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TomTom GO 730T Satellite Navigation System | 
| Brand: TomTom
Category: CE
Buy New: £184.79
as of 3/9/2010 15:25 CDT details
New (6) Used (2) from £180.00
Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 9554
Media: Electronics
Batteries: 1
Display Size: 4.3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 0 x 0 x 0
Legal Disclaimer: http://www.rpadistribution.com/terms_and_conditions.asp
MPN: 1CH7.013.00
Model: 1CH7.013.00
UPC: 636926020039
EAN: 0636926020039
ASIN: B0017SLLHU
Release Date: May 5, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Very good unit, but.... June 12, 2008
A. Currah (Salisbury, UK)
122 out of 123 found this review helpful
My 3 previous units have been Garmins and until my last one (A Nuvi 610T. Look at my review on the relevent page) I was very happy with them. After using a Tomtom for a while while my Nuvi was off for repair (again), I must say I was very impressed.
However there is one point where the Nuvi beats the 730 hands down (and probably all Tomtom`s), and that is in the screen brightness. The Nuvi, even with full sunlight streaming on it remained perfectly clear and bright, and that was with the backlight only set to 80%. It was quite a disappointment going back to an "old tech" screen, having to hold a hand over it to shield it from the sun to be able to see it. A few smudgy finger marks only adds to the problem. Sunlight readable screens are mainstream now, not just the preserve of the marine and aviation markets, so there is little excuse in my opinion!
Apart from this issue (which Tomtom must address if they want to hold on to my custom in future!) it is a very impressive satnav, with a wealth of well thought out useful features.
So come on Tomtom, sort out the screen brightness and make a very good unit a superb one!
TomTom GO 730T July 2, 2008
Lorimer Watson (Ellon)
44 out of 44 found this review helpful
I had (and still have) a GO 700 but as the windscreen mount was on it's last legs (having been glued back together a few months ago) and the maps outdated I decided to upgrade to a 730T instead of buying a new mount and maps. It's a decision I don't regret especially as I paid less than £220 thanks to accumulated Amazon vouchers.
It is certainly superior to the GO 700 and the additional features - lane guidance, Q route, MP3 facility etc are all very useful. The only feature I haven't used yet is the RDS traffic which I believe can be quite patchy but this is not unique to TomTom. GPS reception is superb, locating my position almost instantly.
I only have one major criticism (hence the 4 stars)and that is the screen brightness, which as in all previous TomToms, is pretty pathetic considering the screen technology available these days. In bright sunshine the screen is very difficult or impossible to see. Another more minor fault is the short screen mount which on modern cars leaves the TomTom almost out of reach. I intend to get round this by purchasing dashboard mounting discs and this in fact may assist screen visibility as well by bringing the device further into the car. Despite these niggles I am very pleased with this bit of kit.
 Motorway lane feature is fantastic May 14, 2008
Roger Coleman (UK)
136 out of 138 found this review helpful
Like many people I spent a long time agonizing between the TomTom 720 and the Garmin 760. I decided to go with the Tomtom and as luck would have it the day I wanted to order, amazon were out of stock of the 720 so I plumped an extra £140 for the 730 instead. It was way more than I wanted to spend on a Satnav but I couldn't bear the thought of any more agonizing so I just bought what they had. For me this is a farily typical 'spend ages researching and then when it comes to it buy something different because what I eventually decided on was out of stock' scenario. I couldn't really find any real user reviews on the 730 so thought I'd write a few notes here to help anyone in the same situation as me. I've just come back from a 700 mile round trip to Disneyland Paris where we used the device heavily in the UK and France.
I'm really glad I went for the 730. To me, the killer new feature is the display which shows which lane you need to be in on a motorway. As you approach a complex motorway junction (which is almost all of them), the screen shows a static image of the road with all the lanes in, and green flashing arrows showing where you want to be. This makes navigating motorways absolutely as straight forward as it could be. Although I wasn't at all impressed by the sound of this feature when reading up on the 730, I have to say it is fantastic and the screen appears just when you are wondering if you are in the right lane.
There are a lot of details in the device that are really handy - for example if you have a lot of turns to make one after another, it combines the instructions in a way that is very natural sounding such as 'turn right at the roundabout and then turn right at the next roundabout'. It seems to know a lot of speed limits which is also unexpectedly handy. I had a go with the traffic sensor and amazingly it knew exactly where the roadworks were in France. Astonishingly we didn't get stuck in traffic anywhere so couldn't report on if it knew about traffic jams (it reported that there were none). However the antenna you have to plug in to get the traffic information is annoying and I'm unlikely to use it day to day.
It has been spot on at predicting the arrival time, but I haven't had much experience with previous TomToms to know if this is improved. It just works fine on this device.
When I was looking at the Garmin, I was very tempted by the better looking map displays, but decided to go with the TomTom because the screen refresh rate appears faster. I was expecting the 730's maps to be smoother (they mention a better graphics system) but unfortunately they aren't - it's the same tomtom jaggy map, however the benefit of this is that it does update the display very quickly and the device is very quick and responsive to use. Don't get me wrong - the map is fine, it just doesn't look as pretty as other devices.
I have been able to connect the device and update it using my mac which I didn't expect - it appears fully compatible with OSX via software I downloaded from the TT website. I've had no problems updating it and will routinely plug it in to keep it up to date as the process appears painless.
I have some minor niggles: The most obvious is that the screen doesn't have sensor to automatically set the brightness according to the ambient light, so to see it in bright sunlight you have to set it to 100%, which means in the evening it's distractingly bright. Honestly that's pretty much it at the moment. It did have some out of date map data regarding the roads within the Disneyland park itself, but I can forgive it for that because if you drive where you want it recalculates the route silently after about 20-30s. So it is easy to drive by road signs when you know where you are going and using the TomTom for directions when you don't know where you are going. It also appears to have a bit of an issue with turning itself on again after turning it off after using it for a couple of hours, but I'm guessing this is a glitch that will be fixed by a software update.
So in all I'm very happy and look forward to getting the hang of all the fancy features.
[update - a few weeks later...] After a few weeks using the device, I've found it actually does have (I think) some sort of ambient light sensor to switch between day and night views which does address my only niggle. However I've found the issue of it turning itself on again when you turn it off really quite annoying - it means the battery is pretty much always flat when I go to use it, so I have to use the car charger all the time. Also it's not very good at allowing you to input destinations in any other means than postcode or house number + street - so if you need to look something up like 'legoland' or 'Gildredge Park, Eastbourne' it just doesn't know what you mean, which has meant we've not been able to use it to go to either of those places. However, as far as I can tell this is something that all satnavs have a problem with (I guess we are just spoilt by google). If amazon let me change my star rating I'd change it to 4 stars. It's still excellent at motorway navigation, but if you need to go regularly to places for which you don't know the postcode, or good battery life is important I'd say look elsewhere.
IQ routes huge improvement, but you can upgrade your 720 for less October 22, 2008
Martin Turner (Marlcliff, Warwickshire, England)
60 out of 61 found this review helpful
The TomTom Go 730T is a highly functional and fully featured SatNav with additional phone and music facilities. It is very substantially better than previous models, but its direct predecessor, the TomTom Go 720 Traffic Edition, can be upgraded to the same level by buying the new maps and using the free software upgrade from TomTom. Although its additional features vary in performance, this is still a product that will save its own price in petrol fairly quickly if you drive a lot to places you don't know well.
The key difference between the 730T and its predecessor the 720T is the inclusion of IQ Routes, an (allegedly) much more intelligent way to plan routes, based on time of day. The 730T differs from the TomTom GO 730 in that it has traffic information through the included traffic aerial. In the West Midlands, I find this to be very helpful, but comments from users across the country suggest that coverage is patchy. Traffic HD, a much better, but paid for service, is now available on the TomTom GO 740 LIVE by monthly subscription. However, unlike the first issue in the Netherlands, it now appears that you won't be able to buy an upgrade for your existing device. The 730 scores over the lower models in that it has built in blue-tooth for complete hands free phone use (generally works, but some connections to some networks in some areas are basically unuseable) and an FM transmitter for playing music through your car stereo. To use this, buy an SD card and put the songs on that - if you try to connect an iPod with the special iPod connector cable, you discover that you can't use the Traffic attachment, since they share the same socket. I have searched in vain for a splitter, or even a switch. Nobody seems to make one. The unit also benefits from voice activation, which works for me but not for everyone, and (as they say) numerous other refinements.
If the main difference from the previous model is IQ Routes, then how good are they?
Well, basically, they are much better, but this is a result of better overall information, rather than the flagship change of route based on time of day* (see update below). It turns out that, in the current implementation, the unit only distinguishes between weekdays and weekends. That said, the routes it now chooses are much, much more intelligent, especially in crowded towns. Previously, the TomTom looked at the speed limit and class of road, and assigned a path on that basis, thereby often taking you through the most congested places (occupied by lots of other drivers with TomToms on their windscreens). Now, because the routes are based on real average speeds, the unit frequently chooses the route that an experienced driver would take through streets they know well. This is really much, much better, and I find myself now rarely choosing 'Shortest Route' to avoid being taken by the slowest possible route at rush-hour.
However, if you already own a 720T, you can get the software upgrade for nothing, and simply buying an up to date map will give you the maps which make it work. A much cheaper option, and one which renders your investment quite nicely.
IQ routes also gives you better lane information on the motorway. I haven't really found this to be a great improvement, but I'm sure it will come in handy at some point.
If you are upgrading from the 710, then you need to know that the 730 (and the 720, for that matter), are very, very different. The overall form is much slimmer, and will fit in a coat pocket, but there is no electronics in the mount, so you have to plug it all in again. I actually opted for a built in mount this time, which TomTom advertises, and am much happier, since it also means there is no tell-tale ring on the windscreen, and the mount itself looks like nothing in particular. Slightly less helpfully, the unit seems more prone to software problems than the 710 was, so see the caveat at the bottom of this review.
As you can see, there are quite a few flaws with the 730T. So why am I giving it five stars? Ultimately, despite the patchy traffic coverage, the not entirely reliable Bluetooth phone link, and the extremely unintelligent way in which you can either have Traffic, or the iPod, but not both at once, this is still a superb piece of kit which will save you its price in petrol fairly quickly, and will also keep you on the right side of the law as far as receiving calls while you are driving. The Traffic information saved me a couple of hours just last week. If you don't have SatNav, or if you have a TomTom model older than the 720, then I would strongly recommend this.
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Caveat
If your TomTom should crash, or need resetting, you should plug it into a computer as soon as possible and check the disk (instructions are available for both Mac and PC on the TomTom website), and, to be on the safe side, also reset the flash memory. If you don't do this, it will freeze up with increasing frequency, requiring more and more resets, each of which damages the apparently fragile disk structure. If you repair the disk regularly, the unit is highly reliable. If you don't, it's fairly flakey.
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* Update
This week I received the latest maps from TomTom, and the software is now date and time aware, rather than just week-day or weekend, as it was previously. Exactly how different the routes are for particular times and days is something I am waiting to discover. However, it seems that TomTom is using the anonymised data that they started requesting about a year ago (which you can switch off if you don't trust them) to constantly improve the maps and routes.
My first ever sat nav June 27, 2008
K. Smith (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)
21 out of 21 found this review helpful
I bought this as I have just bought my first ever car and I am no good at map reading. I am not dissapointed. The touch screen is great and the voice recognition is a brilliant piece of kit.
It is remarkably easy to use and to upload map corrections and POIs which I have done a few times. There is something satisfying about uploading your own POIs!!! The voices are clear and the directions are said well in advance of you needing to execute them. I love the fact that music can be played via the FM transmitter on Tom Tom through my car radio and the music will stop when the next instruction is being read. I haven't had a problem with it crashing as the previous reviewer has had. It also has a desktop application so you san upload and download map corrections, new voices, images etc and be a part of the Tomtom community.
All in all i love it and I am so glad I paid the money for it instead of forking out for a cheap £60 model where the maps can't be updated.
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