TomTom goes premium with the 920T

18 Apr 2008 | 13:36 BST

By Rob Kerr

Product: TomTom GO 920T
Website: go920t
Price: £349.99, €499, $649.95

---

TOMTOM announced the GO 920T Satellite Navigation device at Germany's IFA in September. It finally made its way to the stores in the last ticking seconds of 2007 and more recently into our grubby little hands for a review.

It’s pitched as the successor to the GO 910 model unveiled way back at CeBit 2006. You may remember this hitting mass press attention when some “isolated numbers” were shipped with a virus later that year – perhaps not the best feature for a product that is virtually in control of two tons of metal travelling in excess of 30 miles an hour.

We last looked at TomTom in August with the midrange GO 720, which was then the top of their series with the 920T being around the corner. A good lengthy period of time passed between them hitting the markets, with the curious explanation of “manufacturing reasons” for the delay. They both still dwell within the third generation of Sat Navs and judging by previous form, now endeth the complete line-up.

TomTom GO 920T

Or that would have been the case until the firm snuck out an announcement of some additions to the range at Cebit. On the face of it, there aren’t any obvious differences from the GO 720 to GO 920 besides the colour change from black to grey and now a slightly slimmer build. However, there are still some significant additions and new features that warrant a look. It’s still a 4.3-inch 16:9 formatted touchscreen with the same 400 MHz processor; only now with 4GB of internal flash memory instead of the 2GB.

Nothing’s been dropped from one to the other, although in moving on from the 910 model to the 920 they’ve lost the 20GB internal HDD. Some could see this as a regression in functionality, but in fact only 12GB was free for personal usage meaning 8GB was all about the maps – which has now been compacted down to just 4GB. Losing that extra storage has increased the longevity in its Lithium-polymer battery life from just 4 to 5 hrs, so it’s not all that bad on the western front after all.

From the outset it’s clear the GO 970T isn't aimed at the run-of-the-mill users and for a whole bunch of reasons too. They're billing this for business travellers and globe-hoppers or so the brief leads us to believe. TomTom is bundling the most complete maps available in its range and all under one roof. WThere are maps for 41 countries covering most of Western, Central Europe and North America – including Guam.

All of which if purchased on a lesser device would set someone back a pretty penny. Although, if not strictly needed, you are paying a premium for almost no reason what-so-ever; then again this is the top of the range and would you expect anything else but the Whole World. They've packaged with the 920T their Bluetooth Remote Control unit, which as you've no doubt guessed, remotely controls the Sat Nav itself. Some of you will be thinking "Why have a remote for a device that's less than two feet away when being used?” – which was our immediate thought too. Consider the fact that mobile phone usage while driving is illegal, let alone dangerous, unless you take sensible precautions with hand-free kit.

Operating a TomTom or similar device doesn’t fall into that category legally, but it probably should do. With all things being equal in its operation it could be easily just as damning, dangerous and hazardous in terms of losing focus with the job in hand; competently operating those two tons of metal travelling in excess of 30 miles an hour. The remote control replaces the distraction involved in frequently reaching across the dashboard and accessing the TomTom, as all the on-screen access via touch are exactly mimicked by the remotes buttons. This works in harmony with the speech recognition part of the GO 920T removing the complete need to touch the screen ever again whilst in transit.

All of which aids in keeping the attention on the road and nowhere else with safety here being key and paramount. To be honest, the value of this could be underestimated but there’s no value too large when it comes to protecting life in our opinion.

Bluetooth Remote Control

Another bundled accessory with this Sat Nav is the “T” part of the GO 920T – the RDS-TMC Traffic Receiver. This simply is there for delivering real-time traffic updates to the GO 920, enabling checking the quickest alternative route if there’s trouble ahead, along with re/calculate the estimated arrival time – with no additional subscriptions or fees needed. Unfortunately, with this lead in play the iPod Connect cable cannot be used – so there’s a positive side to it as well, with those-who-shall-not-be-name being left out in the cold. Oddly enough, the picture used to represent the lead looks rather akin to a Dolphin head for some strange reason.

RDS-TMC Traffic Receiver AKA Dolphin Face

The newest navigational technology to make an appearance in any of the TomTom ranges first finds its way into this one. It's known as EPT or Enhanced Positioning Technology and is an imbedded signal-aid within the device itself. This essentially uses gravity sensors and movement to calculate a vehicles position when GPS signals are unavailable or poor, all in order to still provide an accurate representation of the journey. We hope this becomes a permanent fixture even in the lesser models, rather than just seen in the higher end ones. It’s useful piece of tech we thought, which we went on to test against and in comparison to the GO 720, sans the in-built EPT. On the same journey in a built-up area we saw the flashing EPT symbol kick in, which showed it was working and then when on to provide the 920T with solid and continuous uninterrupted coverage – where as the 720 fell short.

In another test, we tried to use it on the London Underground in a 6 mile journey but alas no solid results were yielded, perhaps a tad too ambitious but then again we do have high expectations. There were a few quirks we came across that disappointed us with the TomTom GO 920T, one of being the mobile phone support for the device. It has a feature where it can sync via Bluetooth for hands free calling. This in turn utilises its in-build microphone for picking up your voice and can even air the calls through a car radio from its own FM transmitter. We found that it worked on a bunch of phones we tried, from the Nokia E90 to the Blackberry Curve – where it let us down was in the data support. This is where it could come in most useful with; TomTom Plus Traffic – for up-to-date traffic information, Buddies service – linking to other TomTom’ers and in Data transfer, plus many other features even surrounding messaging.

The crux of the matter is that the built-in phone support/compatibility is rather dated, nearly 14 months we suspect. We were assured that updates were available every month and also their listings on the website, but this still doesn’t appear to be apparent in the updates we saw. We also found some anomalous activities whenever we updated/synced the device via its TomTom home software. The Map share updates, where users can define/add their own “fixes” for the TomTom maps to be shared with other users seems to be stuck in a loop.

As it kept pulled down and installing updates where there were none to be found, creating confusion all around. We were told by their Technical Support that solutions were being worked upon and have been since January on that one. On the subject of TomTom Home – there’s a heavily touted feature for checking to see if you have the latest map on the device. It’s known as “Latest Map Guaranteed”, which gives the impression of the most up-to-date maps WILL BE installed on your device whenever actioned. That’s all it gives, is an impression, when in actual fact it’s only a guarantee for the first 30 days and that’s it, a bit of a let down there we thought. In North America the GO 920T is also available as a GO 920, minus the TomTom RDS-TMC Traffic Receiver cable with a $100 price difference between the two models and a $129 price tag if bought separately. For the UK and Europe they’ve taken that choice away to offer a more complete product, or so they say.

With that in mind, all the parts that go to make up the boxed version of the GO 920 are available separately to almost upgrade the GO 720 up to this model. The maps come in at £49.99, the remote control costs £29.99 and the Traffic Receiver has with the price of £49.99. Factoring all that in if you are an existing 720 owner, or wish to just upgrade within time would set someone back a grand total £358.97, all told. Only last month they’ve dropped the UK price point from of £399 tag to £349 on the GO 920T, which when you figure in our findings from above makes a-hell-of-a-lot more sense in overall value for money.

In Short
There are some good features within the GO 920T, notably the EPT and wider map coverage plus the remote control. Justifying buying a new device might not be the best route if you already have one of the third-generation devices – but if you’re looking to upgrade now, there’s nothing around that comes close to being this feature laden.

The Good
Bluetooth remote control, World Wide map coverage, EPT

The Bad
No latest map updates after 30 days

The Ugly
Limited mobile phone compatibility

Bartender's Report

© 2007 Incisive Media Investments Ltd. 2007