16 out of 16 people found this review helpful.
This could have been the best
Date of Review: Nov 9, 2007
The Bottom Line: In the end, a GPS has to get you there. The 720 doesn't. Don't bother with this unit until the maps greatly improve.
The Tomtom 720 has so much potential. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, it has to get you where you need to go and it falls far short.
First, the display is very nice. The maps are easy to view. There is a ton of information of the screen including speed, trip time, distance, etc. When it gives you directions verbally, it is easy to understand and gives you plenty of warning. The unit locks on to a satellite signal in a flash. Garmin can take minutes. So far so good.
The unit has plenty of extra features too but here we hit our first snag. Most if not all of it don't work at all or not properly.
1. Traffic Updates - only works with a handfull of cell phones and providers. Most don't work.
2. Bluetooth - you can connect your phone to it and use it as a speakerphone. The quality of the speaker is so poor, it renders this useless.
3. Favorites and POIs - For whatever reason, once you store a favorite or POI, the actual address is not viewable. So for instance you enter a favorite as "Bobs Restaurant" and then want the address to give to someone else, you can't get it from the 720. In a Garmin, the address is stored and displayed if needed. The only workaround I found is to store it with the address in the name like "BOBs Restaurant - 100 North Main Street, Anytown, NY". It is wordy and messy this way.
4. Mapshare - Sounds great on paper. You find a map error, mark it on your 720 and then when you connect to your PC, you upload the errors. Tomtom is supposed to review it and then make the update available to all. Problem is, none of the errors I ever sent (and there were lots) ever were corrected and the software is so bad that downloads crashed continually on my machine.
But the biggest flaw in this unit is the maps. The 720 is horrible at finding an exact address and may take you 1000s of feet out of your way. I had one case in particular where I was travelling out of state in an area totally unfamiliar to me. I entered the address of a shopping mall. The 720 took me to a dead end street in a residential area and told me I had arrived at my destination. Not knowing the area, I was totally 100% lost. Luckily, I had brought along my old Nuvi with me and I plugged that in, entered the same address, and the Nuvi got me where I had to go.
Just in my general home area, I found a place where it would not allow me to take a left turn and routed me instead through a train station parking lot and taking me way out of my way. In another instance, it didn't know the name of a major road and told me it did not exist.
In the end, there were so many map errors that I couldn't keep the 720. The Garmin is not perfect by a long shot. The 720 if the maps were better would beat any Garmin by a mile, but with the maps the way they are, this thing is totally useless.
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