Tomtom ONE 130 S GPS (Vehicle, 3.5

TomTom One 130 S

ONE 130 S GPS (Vehicle, 3.5 Review, by Liane Cassavoy, PC World November 13, 2008

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• Latest User Reviews 1 review
• Reviewed by: ITgeekwannabe

  Duration of ownership: 2 Months

  Strengths: Easy to use and set up. Seems durable enough. Does what it is advertised to do.

  Weaknesses: Loses signal even on sunny days. As a result, item is totally useless. Purchases made on TomTom HOME or website is billed outside USA from the Netherlands. As a result, consumers outside the Netherlands will incur foreign transaction fee/finance charge by your credit card company. Company does not disclose this information. Lousy customer service.

  Overall: I bought this item after the last time I drove aimlessly about trying to find a destination with just a map and directions. The item works great overall. Some of the time. As packaged, this GPS covers all our needs. Warning: A GPS needs to have clear access satellites. This one needs access to four satellites. If it can’t reach the satellites, you don’t get a signal. When you don’t get a signal the TomTom is totally useless. Picutre a paperweight with graphics on it. I could not get a signal in an area surrounded by a forest. I could not get a signal during an overcast day, and on another day I couldn’t get a signal on a partly sunny day. Good thing I knew the area I could not acquire a signal or I would have been lost. And that did happen a few days later while driving to a new destination. The TomTom lost the signal while I was making a turn and I no longer had directions from the GPS how to proceed after the turn. I wound up pulling into a parking lot to wait for a signal. It took 10 mins to eventually get one. Sometimes, I’ve had to wait as long as 20 minutes to acquire a signal.From then on, I still carry a map and directions in case the TomTom loses its signal. Hence, though I like the concept of the GPS and enjoy using it while it has a signal, it’s too unreliable for me to rate it any higher than I did. If you can’t acquire a signal to guide you, what good is a GPS, any GPS? Important warning for US consumers: if you purchase anything from the TomTom.com website, or TomTom Home, which connects to the websit, be forewarned that the bill will be processed from their office in Amsterdam, Netherlands and NOT in the USA. As a result, your credit card may or may not charge you a foreign transaction fee/finance charge for the purchase. And note, nowhere on the TomTom website, nor on your receipt nor ahywahere else will you be told this. You won’t find out until you are charged on your credit card. I learned about it in this exact way. My Mastercard charged me 3%. FYI: I contacted TomTom by phone about this, and they basically don’t care with the reply that “they’re not required to tell the U.S. consumer anything because not all credit cards charge a fee.” Hello, how many credit card companies do you know of that don’t charge a fee for foreign transactions.I then asked, “How about just adding a disclaimer to inform your customers that they may incur additonal fees from performing a foreign transaction?” They didn’t care:it’s not their legal responsibility, so they can care less.If you want to buy American, stay away from tomtom. I wouldn’t mind the purchase if I was warned up front, a disclaimer would have made me an informed consumer; a professional courtesy would have been appreciated, but I wasn’t told at all until the credit card company billed me. Shame on you, tomtom. They list an address in the U.S., which is listed as their contact address, as if they are out of the U.S.A., BUT they’re NOT. They deliberately lead you to believe that your purchase is billed in the USA. Are they hiding something here? They do no list their address in the Netherlands. I wonder why. Buyer Beware. By the way, they were supposed to have called me back WITHIN a week for a Customer Service Representative to explain the terms of their site, not to work with the consumer. NOTE: Its been over a week now and no call has been made to me. I did receive an email that I can't respond to(It comes from Do Not Reply) that says "since you did not contact us, this issue is closed." I did contact them. I'm waiting for that call back. I wouldn't recommend this to a friend.

• Reviewed by:

  Strengths: none

  Weaknesses: TomTom customer serviceTomTom attitudeTomTom qualityTomTom download speeds

  Overall: TomTom has terrible customer service and they just don't care. I'm on my 3rd replacement unit and this one locks up and doesn't give directions. Tom Tom customer service has lied to me twice. Online update speeds are painfully slow.

• Reviewed by: scott2143

  Strengths: None!

  Weaknesses: user manual is useless. text-to-speech didn't work. unit failed first day of use.

  Overall: Purchased the unit yesterday, tested it locally, and it did not speak street names. "help" suggested updating maps, but upon installing Tomtom home and updating the unit completely failed. After 2 hours on the phone with tech support, and another 2 hours trying to reinstall software, it is going back to the store tomorrow, exchanged for a different brand. Total JUNK!

• Reviewed by: dataadmin

  Strengths: Text to speech for street names, easy to use, snap-in suction mount

  Weaknesses: limited memory

  Overall: The text to speech feature that tells you the street names to turn on works well. I used an older Tom Tom that didn't have this feature before and I can tell you it really makes a difference. The user interface is very user friendly. There is separate piece that mounts to the windshield with a suction cup. Then, this just snaps in and out of it when needed. So, it's really easy to take in and out of the car. The suction mount also moves easily so you can easily move it to another car too. The only weakness I found was that the memory used to store the map information is just about full and you can't add more with memory cards. When I updated the map that came with it using the free download, it told me there was not enough room for the new maps. I had to delete some of the points of interest before I had enough free space for it. Not a big deal though.

• Reviewed by: stuli

  Strengths: Price. Speaks out street names. Receives traffic alerts.

  Weaknesses: Low volume. Does not come with case.

  Overall: Originally purchased a Garmin Nuvi 200 from Sam's, but returned it when I found that the Tom Tom One 130 S GPS was the same price and actually called out street names. Have been using this for about a week and so far so good. This also receives traffic alerts, which many do not at this price. Above all it was a 'best buy' recommendation from Consumer Reports. At approx $200, it's a great priced GPS. The unit, however, has to be turned at an angle at times in order to hear the speech. Overall good so far, and would recommend. Will update this review after more usage.

• Reviewed by: cheungke

  Strengths: Affordable priced GPS with text to speech functionality

  Weaknesses: No SD expansion slot, not easy to fit inside a shirt pocket

  Overall: An affordable GPS for someone looking for a decent GPS device to get you where you want to go and doesn't need the other features like mp3 playback as some other expensive models. The integrated mounting bracket is an innovative design, but it makes the depth of the GPS about two inches thicker. Tom Tom advertises that it can fit into a shirt pocket, but I find it a bit too thick to fit into my dress shirts. Also, a case is probably needed to keep the suction cup from getting dirty. The only other weakness is the lack of an SD expansion slot as some other competitors have, but it does come with maps for the US and Canada instead of just the continental US from other manufacturers. Otherwise, this GPS does get you to the destination and the text to speech functionality for street names is an added plus to this budget minded GPS unit.