TomTom GO720 – An Excellent Car GPS System
What is quite important to note about the TomTom 720 is that it is more than just a simple specifications bump to an existing model– This device brings a lot of brand new features to the TomTom line that we can expect to see in future TomTom devices. So while this device is thinner, faster, and has a nicer screen than many pervious models, it has a host of new features that make the 720 an important device. I’ve been able to log about 1,000 miles with the 720, and here is what we have found.
In many ways, the TomTom GO720 looks like the ONE XL, but it is slightly thinner than the ONE XL. It appears to use the same screen as the ONE XL so it is extremely bright and very easy to read. When viewed from very wide and very high angles the screen doesn’t wash out as much as other screens and the colors stay fairly true throughout a range of viewing angles. The display is 4.3 inches and runs at 480×272 pixels. In bright sunlight, the 720 performs very well, equal to other devices commonly though to have some of the brightest and most readable screens such as the 600 Nuvi series.
On the top is the power button, and on the back is the speaker and a newly designed way for the mount to connect. Gone is the big “plate” on the suction cup mount, instead there is a tiny square about the size of a quarter which slides into the device. This reduces the size of the mount and makes it slightly easier to pack away. Otherwise the mount is similar to the mount on the ONE/XL and features the same suction cup and ball and socket joint. The mount has just about the right amount of tension so that it doesn’t move around or vibrate on dirt roads yet doesn’t take much force to adjust the angle.
On the bottom is the SD card slot, USB/power port, a reset button you hopefully won’t need, a port to connect a traffic receiver, as well as a headphone jack. I’ve mentioned it many times before, but I’ll say it again that i don’t prefer any cords attached to the bottom of GPS devices since it can limit how low on the dash it can be mounted. However TomTom improved this in one area. The end of the USB port now has a 90° angle at the very tip, so you now can mount the 720 just as low on the dash as you would like. It still doesn’t give you easy access to the USB cable while the device is on the mount, but the new cable design is a very welcome improvement.
Under the hood you will find a SiRFstarIII chipset, which makes for very fast signal acquisition, and that signal should stay in environments like urban canyones that are tough for older chipsets. In fact while inside a large building without windows I was able to occasionally obtain a fix. During road testing in a variety of environments the GPS never lost its signal and proved extremely accurate. Battery life is reported to be about five hours, and we were able to achieve that level in our tests. This is also a reason you might upgrade to a 720 over the ONE XL which has a meager 2 hour battery life.
The maps of the USA and Canada come pre-installed on 2 GB of internal flash memory. So the SD slot remains free for you to add maps of other countries, or to install MP3 files for the music player. A few people including myself had trouble with certain brand/size SD cards. It seems that newer cards which are 1 GB in size to 4 GB in size seem to work consistently well. However older smaller cards are sometimes not being read by the 720.
The TomTom GO720 GPS is the first TomTom device to feature their new version 7 application. We expect a free update for other devices to be available as TomTom has done in the past. There are a lot of great new features in the version 7 application. For example when navigating to an address, you are now prompted for the state, first and independently of the city. For many people this will help streamline the process of navigating to an address, especially for those located in places like “Greenville” which exists in many states.
The world is also starting to look more 3D on the TomTom GO720. Rivers and lakes are drawn “sunken” while in select cities building footprints are “raised” up off the ground view. This is yet another step forward of making the picture in the screen look more like the picture out the window. Elements like sports stadiums and playing fields are drawn in a different color for better representation.
Finally, a current street name field has been added to the primary interface, something lots of people have asked for, but frankly I’ve never found a use for. You can also move most of the fields from the bottom of the display to the right side of the display to take better advantage of the widescreen.
Brand logos for certain POIs are now displayed on the map which they call “brand icons”. So instead of driving by a bank and seeing a generic bank icon, you might see the logo for Bank of America.
Due to a faster processor and more RAM, the TomTom GO 720 4.3 produced much faster routes and a faster interface than offered in the ONE and ONE XL devices. Reroutes were also very fast if you happen to miss a turn.
Multiple Segment Routing, multi destination routing, whatever you want to call it , is available through the TomTom Itinerary Planning feature. We really like the ability to wrap up a bunch of destinations into one big route, and then see how far and how long the entire trip is going to take. I do wish they would greatly enhance the feature so that if you have an itinerary filled with waypoints (as opposed to destinations) that the itinerary will notify you upon reaching one of the waypoints. Of course you could convert the waypoints to destinations, however then you don’t get the total itinerary summary. Still, the Itinerary feature goes well beyond what most of the competition currently offers.
Iit is hard to imagine this device not being a huge hit. It has generated more buzz in the industry than any other recently announced device. We’ll reiterate that this device isn’t just a bump in specs, it really represents the first in a new generation of TomTom devices. We’re glad to see easier ways to obtain live traffic information, text-to-speech, a thinner size, and longer battery life than other models. Typically those specs would be cause enough for a new model. But the TomTom 720 will also set a higher benchmark in terms of personalizing the device by allowing map updates, downloading map updates suggested by other users, and building your own voice prompts.