TomTom 930 T personal satnav device
The TomTom 930 will soon make its way to stores in North America. With flagship new features of Active Lane Guidance, Static Intersection Images, and IQ Routes we were excited to put a few hundred miles of testing the TomTom 930 over the last few days. Will the 930 be finding its way into a car near you?
TomTom’s been driving forward community-driven navigation features. They began by introducing with Map Share, which lets you instantly modify street names, street direction, and custom locations called points of interest (POIs) on your own device, then upload them to TomTom’s HOME network and download changes made by all of the other users. When you do this, TomTom gets to find out what routes your device has been taking.
The data is anonymous, but it’s given TomTom an enormous pile of route and speed data, which they’ve used to tie community data to routing with their new IQ Routes? feature, which calculates routes using the actual recorded average speeds of travel to calculate your trip rather than posted speed limits, giving you an extremely accurate prediction of how long any given route will actually take at any given time. There are a host of other interesting features, and you can read about them here.
The overall size and shape of the 930 is the same as that of the older 720 and 920 models. One difference is the color. The 720 had a shiny silver color, and the 920 had a matte silver finish. The new 930 features a shiny black finish. In many ways, looking at the 930 from the front resembles an iPhone… shiny black finish around a wide touch screen. That may not be 100% unintentional. The remote control has also been changed to a deep black color to match.
The 930’s physical appearance is totally hot, but I worry a little bit that the more reflective shiny black finish might make seeing the screen a little more difficult in high glare situations. Probably not much, but it does happen with other shiny black GPS devices a little.
The standard female voice the TomTom 930 T uses to provide audible instructions is polite but firm and provides directions in just the right amount of time. You can adjust the number of yards you’re given by way of warning before a turning from the default 300 yards if you wish. Street names are listed whenever you’re in a residential area, while turnings on major junctions on faster roads show their overall destination as well as being announced.
A popular new feature on GPS devices is lane guidance. Often, turn right in one half mile with an arrow pointing to the right doesn’t provide as much detail as you might need. On complex Interstate interchanges there could be four lanes continuing straight with three lanes splitting to the right. In thick traffic, how many lanes do you need to cross to get into the correct position? Do I need to be all of the way over? Which way does my current lane go?
TomTom 930 Lane GuidanceAt the right is a photo showing the feature in action. The road being driven has four lanes. The first lane and second lanes are separated by a barrier, and both continue on the current highway. The third lane can either continue straight, or turn off at the exit. (We know we want that exit because the line in this lane is white.) The forth lane also takes us to our exit, and is an exit only lane.
When using a similar feature on other GPS devices (the NAVIGON Reality View) I was on the fence if I liked it or not. Initially I didn’t like the feature as the image is static and it doesn’t follow your progress and update as you get closer to the intersection. It did start to grow on me though.
However the disappointment with the Intersection Images feature on the TomTom 930 was just how infrequently it appears. I drove through endless Interstate Interchanges going from one limited access highway to another waiting to see the Intersection Images and they never appeared. I double checked that the setting was turned on (it was) yet I couldn’t get the images to appear.
On the NAVIGON models the Intersection Images don’t appear on every multi-lane interchange either, however it does appear on most Interstate to Interstate changes. I resorted to using the ‘Prepare Route’ feature and simulating different routes before I was able to find some locations where the images appeared. (Los Angeles.) But I couldn’t get it to appear in any of the locations in Boston I tried, either driving myself or while simulating a route.
TomTom 930 Intersection ImageThe intersection image starts to appear between 1/2 and 1/4 mile before the turn. You can basically think of it as similar to the Lane Guidance window in the lower left, but blown up much bigger, covering the entire screen. The image doesn’t change as you progress towards the intersection, however the ‘distance to turn’ field is still there in big
Saving the best for last, IQ routes is perhaps the biggest reason you might want to look at the new x30 series from TomTom. It is worthy of noting that this is an area where TomTom has previously…. how shall we say it… had the most room for improvement. Most TomTom devices tend to be extremely conservative when predicting the time it will take to cover a given route, and the estimates tended to be even further off in remote areas. As I’ve said in the past, I’m thankful that TomTom devices get me places 20 minutes early, rather than 5 minutes late, but I’d still prefer a more accurate prediction to begin with.
The new TomTom IQ Routes? technology is based on actual average speeds on roads, rather than the sign-posted speed limits. This intelligent routing technology is based on anonymous historical speed profiles of over 10 billion kilometres of driven roads, gathered over the years by millions of TomTom users. It takes into account all the factors that may influence the time it takes drivers to get to their destination, including traffic lights, roundabouts, steep slopes and speed bumps.
The TomTom IQ Routes? speed profile database continues to grow at the rate of over half a billion measurements per day, so the time and spatial accuracy of TomTom IQ Routes? technology will continually increase. Drivers can be confident that they will always be given the smartest route incorporating detailed local knowledge. This allows for more efficient daily route planning, in particular when driving through urban and mountainous areas.
We all know traffic is different during a Monday morning rush hour from a lazy Sunday afternoon. We all want the best shortcuts to bring us to our destination in the fastest way possible. But heavy traffic, speed bumps, traffic lights, roundabouts and even schoolchildren or shopping crowds can slow you down. That handy shortcut you’re looking for varies depending on time and day. Which means your shortest route isn’t necessarily going to be the fastest all the time!
If you opted into the service, the device would send that information back to TomTom. TomTom in turn aggregates that data and builds up more accurate time estimates for each road segment, for various days of the week. The data is then combined into the underlying mapping data on the device.
TomTom GO 930T comes pre-installed with the most up-to-date seamless maps of 35 countries in Western & Eastern Europe, USA, Canada and Russia with maximum detail stored on the internal memory. The innovative IQ Routes? technology is based on real average speeds measured on roads, rather than static maximum speeds per road type. This means the new TomTom GO range determines a route by considering all possible routes and then selecting the one that takes the least time. In almost 50% of all journeys, this results in driving a different and faster route, saving significant travel time as well as saving money and fuel.
In addition, the new TomTom GO 930T features Advanced Lane Guidance, a first for the navigation mass market. Advanced Lane Guidance gives drivers a more realistic view and enhanced visual instructions of drivers’ surroundings, ensuring they are better informed about the situation ahead.
Unlike MapShare, it is relatively easy to figure out just how well IQ Routes works. Let me tell you, it works. Overnight TomTom has gone from being one of the least accurate estimates of travel time to the most accurate. Combine IQ routes with a traffic receiver and you have a system that could rival the network information Dash uses.
TomTom Speed Limit WarningA few other extras pop up on this device. Speed limits, and speed limit warnings now appear on the bottom of the status bar. Typically just the road speed limit is displayed (when known) however if you are exceeding the speed limit by a certain margin the graphic will turn red. This feature is in addition to any audible speed alerts you might have setup. You can see in the screen shot on the right I was going just a wee bit fast in the 45 mph zone.
TomTom MapShare NavCore 8MapShare has also seen a few minor tweaks. You can now edit the speed limit of a road segment. In addition, the interface to edit turn restrictions has been improved and is more intuitive than it was in the past with arrows more fully illustrating the changes you are proposing.
Purchasing Advice
If you are super excited about the static Intersection Images only, you might want to think twice. The limited amount of places where the images appear make it one of those I’ll take it when I can get it features. The lane guidance information in the lower left corner is super helpful when you find yourself saying how many lanes do I need to get over and do I have enough time?
But the real winner here is IQ Routes. IQ Routes takes TomTom to the top of the pack when it comes to estimating route time, and those times will continue to get even better as TomTom collects more data. IQ Routes, combined with the RDS-TMC receiver the TomTom 930 will have you covered both for expected and unexpected delays.
Tags: accurate prediction, gps devices, GPS Guide, iphone, navigation features, new features, physical appearance, shiny silver, silver color, speed data, speed limits, street direction, street names, TomTom, touch screenRelated posts
Posted on July 25th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: GPS Guide
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