Having used a HP PDA device as my Sat Nav thing for the past couple of years, I was finding it a bit outdated, difficulty in getting the latest maps and software (at a decent price) and sick of all the cabling going on.

That blooming roundabout outside the Royal Bournemouth Hospital has been gone a while but the TomTom keeps on telling me to go round it. Anyway, more of that later.

I had a look around and Ingram Micro were doing a promotion on the TomTom Go 520 unit, that included a bundle of a 2Gb Western Europe maps and an RDS Antenna/Receiver, which effectively upgrades the unit to the equivalent of a 720 model.

The Go models are all-in-one units that you can charge at home via USB cable or docking station connected to your Mac/PC. You can simply mount them to the windscreen as before, and if fully charged you need not have the power cable permenantly plugged in or have an ariel on the dashboard as well. Means you can easily use it on foot or carry it into someone else's car.

First thing that got me was the widescreen dimensions of it. After been used to looking at the upright portait styling of my HP PDA this was a bit annoying at first. In reality I am not that bothered what is to the side of me, just more of what is ahead. It did however make the information display a lot clearer such as the road name, arrival time and so on.

Anyway, I found that you can change the location of the information display area so it now sits on the right hand side for me, and thus free up more room for a more vertical map than having the roads squashed flat.

This also can connect to your phone through Bluetooth. I haven't done any full calls yet whilst driving so cannot vouch for the quality.

I even have a Cantonese voice downloaded to read out the driving directions.

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Powered by AkoComment!