Setting out from a cold but familiar Essex equipped with nothing more than an overnight bag a half eaten chicken wrap and 2/3 bottle of coke we would be relying on the 930 to navigate us from A to B safely otherwise we may starve to death or be eaten by northern cannibals.

So sitting in the car at 6am it was time to test one of the new features before we even left the house, the voice input. It seems that we are too lazy or the health and safety Nazis deem it too dangerous for us to type on a screen and input a postcode or name so now we are to speak it. This still requires a button press to put it into voice mode but from there on you can speak the town name, street name and even number. Like most speech recognition systems it can be a bit picky and will make mistakes, to be fair to TomTom its quite good and we managed about a 80% accuracy over the whole trip. It will either get it right or be miles off the mark sometimes with an amount of amusement in what it comes up with.

Ok so on with the journey. We clamped the TTG930 to the windscreen using the revised sucker system introduced on the newer ranges, its strong an stable despite being just a tad ugly and very visible from outside the car as a SatNav mount. Power is as expected from the 12 volt point in your car and it boots up rapidly. The Go 930 is an attractive chap and that's good for this range topper which has to stand out from the lesser models despite doing a very similar job. The screen is bright and colourful with the now familiar interface which TomTom do so well.

Now this model is equipped with IQ routes, this supposedly augments the chosen route which is traditionally based on the maximum speed of a road and its length and adds in some local information, data gathered from real journeys. So this should have meant we didn't sit in the M25 queue to get onto the M1, but we did so we can only assume IQ data isn't that current or it would have known about the queues which have been here for over a year and will continue until hell freezes over or the highways agency finished which ever comes first.

On the move the interface and spoken instructions are 1st class but we were keen to see the enhanced lane guidance. It's aimed to stop the stressful stuff of getting trapped in the wrong lane on busy roads. We soon saw this with new lane icons showing which lane to be in which is all very nice, sadly this was not always accurate and in some cases was worse than having no info at all! Then there is roundabout assistance which should help you get in lane for those big horrible roundabouts that get you all stressed. Again great idea but poor execution as we ended up being told the wrong lane to be in having fought to get over there in the first place.

There is a theme here and a worrying one for the Go 930, we assume that TomTom have swapped mapping providers again, something they can easily do in the way the map data is abstracted from their own OS and applications. But the issue is that inconstancies that were ironed out long ago appear to be back, indeed the TomTom mapping software on our smartphone had correct data where the new TomTom Go 930 didn't.

That said we made it to Loughborough, which as an area is nice but the town (ahem) anyhow we made it to our meeting and then the hotel for the night which gave us time to set up a few more features for the trip back. Firstly we got to know the supplied remote control a nice unit that saves you stretching forward onto a deep windscreen, not sure this is essential but its nice.

Then there is the inbuilt FM transmitter which allowed us to tune in the car radio  to the Tom Tom Go 930 so that any audio sent was played back on the cars speakers. We already had some audio tracks on an SD card which we slid into the unit and then could play back through the radio with TomTom voice guidance coming through. It's great if you do this but if you just have the voice instructions and no music it's better to use the inbuilt Go speaker which is very loud and you can then listen to Radio 2 as normal.

Lastly we decided to set-up TomTom traffic, which use one of 3 methods to pick up traffic information to help you route. First up there is the all new TomTom Traffic HD, which uses an inbuilt Sim card and the Vodafone network to collect real-time data from connected TomTom users, this info is then collated and fed back every 3 minutes via the same system to the HD enabled devices. This sounds brilliant but isn't available yet in the UK!

So we were back to the tried and tested TMC (free traffic data over FM) and also TomTom traffic which is a paid for extra from TomTom which also incurs data subscription charges as it uses your mobile phone (more on TomTom Traffic here). So next morning we headed for the car ready to set off and drove for a short while waiting for some traffic info to appear and nothing, zip, diddly. In fact we got all the way to the second days meeting without any TMC info at all. We refused to use TomTom traffic due to the mobile data cost from O2 and so relied on good old local FM radio traffic reports. This is all very weird as TMC does work and we have reviewed the bolt on TMC receiver in the past. It seems that the new Go 930 has poor reception as once heading back down the M1 later in the day it leapt into life and worked as we had expected.

So for now the traffic element of the Go 930 seems a bit iffy and until the HD traffic option makes it to the UK it's very hit and miss. Also do note that the HD traffic is a subscription offer after an initial free period and is likely to cost at least £5 a month.

The last option we played with or at least tried to was the Hands Free mode, where the TomTom connects via Bluetooth to your mobile and acts as a voice gateway. Our motorway run proved that the poor microphone on the earlier Go 700 unit we tested is still in use in this model and above about 60mph the other side of the call cold not hear us so we switched back to using the BMW system already in the car.

After moaning about the poor mapping we did hook up the unit to TomTom home when we got back to the Lordpercy offices and sync with Map Share. When you find an error there is a simple on screen option to correct the TomTom map and this correction goes back to the map share server and is then distributed to other TomTom users who download updates. It's a bit like a communist mapping collective and we are pleased to say that most of the errors we found on our journey to Loughborough were corrected by the user forum inputs. However it is sad that the mapping data suppliers are now relying on users to make maps accurate, we suppose Microsoft is to blame for starting beta testing using fare paying customers!

We know this is all sounding a bit negative and the TomTom Go 930 is an excellent device with accurate routing and an amazingly simple interface. However this range topper has lots of extra features to justify nearly a 3 fold increase in price over the entry level TomTom One and for us the extras just doesn't justify the price. Reviewing the TomTom Go 930 hasn't put us off TomTom but it has made us realise that stuffing a SatNav with more and more features, especially ones that aren't perfect can actually reduce the usefulness of the Navigation unit.

So in summary the TomTom Go 930 is good but lower down the range you will get the same great mapping and SatNav experience for less cash!

Published - 07/08/2008

More SatNav Reviews-

[ Up ] [ Navman iCN510 Review ] [ Garmin C320 Review ] [ Mio 268 Review ] [ Magellan Roadmate 300 ] [ TomTom Go 700 ] [ GPS Navigation System Reviews ] [ Mio 269 Review ] [ TomTom One ] [ Mio A201 Review ] [ TomTom Rider Motorbike GPS ] [ Medion GoPal 350 Review ] [ Mio C210 Review ] [ Sony Nav-U Review ] [ Garmin i2 Review ] [ TomTom One Europe Review ] [ Navman N60i Review ] [ TomTom Go 520 Review ] [ Navman N20 Review ] [ TomTom Go 930 Review ] [ Mio GPS Review ] [ Garmin Zumo 550 Review ] [ TomTom One XL ] [ Navman F20 Review ] [ Loox N100 Review ] [ Snooper Indago Review ] [ Acer D100 Review ] [ TomTom Go 910 Review ] [ Garmin i3 Review ] [ Garmin Nuvi Review ] [ Navman iCN320 Review ] [ TomTom Go 500 ] [ TomTom Go 300 Review ] [ Acer N35 Review ]