REVIEW : Tom Tom GO 720

During April 2008 I reviewed the Tom Tom GO 720. Which I eventually found and purchased from at Cape Union. Finding an outlet selling this latest instrument proved to be a major undertaking. The service from Hester the shop assistant was very good. She admitted that she had not received any training on the GO 720 but had played with the GPS and found it to be most user friendly.

I then travelled approximately 2600 km using the TomTom GO 720 to navigate me to different destinations in Gauteng, North West and Kwazulu Natal.

My initial impression was that of a stylish GPS street navigation device which could fulfill my street navigation requirements. The box was impressive and it was well packaged with all its necessary manuals, licensing agreements etc. The size of the print made it difficult to read. Of interest to me was that there was an INCASA certificate included in the packaging. The Southern Africa mapping was also preloaded so that I did not have to waste time acquiring unlock codes and loading the mapping.

I found the GPS GO 720 to be very similar to that of other similar products and makes :

•It has the Southern Africa maps pre installed,
• Standard large, colour, touch 4.3”inch screen,
• Anti glare, none reflective screen,
• Fast and accurate positioning,
• Fast route calculation,
• Enhanced Points of Interest (POI)
• A high quality speaker
• With TomTom Map Share technology
• Bluetooth hands free kit
• FM transmitter
• TomTom Home software. It has similar features to other leading name brands but without the detailed maps
• With a Speed alert
• MP3 player
• Picture and document viewer
• An optional remote control
• It has the capability to load safety camera positions
• Lithium polymer battery with up to 5 hours of operation depending on the backlight intensity.
• A secret anti theft pin number similar to other such devices

By the time I had worked through the setup menu’s, which has to be done before you can start navigating, the device had already positioned itself inside my house to the normal 5m accuracy. A feature I liked is that the GPS screen remains monochrome until the device has acquired a 3D position preventing people driving off into the unknown while the device still acquires good signal.

The screen colour is good and better than most street navigation devices but I have seen better. The preselected colours for different land cover features could be improved. The menu logic is very similar to that of the GO 510 so I found it quick and easy to move around in the device’s menus.

During the initial setup I was able to select which Points of Interest I would like displayed therefore limiting the icons displayed on the screen and not cluttering the navigation screen. I could also select to have the device warn me when it was time for a drivers rest (every two hours) as well as warning me if I exceeded the speed limit. As in most quality street navigation devices, it allowed me to set my co-ordinate format to any of the three geographical coordinate formats.

The preloaded mapping is claimed to be the best but I doubt the validity of this statement. The base map of Southern Africa is supplied by MAPiT and is the same data set as supplied to other satellite navigation products but what makes it unique to TomTom, is the TomTom points of interest and other features. The free mapping update is only valid for 30 days after initial usage, ensuring that you get the latest maps at the time of purchase. My device’s mapping was 33 weeks outdated and the mapping update was a 51.9mb download.

The device does have the capability to warn you of safety speed camera positions but this is not preloaded. I could not find the download for Southern Africa on the TomTom website.

The device did not have a trip information page but did have a lot of information on the map screen which could be changed. A feature on the map screen which I found helpful was that I could select to have the additional navigational information to be displayed horizontally at the bottom of the screen or vertically on the right side of the screen making more room for the map ahead of you while travelling.

The TomTom Map Share feature only allows for name changes, traffic flow changes and the adding of Points of Interest by the user. This however has first to be checked and verified by TomTom before being published and this is not instantly available. The Map Share and map updating capability of the TomTom is a nice feature. The MapShare Technology is great but I believe it is not as quick or easy as TomTom maintain it to be and is a nice to have. The Map update feature from the website was of more value for me

The bracket that secured the device to the window of my vehicle was excellent and after a month it is still working and I have been able to remove it from my window to change vehicles.

The Digital Elevation Model or hill shading relief I found to be totally ineffective as it was very much conceptualised. The browse map feature I found to be slow compared to other models.

On two occasions I found that the devices time to my selected destination to be incorrect, albeit only 5 minutes, but this variation is not acceptable.

A feature that I found useful was the First Aid help tips which were most informative, user friendly and helpful.

A feature that disappointed was that I could not navigate to a point unless I was near an existing routable feature on the map. Unlike most other street navigators, I first had to work my way to the nearest mapping feature before I activated the street navigator to my desired destination.

Of all the addresses and POI’s that I normally use as a test bed (26), I was unable to find only one address in Walmer Downs in Port Elizabeth.

Tom Tom Management advise that if the device is faulty the retailer should be able to exchange the GPS on the spot if they have confirmed that the battery is not flat, and a master reset has been done and they have a telephonic authorization to replace the product from the local South Africa importer. Repairs are said to be quick and easy, but I can find no evidence of this.

I believe that the TomTom GO720 is an excellent product and comes highly recommended. I have one and it is mounted on my vehicles dash. If I was purchasing a GPS device for street navigation onltthe TomTom GO720 would be on my short list without hesitation.

The day that I was about submit this article to the editor, this mail arrived :

What’s going on, what does this mean.
Happy GPS Adventures