dealnews shows this:LIFETIME MAPS

TomTom XXL 550M 5" GPS w/ lifetime map updates for $98 + free shipping
Beach Camera via eBay Daily Deal offers the TomTom XXL 550M 5" Portable GPS Navigation System, model no. 1EP0.019.02, for $98 with free shipping. That's tied with our mention from four weeks ago and the lowest total price we could find by $23. This GPS features a 5" touchscreen LCD, lifetime map updates (up to four updates per year), maps of the U.S., Puerto Rico, Canada, and Mexico, text-to-speech, advanced lane guidance, and more. Deal expires August 27 at 10:25 pm ET.

rayrayl81 wrote:I think this is a better deal, free lifetime updates. ;) I just bought this one instead.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=567428&CatId=3422

Smaller screen, more expensive, refurb, questionable warranty, TigerDirect is a sucky retailer. No thanks.

Yes - with a GPS device, you're always able to establish communication with a satellite no matter where you are. With a navigation app on an iPhone, you have to have access to a cellular tower, and the signal goes in-out causing the app to constantly "recalculate."

lingallabaal wrote:What is the USB for? If connecting to a pc, whatever for?

Hooking a GPS up to a computer allows you to update the software if there are bugs, and most importantly, update the maps. This was necessary for my phone after major downtown reconstruction was completed last summer.

phacopida wrote:Is there an advantage to having a dedicated GPS device as opposed to a GPS app for a smartphone or tablet?

Yes, one stays in your car and is paid for once. The others are carried around and you pay for the ability every month. (hard to mount a Tablet on the dash too.)

The only difference I can see between this one (530-S) and the 540-S is that the 540-S has Lane Guidance which tells you what lane to get in. The 540 (REFURB) goes for $85 shipped on Amazon, so $75 shipped for this NEW one is mighty tempting.

kjmattson wrote:I have a TomTom. Do I like it? NoNo.

Me to-to. My TomTom bites-blows!

pwrof3 wrote:If you are buying this for use in CA, note that it is illegal to mount it in the MIDDLE of the windshield. It must be mounted on the lower left or right hand corner of the windshield.

I've been mounting my GPS on the middle ever since and the cops don't mind as they drive by me. Probably because they realized it's a just such a stupid law and/or the charger cable isn't long to reach either side of the car (at least for me).

And also, who would want to stick the GPS on the right side corner of the car windshield car? Might as well paint your windshield black.

Driving back from Florida, our Tom Tom decided to route us through the middle of Washington, DC. When Rolling Thunder was in town.

I had set the route to bypass DC completely. Tommy decided that I should be stuck behind thousands of motorcycles and other traffic for hours.

The wife had to physically restrain me from throwing the sucker out of the car window.

wait for a Garmin Nuvi

imrbilly wrote:im assuming this one does not have lifetime maps? which is the one that does? anyone know?

The Tomtom that I got , I bought mine on Ebay does have the life time maps. It is the XL340 (TM) it came with a life time map code card in box. And I Just LuvLuv my TomTom . And mine was like only 20.00 or so more plus 5.00 shipping . I hope this helps .

profun7 wrote:cell phones use information from signal from towers.

Not all celphones. Many running google maps read of of sats.

wootSdotdot wrote:So tempting. Do we know how long this will be up for?

The Deals on Woot run for one day only . From Midnite oneday to midnite the next nite. Say for instance , the New woot that Came out On Wed. at Midnight will be up till Midnight on thursday. (aka 24. hrs ) I Hope this helps . That is Central time zone

thelastredeemer wrote:And also, who would want to stick the GPS on the right side corner of the car windshield car? Might as well paint your windshield black.

Somebody with ridiculously long arms (Stretch Armstrong) perhaps?

I moved mine from the middle to the lower left a long time ago. I much prefer it out-of-the-way like that.

I have this model. Absolutely no problems with it, and it's easy to use/update.

profun7 wrote:cell phones use information from signal from towers. If you go out of range of your provider's towers or a cooperating provider you will no longer have location information. Some time ago I found this to be the case in Northeast MN, Western Nebraska, some of Iowa.
GPS uses satelite signals at least 2 and maybe 3 sometines and don't depend on towers that can go out of range.Sometimes the satelites will take a few minutes to acquire a signal.
Both systems will have some trouble in a tunnel of any size.

Most smartphones (and even featurephones) have GPS chips inside of them - so even without coverage, your position is still available. The problem is that the map data is downloaded over your cellular data connection. So you'll know your lat/long position, you just won't have a map to look at until you get coverage again.

That being said, some of the smartphone/tablet apps have the option to download all of the maps (a couple of gigs worth of data) at once, preventing this problem.

You had it on the get lost mode aka shortest route. TomTom GPS are the best hands down. Map updates are an issue. You have to pay for them. I have the 920 and have had many models that I have given family members but not this one. I like bells and whistles. But hell for 69 bucks go ahead and get lost. After all isn’t it all about the ride not the destination. I have mine on my Harley on a RAM Mount. You’ll love it for the price.They are a lot smarter now too.

CurtCameron wrote:Has the navigation on these things improved recently?

About four years ago I borrowed a friend's TomTom, and trying to navigate to a major hotel (the Hill Country Hyatt in San Antonio), it routed me to a country road past houses with cars on blocks in their front yard, then it came to a dead end.

When returning home to Richardson, it didn't seem to know that Campbell Rd connects from Plano Rd to Jupiter Rd, so it wanted to route me a few miles to the north to make this one-mile segment.

I bought a Magellan unit about three years ago, and it doesn't seem to know that Hwy 380 connects from Decatur to Denton. Coming back home last weekend I was using it, and on the path from Wichita Falls to Richardson, it was telling me a path that was a full hour longer than the optimal path (Decatur-Denton-Lewisville-Richardson). It wanted to send me through Ft Worth instead. As soon as I turned off 287 in Decatur and got on 380, it suddenly figured out "Hey, here's a better path!" and cut a full hour off my estimated arrival time.

Pretty much every time I've used it there is some major screw-up like this. I thought the point of having a GPS was to reliably get you from one place to another, but since I can't trust it, I have to verify the route through another method before the trip. What's the point then?

barbarianprince wrote:Garmin is just as bad as TOMTOM in this regard ... takes time to find all those satalites floating around out there.!!

If it doesn't locate a satellite in 3 minutes, shut it off, then hold the power button until you hear the tom-toms. This resets the device.

thelastredeemer wrote:And also, who would want to stick the GPS on the right side corner of the car windshield car? Might as well paint your windshield black.

1) You have a human navigator in the passenger seat;

2) You have a right-hand-side drive vehicle (recycled mail truck, imported Range Rover) and that's the side where the driver sits.

-- Ed

thelastredeemer wrote:I've been mounting my GPS on the middle ever since and the cops don't mind as they drive by me. Probably because they realized it's a just such a stupid law and/or the charger cable isn't long to reach either side of the car (at least for me).

And also, who would want to stick the GPS on the right side corner of the car windshield car? Might as well paint your windshield black.

True, most cops do not pull you over for a minor infraction such as this, but if you were to ever get pulled over for something else, they could always add this infraction onto your ticket.
Plus, the law is the law

I keep mine on the lower left hand corner, and actually prefer it to the middle, as I can glance at it as I check my left hand side mirror.

map updates, downloading new voices, etc.

lingallabaal wrote:What is the USB for? If connecting to a pc, whatever for?

lingallabaal wrote:What is the USB for? If connecting to a pc, whatever for?

Ummm.... Map updates?

sullivan65 wrote:
I Just use the Wife 1.0 Navigation system. It just sits in the seat next to me and is always telling me where to go. Only downside is that it does not have the Homer Simpson voice option.

Aw, come on guys... THIS is a Quality Post!!!

X2

italiiano wrote:yes. It's got an option to save current location as a favorite, when you do that it displays the lat and long to use as the location of the favorite vs. guessing the address of where you're at.

Thanks italiiano - I'm going in for one

kjmattson wrote:Yeah, you don't need a cell signal.

Why would GPS need a cell signal? Would they not use the signal from all those GPS satellites?

mdoneil wrote:Why would GPS need a cell signal? Would they not use the signal from all those GPS satellites?

Why not remove your head from your omgponies and read some of the other posts. Most phones DO have GPS chips and DO get their position from the satellites but they get their maps from real time live data (the interweb.) So...if you're out of data coverage you're out of luck!

Hence the standalone GPS with all the handy dandy maps stored in/on the device.

when are you all going to get the lifetime free maps and free traffic?

phacopida wrote:Is there an advantage to having a dedicated GPS device as opposed to a GPS app for a smartphone or tablet?

Only if you drive. All my cars have navigation as part of the stereo.

You need to receive four satellite signals in order to get a position fix. Three satellites may be sufficient for short periods of time, depending on the unit and its intelligence (or presence of externally provided data). There are currently 31 satellites in orbit and functioning properly.

profun7 wrote:
GPS uses satelite signals at least 2 and maybe 3 sometines and don't depend on towers that can go out of range.Sometimes the satelites will take a few minutes to acquire a signal.

You do not need access to a cellular tower in order to determine your location with an iPhone. GPS uses the GPS satellite constellation to determine your position.

Apple has muddied the waters with their "assisted gps" ideas, which can use wifi (!) or cell tower info to determine ROUGH position info on some devices that lack a GPS receiver- the iPhone, however, does have one.

You _may_ need cellular data in order to receive map data. It depends on what app you are using for navigation, whether the map data is stored on the device, or provided on-the-fly over a data connection.

What app you are using that causes constant "recalculations" based on cell signal going "in-out" on your iPhone?

ronalddgrant wrote:Yes - with a GPS device, you're always able to establish communication with a satellite no matter where you are. With a navigation app on an iPhone, you have to have access to a cellular tower, and the signal goes in-out causing the app to constantly "recalculate."

The 540s is going for 89.99 new @ Best Buy

Connect to pc for updates

pwrof3 wrote:If you are buying this for use in CA, note that it is illegal to mount it in the MIDDLE of the windshield. It must be mounted on the lower left or right hand corner of the windshield.

Was that California or Canada?

uhclem2 wrote:Google doesn't need no stinking App store!
http://www.google.com/mobile/maps/

I have to laugh at the non-multi tasking phone users. I've been running Google Maps on my AT&T Win Mobile HTC Touch Pro2 for a long time. Window and GSM multitasks just fine.
I use the traffic information for my Boston area commute. I don't leave the driveway without it being setup. I have a dash bracket and put calls on speakerphone or bluetooh.

Another con though is the data plan. I have unlimited, but when I drove to Montreal I began to worry about roaming charges in Canada.
Also when in Turkey a year ago, I just bought a Win Mobile GPS app (NDrive) for 40e that worked great.

Check your calendar Bro it ain't 2007 anymore! iOS does in fact multi-task, and I can listen to music while getting turn by turn, etc.

In fact, I use the Tom Tom app quite a bit! Works fantastic.

pwrof3 wrote:True, most cops do not pull you over for a minor infraction such as this, but if you were to ever get pulled over for something else, they could always add this infraction onto your ticket.
Plus, the law is the law

I keep mine on the lower left hand corner, and actually prefer it to the middle, as I can glance at it as I check my left hand side mirror.

I attach mine to the vent with a $3 including shipping bracket i found on ebay. It's not visible from outside the car, it's accessible from both front seats and it does not leave any marks on the windshield.

I have the xxl 550 TM from Costco. it works ok but sometimes, the touch screen does not work and it registers every press as if it were against the left edge of the screen.

crazy picture with my previous tomtom in 2008

thelastredeemer wrote:I've been mounting my GPS on the middle ever since and the cops don't mind as they drive by me. Probably because they realized it's a just such a stupid law and/or the charger cable isn't long to reach either side of the car (at least for me).

And also, who would want to stick the GPS on the right side corner of the car windshield car? Might as well paint your windshield black.

Actually, it's not a stupid law. Objects such as this can block a significant portion of the windshield and obstruct one's view.

In California there's a law that says a driver will not mount anything on the windshield. But officers ignore anyone who mounts parking stickers, permits, etc. in the upper left or lower bottom of the windshield.

I mount my GPS as low in the left bottom corner to where I can run the cord freely to the lighter, from the unit.

The unit is then out of the way and does not obstruct my view. I don't know about others, but I think the law makes sense since I want as much a view out front, so to speak, as possible.

http://www.rantuniverse.com/tomtomounted.jpg

Mine came in the mail today. It was stuck on the language selection page.

Did a soft reset and that fixed it.

Soft reset is done by simply making sure the device is off, then press the on/off button AND HOLD IT DOWN. After about 15 seconds it reboots/resets.

This model is the XXl series, the 535T (T standing for "traffic").

Also, here is the TomTom product page for it. Had a heck of a time finding it:

http://www.tomtom.com/en_us/products/car-navigation/xxl-535-t/index.jsp

http://uk.support.tomtom.com/app/answers/list/c/2485

http://www.tomtom.com/en_us/products/car-navigation/xxl-535-t/index.jsp#tab:benefits

This may be a generic model startup guide:

http://download.tomtom.com/open/manuals/start/refman/TomTom-Start-ReferenceGuide-en-GB.pdf

its simple either be on the safe side and pay the 100 bucks for the lifetime maps or be in danger, get lost or possibly killed in the woods and dont pay the 100 bucks its up to you stop being cheap people

Got mine from Woot! last night. It's a XXL 530-s and it is in fact NEW. Nice big display. Used it to find my way to work this morning and took a totally different route than it suggested. It recalculates pretty fast. I didn't want to commit to mounting in a particular location just yet, so it was sliding around a lot.

It only comes with a User Guide. Here's the more detailed
Reference manual for the 530 & 540
I haven't hooked it to the PC yet to update the map or add new voices yet.