TomTom GO 550 LIVE UK & RoI Satellite Navigation System

I was very excited to take delivery of my new Tomtom 540 Live. On opening it up I found it to be a very good solid feeling device.

I used it for a couple of journeys in the afternoon and the mapping was good, more up to date than previous models and the traffic data seemed to be working though I didn't have any hold ups to test it with.

Anyway that was all fine until I connected it to the PC with the TomTom home software. This is required to update the maps (corrections are made daily), speed cameras or generally to change anything about the device.

The software told me that a newer software and map was available and recomended me to upgrade. So I allowed it to run its process, which was simply me pressing 'OK' and letting it go. Everything seemed to work fine, but in performing this update I effectively broke the Sat Nav on the first day!

This is apparently due to me previously owning a Tomtom and using the same computer before, nothing in the manual tells you this, nothing on the software told me this. It just went about its business corrupting the device.

TomTom support replied after 2 days asking for a large amount of technical information including taking a number of screenshots and attaching them to my reply. At no point did they appologise for the way their software destroyed my device within 1 day, and they expected me to wait another 2 working days for a follow up message (which may or may not solve the problem).

Having purchased from Amazon, I simply sent it back. Amazon's customer service is second to none and a new Tomtom arrived on the same day as the old one was collected by courier.

My new device is now working great having uninstalled the Tomtom software on my PC, however there are some bugs which I have not seen on a Tomtom before.

1) The volume seems to be all over the place. Disabling 'increase volume during high noise' setting helped, but its still not perfect.

2) The voice occasionally stutters - "turn left into ma..n..ch..est..errrrrrr road" quite annoying.

3) You cannot as of yet setup a PIN number, or operate your device from your PC, as they have not created the necessary software file to do this. No mention of this problem in the manual, so if you didn't google search for the problem you would keep trying forever.

4) The HD traffic information is a bit patchy - it doesn't seem to be working properly all the time and suffers from some periods where it doesn't connect at all.

All in all, I think it is a very good device, but it has too many early glitches which should have been fixed before they released it for sale. I think they rushed it out early in time for Christmas.

If I was you I would wait till January and see if these problems have been resolved before making a purchase - oh and buy from Amazon, any problems and they will come and collect it from you whilst delivering a new one.

I think this is a really good product.. taken with a slight pinch of salt, which should be standard for any satnav.

The live service works with a sim that is in the phone. It is on the Vodaphone network. It works in the areas it says it does in Europe for the same price. It apparently works by monitoring where other TomTom live units and vodaphone phones are and works out how fast they are travelling, so I presume the more units the more information.

Live services are generally good, just knowing how long a traffic jam is, has changed my thoughts of "must find a different route" to well 10mins I can sit through it. Usually the traffic jam isn't there which is a bonus. I drive in London and it picks up all the jams. It can take me through from south east London to west London and the arrival timing is impeccable.

And think, one day when you hit a road/ motorway that is closed you're gonna thank that live service no end and blag to all your mates about how well it did.

Local google search is really cool. Just tap in the shop/ garage/ whatever name and it finds it then asks if you want to select it and hey presto your on your way. This also worked in France recently.

Some times it doesn't log onto to the live services, but will do within 5-10mins.

Did an eco route back from the alps the other day, not sure what that means, but it took us on a spectacular (yet really slow) route through mountains hugging switzerland and germany. I can't see how this was fuel efficient.

The routes taken by this TomTom are generally very good, but local knowledge always wins.

The new screen attachment was weird at first but good in hindsight.

Bluetooth is good with blackberry bold 9000. sound is very loud and clear.

Speed camera warnings are very good. But then I don't speed, yeah that's right.

The speedo on the TomTom is excellent, it gives you the speed limit, this was especially good in europe as the car I drove did not have kms on the speedo, so everything was on the TomTom. I always go by the speed on the TomTom as I think it is way more accurate than the car speedo.

Again this information is never 100% so keep you eyes peeled.

When inputting words the screen sometimes double clicks a word, so not as good as the older machines.

One thing i'm really missing on this TomTom is the little compass in the top corner :-(

I liked this machine so much that I am purchasing another one for my employees as I believe it will cut driving time enough to justify the expense of the subscription, which you can buy a year long package on here for 60 odd quid.

Hi, Like many people I have just been through the mill with regard to buying a new Satnav. For the past five years I've been happily using my TomTom Go 300 on a fairly old map but with so many advances in technology and the high price of maps, there comes a time (usually just after some birthday money comes your way) that you make the excuse to update and start searching for the best option.

It was April of 2011 when I started my search, the new go live range was in the shops but much to expensive for my pocket, ranging from £250 for the 1000 regional to £300 for the top of the range 1005 Europe. Someone had told me that the features available on this range had been reduced and that there isn't an SD card slot anymore, they do however sport a 4gb internal memory which is more than enough to take the latest maps and all those little extra's like voices and map colours, however the cost alone made me continue my research.

My wife had recently bought an XL Live IQ routes so I had a look at the spec and was surprised to find that it only has a 2GB internal memory and NO SD slot. Knowing that the latest map size is 2.23GB I started visiting various online TomTom forums where people, like me, were asking why this product was still being retailed with such a small internal memory and why they had "penny pinched" by removing the card slot.

The next thing I did was to visit the TomTom Outlet Store on their website. Here you're presented with a list refurbished satnav's at reduced prices and as I'm interested in driving down to the Med, I need something with Europe on it. I notice that the GO 50 range have a micro SD card slot which could get me out of problems in the future but only the 750 live has 2GB of internal memory (The 550 and 530 having 1GB onboard and a micro SD slot).

At this point I start investigating the TomTom GO 750 live and read everything I can on it. Its features are quite remarkable with Live services, voice control, hands free kit, HD traffic, Speed Camera's, map-share and an active dock which is sadly missing from the XL range. Every forum I go to say's it's a good buy but it comes with a warning. When you first connect it to TomTom Home Always perform a "Backup" first. I will go into this later.

I make my decision avoiding the Live range because of cost and the XL range because of no SD card slot and small internal memory. The Start range (and others) don't offer me what the 750 can so I place my order and count the days until it turns up.

The Post van arrived quite quickly and I had to temper my enthusiasm in my rush to check it out. After connecting it to my laptop and selecting Don't connect to computer ( because it charges faster ), I left it to charge for a couple of hours. Once fully charged the orange light next to the On/Off button turns green and I install it into my car for it's first test drive. Everything about this device impresses me. Firstly the Active docking system is so easy and my treasured new arrival clicked firmly into place. The verbal instructions are better, in that it reads out the road names (if they have any) and the onboard speaker is good and clear. You do have the option to use your hifi via a radio link or a hard wire but I prefer the onboard speaker , Live services work flawlessly giving me fuel prices, weather reports, HD Traffic, Safety Alerts and the Google search found all my little test questions... Fish and chips, cinema, supermarket.. and so on. Then you can set these as favourites and request to navigate to them verbally. In order to use the voice command, you first have to touch the microphone icon on the screen. This means that you need to mount the thing close to you, my windscreen is quite far forward so I need to mount it on the dash. Unfortunately it starts making errors when the radio's on but with my hifi volume control on the steering wheel, it's no effort to turn the sound down first. One nice little touch is that you can choose your own start up preferences, which, when switching on, will give you a screen of those destinations you go to frequently. One would think that you already know the way to work and to your daughters house but hey-ho... maybe you're approaching from another direction.

I'm lucky in that my car has it's own Bluetooth hands free system however the one in the 750 enables my wife to also speak hands free and we no longer have to keep swapping who's phone is connected to the car, depending on who's driving.

Ok... now comes the tricky bit... updating the map and initiating the Micro SD card. You cannot write to any old card and there is a procedure that you have to follow to enable it. For reasons of speed, the maximum size that this device will look at is 4GB. I am using an 8GB Class 6Transcend SDHC Micro card (because it was recommended) but only the first 4GB are looked at.

You are now going to connect to TomTom Home and you must first select "Backup" This is vital as if anything goes wrong you will lose your map and TomTom will say that it's software and therefore is not covered by the guarantee.

Before and I repeat... Before inserting any Micro SD cards, you must back up your TomTom using the "Back up and Restore" function on the second page of TomTom Home.

To initiate the Micro SD card, you must then disconnect the TomTom (I also powered down) insert the Micro SD card into the slot in the base of the 750, switch on and reconnect to TomTom Home. A box will appear asking which drive to use and although they are both indicated as Internal drives you should be able to identify which one by available memory (another good reason for using an 8GB card). Select the SD card to accept the download. This box then disappears and you must then initiate the Micro SD card by pressing "Restore". The map is then restored to the card and once done, your Micro SD card is fully functional.

You would think that the instructions above would be on the first page of the manual... but you would be wrong and although I was pre-warned with regard to backing it up (Thank God), I blindly inserted the micro SD card and searched for how to download my free map update. Eventually I clicked on [Tools] and [Use Latest Map Guarantee] I had selected the SD card for the target and after an hour long download I disconnected from the computer, rebooted and found that it locked up on the first screen. I looked at my 750 as a drive on my computer, to find that It had not downloaded to the card, the onboard memory was full and it had written something to the card but it might as well be empty as no amount of rebooting would solve the situation... By this time my mood could be described as " somewhat stressed" and after a large brandy, I reconnected to TomTom Home and performed a backup which got things working again, I then discovered that I still had problems as some functions would lock up so I did a factory reset which finally got things back to normal.

Several days went by before I had plucked up the nerve to try another map update but in the interim I discovered that I had not lost my free update as it was stored on my pc in :Documents\TomTom\Home\Download. Now... I find a link in TomTom Home which takes me to a page describing how to initiate the micro SD card. Anyway I follow these instructions as given above in the paragraph that starts "OK now comes the tricky bit" and all is well. I am now using the latest map.

Two weeks have passed and I am delighted with my 750 so I try to import my phone book to discover that this function is not available on my LG Viewty. The only way to do this is to once again connect to TomTom Home and, using your browser, [Start] [Computer][TomTom] and click on the fifth file down "Contacts". This will open the folder and you should look for a text file also called "contacts". If there isn't one (and there wasn't on mine), right click on an empty part of the page and select [New] [Text Document] and name it " Contacts". Clicking on this will open a notepad and your phone numbers can be entered in the following format.

"Tony","07736632691",M,"DEFAULT"
"Jane","0292460312",H,"DEFAULT"
"Boss","0123456789",W,"DEFAULT"

M = Mobile, H = Home and W = Work. Don't forget to save at the end.

Now when you select your [mobile phone] [Call][Phonebook Entry] icons on your 750 you will be presented with your phone book. You can also touch the "Microphone" icon on the screen and simply say "Call" This will again show your phone book and you can initiate the call by either saying the persons name or their list number. Apart from touching the screen once it is totally hands free.

This is a brilliant product but with poor documentation. If only TomTom would spend a little money and produce a comprehensive hand book.. however once you have mastered the above, I think you will agree that it's worth every penny.
Regards and safe driving
Rapscallion.