Tom Tom Go builds on the award winning Tom Tom navigator software which has just released its 3rd version to combine the intuitive software interface with a robust and stylish hardware platform.

Best of all the new tom tom go unit isn't a brick instead at 115 x 91.5 x 57.5mm its small enough to fit into a handbag or briefcase which means its easily moved between vehicles without having to remove separate GPS antennas or rely on a Bluetooth connection between different components.

The package is available with a mounting system that allows the tom tom go unit to tilt and swivel easily to attain the best position for the driver to view, unlike earlier mounting systems this one appears to be a far more sturdy affair. The unit has optional  front face plates to change the colour plus either black or silver rear plates, its seems that style has been a driver in the packaging of the unit.

However this does not mean a drop in performance, far from it, the tom tom go unit is a fully fledged tom tom 3 navigator system which is now platform independent and makes its first appearance in a dedicated hardware unit with TomTom Go. Navigation simply requires a part postcode of entry of a UK address down to street level and the unit starts to plot your route from current position, a new feature with Go is the inclusion of waypoints allowing the plotting of complicated multi stop routes, ideal for deliveries.

Once in memory your route guidance is mainly a spoken affair with on screen mapping as a backup, its much more than a simple arrow or pointer affair that you'd pay over £1000 for in a car manufacturers system, here you get a  choice of map styles / colours and either a 2D or 3D view. The 3D view is excellent giving real perspective to the map which is great in town where several exits appear close together, it just seems to be more natural than a flat map view.

The screen is a very bright one! in fact too bright to leave in daylight mode during nigh driving, the software provides for a number of night style maps which have black or dark blue as their primary colours which greatly reduces the output of the screen. In daylight the brightness is very useful and managed to combat a lot of reflections we have suffered from when using tom tom on a PDA.

The Audio is a vast improvement over the Navman unit we tested back in March, it is clear and loud, even in a noisy car with the radio on you can clearly hear one of the 4 pre programmed English voices or one of the multi lingual options.

Should you stray from the chosen route tom tom quickly gets you back on track and the Tom Tom Go unit seems marginally quicker than the PDA versions to do this, is some systems we have tested a re route can take minutes to plot by which time you are further off track triggering another re calculation, but tomtom takes seconds to lay in the corrected route.

Should you get stuck in traffic the intuitive touch screen interface allows a quick selection of "roadblock" which you can also specify the distance of the blockage, so the unit calculates to get you off of the M1 and back on after say 1 mile and doesn't just avoid the M1 for your whole route!

The maps are pre loaded onto an SD card which just slots into the main unit, the UK map is about 100mb plus you also get the major roads of Europe map at 80mb free of charge. All the goodies are there too with the ability to download POI maps like the ever useful UK speed trap map. SD cards are available up to 1Gb so there should be no problem in loading all of the detailed European maps on a new card if you are a seasoned traveller.

The hardware platform is a based around a 200Mhz Arm 920T processor running a Linux variant and the clean and bright 3.5" TFT screen which has a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, the Li-ion battery will give about 5 hours of navigating away from a power source but the kit comes with a 12 volt adaptor for your car. There is also a mini USB allowing you to hook up your PC to the tom tom go unit for updating software loading maps and POI databases.

All in all this should make Navman and their icn510 very nervous, Tom Tom have a knack for producing the most useable GPS systems on the market and this move into non PDA based systems is a clever one. Retailing at £399 Tom Tom Go is priced way below our initial expectations and is exceptional value for money, its rare we can so whole heartedly recommend a gadget  but with this Tom Tom Go Review we have no hesitation in saying its the best all in one satnav on the market today.

TomTom Go has been recently updated the closest model in the new range to the one reviewed here is the tomtom go 300, which is at a new lower price of £369.99.

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