommended.
The TomTom Go 930
GPS -
What You Get
Tomtom's Go 930 comes in a
cardboard box with a reasonable range of accessories and extras.
There is, of course, the
unit itself. Equally predictable is the presence of a car
cigarette lighter power adapter and a windshield mount adapter.
There is also a USB cord to connect the Go 930 to a computer;
one end is a regular USB plug (to connect to your computer) and
the other end terminates in a desktop cradle into which you can
plug your GPS.
An adhesive disk allows the
windshield mount to be used in other locations (like the dash
board).
The unit comes with a remote
control and the two AAA batteries needed to operate it.
A CD-rom and documentation
complete the contents of the package. The documentation
comprises a three language Quick Start user manual (English,
French and Spanish), an installation poster, a license sheet and
a promotional booklet. The CD-rom has a copy of the
complete manual on it as well as software for managing your unit
from your PC.
As always, the first thing
you should do upon receiving the unit is to connect it to the
internet and download all the latest updates, and also download
a new copy of the manual. The CD-rom's manual was out of
date with some errors in it that were only resolved after
downloading a new manual from TomTom's website.
The Go 930 has a one year
limited and non-transferable warranty. I'm not sure what
its list price is, because for reasons best known to itself, the
TomTom website insists on pricing the unit only in pounds
sterling (£400 or about $720). However, it is available at
Amazon.com for $400.
Using the Unit
In theory, I should love
this unit, because it appears to offer an enormously greater
range of options and features than any other unit I've yet
encountered - for example, there are an impressive 40 different
sub-categories within its Configuration menu.
But I found myself never
comfortable with the Go 930, and never found it easy to get it
to do what I wanted. And those 40 different options on the
configuration menu get successively more and more buried - it
can take up to ten key strokes/menu choices to get to some of
the furtherest away options. How unfriendly and difficult
is that if you're driving down the freeway and wishing to change
something on the unit at the same time?
Annoyingly, if
you're on one of the later screens of options and make a change, many times
the unit doesn't return to the configuration page but instead
goes all the way back to the home screen, requiring as many as
another ten screen taps to bring you back to where you were.
Sometimes you're taken back a level to the previous menu,
sometimes you're taken all the way back to the navigation
screen, so you never really know what to expect.
There is an option to
restrict the number of options you have available to you by
hiding some of the less frequently used options, but Murphy's
Law tends to suggest that if you do that, then the thing you
most want to do is hidden, and you either forget about its
existence and don't realize the unit can do that thing, or can't
work out how to unhide the feature or where it is/was.
The interface isn't
intuitive, and things you'd expect the unit to do (and which
most other units do) are not present. For example, with
just about every other GPS I've tested, if you touch the map
screen then drag your finger along, this drags the map with your
finger. Not so with the TomTom unit. Scrolling
around on the map to get a better feeling of where you are and
what is ahead is a difficult thing that I never managed to
master.
Even more disappointing was
that the special extra features which had made this unit appear
so promising and full of potential ended up being non-events.
IQ Routes Feature
Perhaps the most exciting
feature offered by this unit is what they call their 'IQ Routes
Feature'. In theory this adjusts the unit's decision about
how to route you where you are going based on historical traffic
patterns accumulated over the last however many months and
years.
This means that the unit
'knows' - just like you know, as an experienced local driver -
which routes get congested and when. You know that some
times of day, some freeways in some directions are parking lots,
while at other times of day they may be wide open, and you sort
of know how to adjust your driving route to reflect these
things.
That is the theory of the IQ
Routes. But, alas, the reality is a far cry fro the
theory. But first, let's consider one more bit of theory.
Say you live in a bedroom suburb and, like all your neighbors,
you commute into the city center each morning to work, and home
again each evening. This means that the traffic going in
to town in the morning is bad, while the reverse commute is
light, and when you come home, the opposite is the case, right?
This underscores a key part
of the IQ Routes concept. It needs to be sensitive to what
time of day you are traveling. Traffic patterns are
totally different for the morning commute than for the afternoon
commute.
Now for the problem in the
reality. The IQ Routes makes no differentiation for
different times of day! Although the publicity proudly
boasts of having over 6.2 billion road miles of data to use,
somehow TomTom blends together the entire day's traffic
patterns, and then merges them into an average which, while an
exact average, never ever matches the actual reality of the
traffic flows.
This makes the IQ Routes
feature worse than useless. It truly is worse than useless
because the data it gives is more likely to be wrong than right,
causing you to potentially make bad decisions rather than good
decisions.
Other Problems and Limitations
Data Access Problem
In addition to the historic
routing information, the Go 930 also offers real time traffic
data, but to get that you need to pay a monthly subscription and
you need a data receiver to get the information.
The good news is that you
can save yourself the cost of the $100+ data receiver if you
connect the Go 930, via Bluetooth, to your cell phone and use
your cell phone's data service to access the traffic information
through the internet.
The bad news is that almost
no phones are supported to give you this capability. Do
you have a Blackberry? Unless it is an 8100, it won't
work. Do you have a new iPhone? Sorry, neither the
original nor the new 3G iPhone will work. And so on.
The even worse news is that
if you do miraculously have one of the few phones that is
supported by the Go 930, while it is connected and sending data,
you can't use the phone for voice calls. No incoming calls
will be accepted and no outgoing calls can be placed.
Oooops.
Computer Access Problem
A clever feature of the unit
is the ability to download and share corrections and updates to
the map data loaded inside it. This is a great concept,
and is actively used - it seems that over one thousand map
corrections are released each week.
This information is
downloaded by connecting the Go 930 via USB cable to your
computer, and then using a program to access TomTom's site and
send the information on to the Go 930. The program is
reasonably simple and easy to use, making the process close to
automatic.
But. At least half the
time, when I connected my unit to my computer, some sort of
program bug would disable my computer's internet access, and the
entire computer would stop communicating with the internet.
This required the computer to be rebooted - indeed, on at least
one occasion, a warm reboot was insufficient, and I had to
physically power the machine off then restart it from scratch.
Yuck.
When I tried to get some
support and problem resolution from TomTom's support people, the
person I was speaking with first of all failed to understand the
problem, then (clearly reading from a script) said that their
software would only work if all firewalls, anti-virus and
anti-spyware programs were first disabled!
Get real, TomTom!
Completely disabling all of the computer protection features
that is absolutely essential, even for five minutes, is an
unacceptable risk in today's dangerous computing world (to say
nothing of the risk that you'll forget to restart those features
again when you've finished your TomTom connection.
But even causing one's
computer to be totally naked and exposed in the hostile world of
the raw internet, my problem is not solved. The support
people had no further suggestions to offer.
TomTom earns itself another
failing grade for this 'feature'.
Lane Guidance
It can be difficult to know
which lane to get into when preparing to take an offramp on a
freeway - particularly when traffic is a bit congested, you
don't want to find yourself way over in the left lane and having
to suddenly move across three or four lanes.
The lane guidance feature of
the Go 930 is touted as solving this problem - clearly telling
you which lane you need to get into, and even showing stylized
pictures of what the road ahead of you looks like. Sounds
good, yes?
Again, there is a but.
The first part of the but is
that this information isn't offered until you are within half a
mile of the exit. That's too late if traffic is tightly
packed and you're way over on the wrong side. And that can
happen - made worse by the TomTom first telling you 'keep left'
and then a couple of seconds later, showing you a diagram that
requires you to move way over to the right within the next half
mile. Why can't the unit say, when you're approaching your
exit, instead of 'keep to the left', perhaps 'keep to the
middle'.
And the much touted pictures
of exits - not only are they heavily stylized (ie not exactly
what you see out the windshield) but they almost never ever
appear. Another non-feature for most of the time.
Still more problems and
limitations
The Go 930 boasts the
ability to accept voice commands for address entry. But
not only does it have a patchy ability to recognize words, it
only accepts limited commands, meaning you still need to look at
and enter additional commands through its touch screen.
The voice command feature is as much a gimmick as it is a truly
useful feature, made even more limited by my inability to get
the larger part of the voice functions to work at all.
The Bottom Line
The Go 930 is TomTom's
current top of the line GPS unit. While it looks good on
paper, with some interesting value-add features such as inertial
dead reckoning and IQ routing, in reality these value-adds are
of very little value at all, and indeed perhaps they are of
negative value because they may engender a greater degree of
confidence in what the unit is telling you than is truly
justified.
A cumbersome interface, some
operational quirks, and a poorly visible screen in adverse
lighting all make this a less than optimum choice for most
potential purchasers.
The unit costs $400 through
Amazon.com - more than twice the price of less expensive units,
and it is hard to see any extra value associated with the extra
cost.
Not recommended.
Feature Analysis
|
Feature |
Test
Unit |
|
Model |
TomTom Go 930 GPS |
|
Price |
List
price of about $700
Purchased through Amazon.com for $400 |
|
Review
Date/Details |
Unit was
reviewed in Sept
2008. Its
software was immediately updated.
TomTom software version 8.010
North America map version 800.1727
Western/Central Europe map version 800.1765 |
|
Warranty |
One year
non transferable limited warranty. |
|
Support |
Online and via phone (866 486-6866).
Phone support is Monday - Friday 8.30am -
7pm and Saturday 9am - 6pm, and is based in
the Eastern time zone.
I called twice with questions. Both
calls were answered quickly, the first
support person was of average competence,
the second support person was incompetent.
He tried to tell me that the unit used 'the
12 Tele Atlas satellites' - in actual fact,
it used the 36+ Dept of Defense satellites
and to mistake this point shows a
fundamental complete lack of knowledge about
what GPS is and how it works. He also
had no idea what WAAS was. Tele Atlas
is actually a subsidiary of TomTom and is
the provider of the unit's street map data - nothing
to do with GPS satellites at all. |
|
Inclusions |
The unit comes with the usual things -
screen mount, car power supply and basic
documentation.
Plus it has some bonuses - a remote control
(which is probably more bother than it is
worth), and a cradle with USB cable for
connecting to a computer. |
|
Runs out
of the box |
Yes, it
is immediately ready to start operating, but
you really need to read through the manual
quite a bit before being able to understand
its complex and often obscured commands. |
|
Size |
Comparable to other units with similar
screen size, and fits in a shirt pocket.
It
measures 4.6" x 3.2" x 0.5 - 0.8". |
|
Weight |
The unit
by itself weighs 7.6 oz, and when combined
with the screen mount and power cable,
totals 11.3 oz. This is suitably light
weight. |
|
Mounting
Accessories |
The unit
comes with a windshield suction cup mount,
with a single flexible joint to help
orientate the unit inside the vehicle.
This is
not quite as flexible a mount as provided by
(eg) Garmin and other companies, and
requires you to get the windshield mount
more exactly affixed to the windshield to
start with.
But it
seems to work well, and is smaller and
lighter than units from other companies. |
|
Screen
Size |
4.3"
diagonal screen
2.1" x 3.7" = 9:16 aspect ratio |
|
Screen
Pixels |
272 x
480, same as almost every other unit with a
4.3" screen. |
|
Screen
Colors |
Unknown
but sufficient. |
|
Screen
Visibility |
I had
thought that due to the standard screen size
and resolution (4.3" and 272x480) that
perhaps all the screens in these types of
GPS units (and personal video players) were
made by the same company.
That may
be a wrong perception, because this screen
is markedly inferior to other screens in
terms of visibility, particularly when the
sun is shining on it.
The
screen washes out to almost invisibility
with the sun shining on it, and is much
worse than other units with similar 4.3"
screens (I tested it alongside a Garmin 680
and the Dash Express, all three mounted side
by side on the dashboard). |
|
Screen
Backlighting |
Yes,
multiple levels offered for both the day and
night screens. |
|
Day/Night Mode |
Yes.
The best units switch between day and night
automatically, based on when the unit knows
that the sun has set.
This unit instead switches to night mode
when it senses the ambient lighting has
become sufficiently dim as to imply
darkness. But its sensor is easily
tricked - if you're driving on a cloudy
afternoon and there are some trees shading
the road, it will switch to night mode, then
switch back again when the tree cover
disappears, then switch on again when
something else causes the light level to
drop, and so on, back and forth, annoyingly. |
|
Controls |
There is
an On/Off button on the top of the unit, and
a recessed reset button on the bottom of the
unit. Everything else is controlled
via touch screen menus. |
|
Interactive help files available |
No |
|
Limited
functionality when moving |
This is
an option. You can specify all sorts
of limitations when you are driving. A
very flexible option, but also very useless
for most of us who will never use any of the
available limitations. |
|
Graphics
processor speed |
Good. |
|
GPS
Receiver |
Receiver
details not known. When asked, TomTom
said this was proprietary information and
refused to disclose it! Being as how
there are only a couple of manufacturers of
GPS receiver chips, one can only guess as to
why TomTom seeks to keep this information a
secret.
It quickly gets a lock on enough satellites
to fix its position. TomTom offer a
feature they call 'QuickGPS Fix' data which
is information you load to your Go 930 every
week or so to help the unit more quickly
locate the satellites.
It seems this data is the same as the
almanac data the satellites themselves
broadcast, in which case it is of no real
benefit to download it from the internet,
because the satellites are automatically
broadcasting it anyway.
When asked exactly what the QuickGPS Fix
data was, TomTom refused to disclose any
information, which tends to confirm in my
mind that this is a bit of marketing flim-flam
rather than a bona fide feature. |
|
Max
number of satellites simultaneously tracked |
Unknown, but the satellite signal screen has
space to report on 14 different satellites
simultaneously.
When asked, TomTom said that this was also
proprietary data and refused to disclose the
information. |
|
WAAS
enhanced |
The support person at TomTom didn't even know what WAAS is.
Presumably this also is proprietary data.
It seems the unit does not support WAAS. |
|
Dead
reckoning capability |
Yes.
The unit offers what TomTom call 'Enhanced
Positioning Technology'. It uses
acceleration sensors to calculate the
vehicle's speed and direction at times when
there is no satellite based GPS information
available, but this dead reckoning is only
approximate and quickly deteriorates in
quality as the errors build up.
The dead reckoning only works after the unit
has managed to get a current GPS fix, so if
you turn the unit on, it is unhelpful until
after locking on to satellites, however long
that takes.
If you don't see value in this feature, you
can choose the Go 730 instead which is
basically the same unit but without the dead
reckoning, but currently both the 730 and
930 are priced the same on Amazon, so why
not get the more fully featured unit. |
|
Satellite display |
Yes -
shows a sky map with satellites on it,
signal bars for satellites being received,
current latitude and longitude, speed and
heading, and also the exact time. |
|
Accuracy
calculation |
No. |
|
Can the
unit show you your current latitude and
longitude and compass heading |
This
information is shown on the satellite
display screen. |
|
Can the
unit show you your current altitude |
No |
|
Can the
unit show you the exact time |
Yes, on
the satellite screen (to the second) and on
the main screen (to the minute). |
|
External
antenna capability |
Yes.
Connection through socket on the bottom of
the unit. |
|
CPU
processor speed |
400 MHz. |
|
Trip
Computer functions |
Not
really.
It will
show your estimated time of arrival, travel
time remaining and distance remaining as
well as current speed, but nothing else. |
|
Battery
Type |
Lithium Polymer. |
|
Battery
Life |
Tomtom's
website claims, on the same page, 3 hours
and 5 hours battery life. You think
they could at least get their story
straight. |
|
Power
Input |
The unit
gets power through its USB port, either from
the supplied car cigarette lighter adapter
or via any computer USB cable. |
|
Auto
Power On/Off |
No.
It will automatically power off, if you
don't tell it to stay on within ten seconds
of turning off your car's power/ignition.
But it doesn't power on automatically when
you turn the ignition on.
This is stupid, and TomTom's rationale - 'we
worried it would flatten the car battery' is
even stupider. Sure, the unit will
drain power from the battery, but so too
does everything else when you turn on the
car's ignition.
The lack of real world comprehension shown
in their design decision not to have the
unit automatically power on (all the major
competing units do automatically power on)
is indicative of a general
user-unfriendliness in the overall design of
the unit. |
|
Mapping |
|
Map
provider |
Tele
Atlas. |
|
Countries provided |
US,
Canada, and Western Europe all preloaded in
the unit. |
|
Update
policy, frequency and cost |
Not sure
of frequency of hard copy map updates, but
they also offer a quarterly e-update
service, but only in Europe, and for an
undisclosed cost. |
|
Other
countries also available |
Yes. Southern Africa, Australia, New
Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Turkey.
Prices range from about $30 to $130 per map. |
|
How is
map data loaded into the GPS receiver |
Map data is pre-loaded on the unit in its
internal memory. No hard copy is
provided. |
|
Can the
entire US be loaded into the unit |
Yes.
The unit comes with all of the US, Canada,
and Western Europe preloaded in the unit. |
|
Speaks
Directions |
Yes. |
|
Speaks
Street Names |
Yes, but..... It will only speak
street names if you select the computer
generated voice option. If you choose one
of the other 'real person' voice options, the unit doesn't
speak street names. |
|
Languages spoken |
Too many to count! |
|
2D/3D |
Yes,
your choice. |
|
Can you
choose between North up or Direction of
Travel up |
No. The unit is permanently in a direction of
travel up mode. |
|
Split
screen mode |
No. |
|
Map
Scale Shown |
No.
The unit also has an auto zoom function that
can be selected on or off. |
|
Number
of POIs provided |
Believed
to be about 5 million.
You can
also download extra custom sets of points of
interest (for example, I downloaded a set of
the top 50 BBQ restaurants) from the TomTom
website. |
|
Number
of user POIs that can be added |
Unknown. |
|
POI
information includes phone number |
Usually. |
|
POI
proximity alert |
Optional - you can turn this on and off and
set the distance from the POI that the alarm
will sound. |
|
Speed
limit warner |
Sort of.
Sometimes it displays the posted speed limit
for the road you're traveling on, and if
you're driving more than a few miles over
this speed, it lights up in red the part of
the screen that shows your actual speed and
the road's posted speed.
Note that the information in the unit about
posted speed limits is very incomplete - it
seems to be present for major freeways and
just about no surface streets at all.
And the information which is present isn't
always completely accurate.
You can also have it give an audible
warning. |
|
Does it
show both miles and kilometers |
Yes -
you can set it to display either miles or
kilometers, and degrees celsius or
fahrenheit. |
|
Route Planning |
|
How to
enter addresses and other data |
The
touch screen works
in ABCD, QWERTY or AZERTY formats.
The keyboard doesn't grey out letters as an
aid to typing in names, except when typing
in city names.
You can partially type a name and then call
up a list of matching places.
It also has very limited voice recognition
abilities, limited to town/city names and
street names. This works adequately
about half the time, but because you still
have to access the screen to accept
suggested names (there isn't a voice command
for, eg, 'accept' or 'change') and to enter
in the rest of the information, and because
you have to work your way through several
menus to turn the setting on/off, it is more
a gimmick than a useful feature.
There was an enhanced 'dialog' type voice
recognition option as well, but it never
worked.
I found it very difficult to enter
addresses, due to the formats it uses and
bad sorting logic - for example, if I enter
just the digit '5' for a street name, it
won't first offer me 5th St, but instead,
50th, 51st, etc.
Entering addresses was always more difficult
with this unit than with the Garmin or Dash
units. |
|
Can you
build a multi-stop journey with waypoints |
Yes. |
|
Will it
solve the 'traveling salesman' puzzle |
No. |
|
Can you
program assumed speeds for different road
types, and if so, how many different road
types? |
No.
The unit's default settings are supposed to
be enhanced by its IQ Route information, but
due to the non-specific nature of this
information, it really adds nothing at all
to the unit's ability to calculate travel
speeds. |
|
Can you
choose different settings for different
types of vehicles |
Yes.
You can choose between fastest route,
shortest route, avoiding freeways, walking
routes, bicycle routes or limited speed
routes. I
don't know what it means by a limited speed
route, and its manual is silent on the point
as well. |
|
Can you
program preferences for road/route types |
The only
option is the avoiding freeways option
mentioned above. |
|
Does the
unit present you with multiple route choices
to choose from |
No. |
|
Can you
choose between fastest/quickest and shortest
route options |
Yes,
but only sort of.
Each time you select a destination the unit
can optionally offer you a choice between
faster time or shorter distance before
calculating the route, so you don't get to
actually see the implications of the two
choices. |
|
Will it
show breadcrumb trails? |
No. |
|
Extra Features |
|
Bluetooth |
Yes. |
|
Export
data to laptop |
Yes -
has a USB port for exporting and importing
data. |
|
Can it
play MP3 or other digital audio |
Yes. |
|
Can it
play MP4 or other digital video |
No. |
|
Can it
display pictures |
Yes, but
poorly - it wastes a lot of the screen
leaving only a narrow strip for the image. |
|
Integrated with
real time traffic reporting |
Yes if
you buy the optional additional external
aerial or connect through your cell phone
and sign up for the monthly traffic
reporting service. |
|
Integrated with other location services |
Yes.
For a fee, can also advise about nearby gas
prices and weather reports. It doesn't
offer local movie data. |
|
Other features |
It has
an inertial sensor to calculate the
vehicle's position for a short while using
dead reckoning if you briefly lose satellite
contact (eg driving through a tunnel).
IQ Routes and Advanced Lane Guidance - of
very limited use, discussed in text. |
|
Read more in the GPS
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Originally published
3 Oct 2008, last update
21 Jul 2020
You may freely reproduce or distribute this article for noncommercial purposes as long as you give credit to me as original writer.
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