I just got Tomtom 140S yesterday. I'm using Garmin 265T and buy this 140S for my wife.( She is not good at lane exiting at all !) So here is my initial thought:
The good things:
-Lane assistance is VERY NICE ! It pops up at not only highway crossing but also at every exit in my city. This is the reason I were interested at 140S and so far I'm not disappointed ( after one day ).
-Driving view and map: very easy, clearly to view and understand.
-Simple menu.
- Suggesting typed addresses: very good, better than my Garmin!
-Tomtom Home and Map share are nice to have.
- I can upgrade to the lastest map ( for free) within 30 days. The original map in the unit is v825.2197 ( I see map update is available in Tomtom Home but have not updated it yet).
The bad thing:
-" Easy mount" : not easy at all !!!!I don't like this mount at all. Tomtom goes wrong! I think the classic mount of Garmin is much better! I may have not enough time for it anyway. It's too tight so I had to loosen the 2 screws on the mount's hinge. If someone has big hands then I would not recommend this windshield mount..
-Computer American TTS voices: not as good as my Garmin but still okay for me. Fortunately, I can hear them !!. ( I think Susan is better than Dave). I wish there were more than 2 TTS voice choices .
About GPS receiving: I think Garmin is little bit faster.
In door,( in my house basement), although slowly, Tomtom got the signal at the end ( after 15 mins!) while the Garmin gave up.
Outdoor: I think the Garmin catch signal faster.
POIs: I think Garmin is better at listing big shopping centers, parks... I like Garmin's POIs.
UPDATED AFTER 4 DAYS AND TRYING TO USE 30 DAYS MAP GYARANTEE:
I don't know if it's worth to update the original map v 825.2197 to the new one v830.2325 or not ( please advise me).
However,I gave up the updating of the new map because the internal drive has not enough space for the new one even I delete the old map and almost voices..... If I format the drive, I still has not enough for the map alone! I can't understand why they made the internal drive of 140/S too small!!!
What's a useless 30 days map guarantee update.I emailed Tomtom and they replied that this is a common issue of Tomtom 140/S and they are resolving it. They said I SHOULD NOT update to the new map while did not advise me when/how I can receive the new map when they resolve the issue! Sent them the second email.
The unit looks good if you don't care about getting the new map! Otherwise, it becomes useless!
May you or someone tell me IF there is big improvement between map version 825.x and 830.x? If not, I can live with the original one to avoid troubles during and after the update.
Is Map Share corrections more helpful than the Map Update from Tomtom as I think?
The official map updates are more numerous and significant than the MapShare updates. Remember MapShare doesn't do things like add new roads. It just deals with simple things like turn restrictions, direction restrictions, street names, etc.
As to the differences in 8.25 to 8.30-- it is always better to have the newer map. But it would be impossible to really give you an idea if it is worth it. The new map includes the changes made in the previous three months. It is pretty difficult to say how many of those changes you would see or notice.
Just make sure TomTom notes in your account that you tried in good faith to get the 8.30 map within 30 days, but you were not able to. Once they sort out the map size issue then you should still be able to get it past 30 days so long as they note you tried.
I just got an email from Tomtom and they said I can contact them back within couples weeks when the problem may be resolved so they can still give me the updated map. that sounds good.
Joined: 01 May 2009 Posts: 535 Location: Boston, MA
Re: Just got my Tomtom 140S Fri Jun 05, 2009 11:07 am
gogo24 wrote:
About GPS receiving: I think Garmin is little bit faster.
In door,( in my house basement), although slowly, Tomtom got the signal at the end ( after 15 mins!) while the Garmin gave up.
Outdoor: I think the Garmin catch signal faster.
If you download quickGPSfix from Tomtom HOME (once a week at minimum) the signal acquisition outdoors is under 5 seconds.
Tomtom improves their maps via users who permit anonymous sharing of driving history, so tomtom has a lot of things like QuickGPSfix and mapshare that encourage users to plug in to HOME often to share their history.
gogo24 wrote:
POIs: I think Garmin is better at listing big shopping centers, parks... I like Garmin's POIs.
It may be just a bit different than your used to.
1) shopping centers are their own category, separate from shops
2) major parks (like national parks) are listed as their own cities, not as POI like in Garmin. I agree that tomtom minor park POI coverage is minimal.
Joined: 01 May 2009 Posts: 535 Location: Boston, MA
Fri Jun 05, 2009 11:16 am
Tim wrote:
As to the differences in 8.25 to 8.30-- it is always better to have the newer map. But it would be impossible to really give you an idea if it is worth it. The new map includes the changes made in the previous three months. It is pretty difficult to say how many of those changes you would see or notice.
Map 830 is the first time Tomtom used the anonymous data to create new roads. Because of this, the 825 to 830 update seems to have done far more than a typical quarter in terms of adding new roads.
My suspicion is that this large new-road growth is the reason why tomtom was caught off-guard with maps that no longer fit properly.
While you are correct about the new road geometry based on anonymous data, it seemed to me like the amount of new data they had actually processed into the new map based on that data was quite small. I'll see if I can dig up some stats on it.
Thanks everyone. I used quickGPSfix and the signal receiving is faster than before, even indoor ! Thanks
Using it for a week so far, I really like the Lane assisting. Nice feature!
Beside Map Update size issue, I don't have any problem with this unit. Map is correct and voice volume is very good. Computer Susan voice is fine for me.
While you are correct about the new road geometry based on anonymous data, it seemed to me like the amount of new data they had actually processed into the new map based on that data was quite small. I'll see if I can dig up some stats on it.
Maybe that's the reason why v830 is TOO BIG relate to v825 and 140/S drive! ( I don't know why Tomtom could not give bigger internal drive such as 3Gb although memory is so cheap today.)
Here is the different size I found:
830.2325: 1970 Mb ( 30 days latest map update)
825.2197 : 1422 Mb ( my Tomtom 140S original map, purcahsed May 30 09)
Tomtom 140S drive capacity: 1.9 Gb = 1945 Mb
So even if I store v830 alone, there is still not enough space! That's the bad news.
The good news is that Tomtom is resolving this issue and they promised to give me the new map when it's fixed in couple weeks/
I just got an email from Tomtom and they said I can contact them back within couples weeks when the problem may be resolved so they can still give me the updated map. that sounds good.
Well, here we are near the end of August, and they still haven't fixed the "not enough memory" problem. I just received my new 140S today, d/l and ran HOME, it said I should update, I tried, it failed...trying to install "Internal Memory". It didn't even get to the "One-time update" step. Don't they even test the crap they sell???
As a new TomTom customer, my first impression of their product is pretty low. I don't know how much of the update got applied and how much didn't. If I unplug the GPS and reboot it, will it start or crash? I don't know if I should try deleting things, such as voices (as others have recommended). How do I know which voices are foreign voices? Is there a way to play them to tell?
If you look at the contents of the compressed map's .cab file on your computer using winrar or equivalent, you'll see a voices folder.
Within that folder, you'll find a bunch of files that look like this: dataXX.vif and dataXX.chk where XX is a number. Well, if you look at the contents of a .vif file (it's a text file), you'll see something like this:
--------------------
English(US) - Richard
data09.chk
Richard
2
2
114
4
----------------------
So, the key info is the first row. If it shows a language other than English, you can remove both the .vif file AND the associated .chk file from the voices folder in the cab file. And do that for each .vif/.chk set of files until you just have English voices remaining. Then try to install the map.
In fact, you may want to keep just ONE set of (English) .vif/.chk files in the voices folder. Then install the map (should fit now)
Then, you can use Home to dl and install some other English voice files.
Another place to save some space is the licences folder. Delete any EULA or LW files that don't say 'English'.
Since it is installed and you have a 'S' model, you may want to use Home to Navigate to items on my unit-->Voices--Computer Voices. You might wish to remove any comp. voices you don't plan to use and this will free up more space (.7mb is not alot of free space).
Now, PLEASE, make a complete Explorer, not Home, backup of your unit's contents. Ensure hidden files/folders are showing.
Now, PLEASE, make a complete Explorer, not Home, backup of your unit's contents. Ensure hidden files/folders are showing.
Luckily, I was reading this forum a few days before I received the 140S, and that was the first thing I did after I removed it from the box. If there's one thing I learned, that was it.
Now, however, the story gets better. I decided to use my free map upgrade guarantee to upgrade my maps. It came with US-CA-MX 825.2197 (1636MB). HOME told me I needed to upgrade to 835.2460 (1989MB) (You can probably guess where this is going). I figured they know better than me what will fit and what wont, so I started the update late last night and went to bed. I woke up this morning, and it said it was done. But, I noticed that the newly installed maps were 835.2419, 1683MB. Needless to say, I was confused. But, I thought maybe it trimmed off a few unnecessary things to make it fit. After all, it didn't error and fail like the s/w update. So I unplugged it and let it boot. When it got time to load the maps, it told me that the maps are not correct for my device and it couldn't use them...wonderful. My next step was to call TomTom support, as they don't seem to respond to e-mail very quickly. When I started explaining my problem, telling him what device I had and trying to do the free map update, the person on the other end responded with "Oh, yes. I know where this is going", like he knew exactly what I was going to say. Apparently, the maps they released a few days ago are too large for my device (duh!) and I need to remove them and install the next to most recent maps, which he put into my account (830.XXXX). He also told me to call back in a few weeks when the next new maps are released and they will let me d/l them for free. Once again, I'm amazed at their lack of quality assurance testing.
Joined: 01 May 2009 Posts: 535 Location: Boston, MA
Sun Aug 23, 2009 4:01 am
The large maps are quoted at 1.9gb because they come with speech recognition files. HOME recognizes that your 140 doesn't have a microphone, and ignores the speech reco files, shrinking the map to 1.6gb.
HOME used to say "map won't fit" when there's an error, not "map is incompatible". Sometimes, HOME's registry of compatible devices is erroneous, there is a chance the map 835 will work if you install it manually.
If you want to try a manual installation, do the following:
1) do an explorer backup if not already done
2) go to Manage My Device in HOME, and remove all foreign voices (computer and non-computer). You should probably remove the American voice for the gender you don't use, too. Every mb helps.
3) close HOME
4) look in the folder mydocuments\tomtom\home\download\complete\map. In that folder, there are chronological subfolders for the maps. It sounds like your second-latest folder will be map 835, you can open the USA_Can_Mex.toc file with notepad to determine the subfolder's map version
5) Once you've found the right subfolder, extract the contents of the big zip file onto the existing usa_cananda_mexico folder on your tomtom drive. Then use winrar to extract the file within activation.cab, and put it in the same map folder
6) then reopen HOME, run "Operate my ONE", and rename a favorite, then click "Done".
7) wait for the "don't disconnect" X to disappear from the Tomtom screen, then click blue disconnect button on HOME. Unplug your tomtom and see if the map starts up
Thanks for the advice, but the guy at TomTom support that gave me the 830 maps had me delete the 835 maps from the device and computer tabs in the manage section of HOME, which deleted it from the download directory. All I have in there now is the 830 maps. which installed correctly on my device, and that's fine with me. I'll still get another free map update when a new version (840?) is released.
Time to make one more explorer backup and start using the damn thing!
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