Here is an unboxing video!
(LIVE apparently?)

I would leave a comment on how awesome this GPS is, however I still do not have my replacement one yet from Tom Tom since I received a broken one back on 8/28's WOOT!

http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=5144209

I've got a TomTom and have nothing but good things to say about it. Well, the only bad thing is that I want a new one, but have to wait for the old one to die first, which it refuses to do.

I knick named the voice on my tom tom Gladys. Her sweet silky voice guided me into plenty of traffic until I wised up and started using Google navigation. Sorry Gladys the snarky google voice Penelope does it better.

and this is supposed to be one of the sources of the Apple Maps fail?

If this is your first GPS,I got a Tom Tom for $89 a year ago, I have a tip.

On GPS devices the volume is very low until you have it up on against the windshield.I know this because mine kept falling off all the time, so I put it with the speaker pointing up between my seats could not hear a thing. Do buy a $14 no slip GPS holder and some two sided tape.That is the only way mine stayed on my dash board. The suction cup thing was just a joke.

Good Luck

PS One time it did have me turn right on to a one way street which a month early had changed direction because of the opening of a Giant new Target.Target got the city to change the street to one way.I took a right into it,luckily there was no cars.I was very lost at the time. Just FYI

Does this come with lifetime maps? If so I'm in for two!

ThunderThighs wrote:No, it does not have Lifetime Maps.

Thanks for the reply! Now I might be in for one.

sessyman wrote:Thanks for the reply! Now I might be in for one.

I find it is best to ignore "lifetime" map promises when the effective life of these devices is roughly 1-2 years. These things either get stolen or the battery goes dead faster than roads get changed in a significant way. When it comes time that you really need a new set of maps, it is probably time to upgrade to a newer, better device. At this price point, it is hard to argue against treating these as highly effective yet disposable units.

Does this device work outside of the U.S.?

eneal10 wrote:I find it is best to ignore "lifetime" map promises when the effective life of these devices is roughly 1-2 years.

True, and I had a knock-down drag-out fight with Garmin because I paid extra for lifetime maps, two units died within 3 weeks and Costco traded the first and refunded me money on the second.

- BUT -

Garmin REFUSED to refund me the lifetime maps fee because "I had used the product". I told them the "product" was residing inside of TWO DEAD GARMINS that were returned to Costco. They said "too bad, you downloaded new maps, so you can't have a refund".

Well, Too Bad Garmin, AMEX reversed the charge anyway.

Lifetime maps is only good on lifetime GPS hardware.

skispeakeasy wrote:I knick named the voice on my tom tom Gladys. Her sweet silky voice guided me into plenty of traffic until I wised up and started using Google navigation. Sorry Gladys the snarky google voice Penelope does it better.

My inlaw gave us one of these and completely agree. Google navigation does it better and for free all off of a phone that is perma-glued to my side.

Dont do it...worst GPS ever, takes longer for the 'live features' to connect to the tomtom servers than it takes you to get to your destination...IF you get the damn thing working that is, 3 people I know bought them and none worked without emails to woot who gave me a phone number for tomtom.....several hours of my life ill never get back. very odd functioning device too, not intuitive at all. Im so sorry I bought this, and now im 60 bucks poorer and STILL looking for a new GPS

Wow, I disagree with most of what's being said on here. These are not one-to-two year disposable units. I have a refurbished Garmin that I bought four years ago, and it still functions perfectly. And thank heaven for the lifetime maps that I paid extra for, because they've gotten me around several tangled construction zones of brand new highways that I've navigated. My daughter has a TomTom and loves it. At this price, I would buy one of these, but thanks to the reliability and durability of the Tom Tom and Garmin that we already have in the family, I just don't need one.

I've had a TomTom for 2.5 years, still working just fine. My suction cup mount still works just fine, too.

I don't have this model, but I do have 3 Tom Toms. One of them is probably 7-8 years old and still works fine for 99% of my trips. In the many years that I have had it, I would say there has only been 3 or 4 times (if that) where the roads did not match up with the map. Face it, while roads are often improved, widened, etc., it is not that often that the location of roads are physically changed. That being said, there are occasionally new roads that are built and you will be dead in the water for those unless you have lifetime maps. According to my older TomTom, my brother lives in the middle of a field. My two other TomToms are relatively new and one supposedly has lifetime maps. I am not that concerned though, as one poster pointed out, usually a GPS itself becomes outdated before the maps, with the increasing size and features.

We have also owned a Garmin and I found the differences between the two relatively negligible. The only reason we got rid of our Garmin nuvi 855 is because it fell and cracked the screen rendering it relatively useless. It's on ebay if you want to buy it. ;-)

If I am not mistaken, all three of our TomToms were refurbished units. I have no complaints about any of them and would purchase another if needed. Actually, one complaint...one of the easy-pot mounts did not work at all out of the box. I called Tom Tom to complain and they sent me one of their other ones. I was worried because it was a refurb that they would screw me over, but they sent it to me at no charge!

At $60, this unit with it's 4.3" screen, text-to-speech (spoken street names, and advanced lane feature, seems like an awesome deal. I paid $80 for basically the same thing a couple months ago. WHERE WERE YOU THEN WOOT??!! :-(

cnet review - 3.5 stars out of 5

TomTom XL 340 S review

We currently own both a Garmin and a TomTom. No one wants to use the Garmin...I swear the maps are a confusing mess. I am buying this because family keeps taking my TomTom out of my car rather than using the Garmin. This one will be off limits...Enough Said!! It is a great unit!!

I had a different TomTom,a new XL version with lifetime maps that died on me one day after the warranty expired. It was fine to use up until that point, I liked the apps you could download, like DD locations, although I preferred the Garmin I had before that which was stolen. Much easier to look ahead to figure out what route it's taking with the Garmin.

I just replacement my first and last TomTom with a new Garmin which I like MUCH better. The TomTom unit had the oddest menu system, required street names to be spelled EXACTLY the way it wanted, and never did a good job locating businesses that I was looking for. It also took it at least two minutes to find a GPS signal, usually after I had given up trying to plot a course and just started driving. Yeah, I hated it. This one is a different model than that, but I can't imagine it would be much different.

eneal10 wrote:I find it is best to ignore "lifetime" map promises when the effective life of these devices is roughly 1-2 years. These things either get stolen or the battery goes dead faster than roads get changed in a significant way. When it comes time that you really need a new set of maps, it is probably time to upgrade to a newer, better device. At this price point, it is hard to argue against treating these as highly effective yet disposable units.

I completely disagree. I have a similar version to this one, but without the live feature and with Lifetime maps. I paid $80 for it new. With updates every 3 months you can't go wrong. Plus, who uses the batteries on these things? Whenever I use it in the car, it is plugged in.

I bought it off the last woot. Everything is good but you have to delete some voices before you can install anything. Not to mention, it had me lost while going to DFW because they were repairing the roads. I just updated it the day before. Seems like they are way slower than google maps on my iphone (ex), which was my savior that day.

waydek wrote:Wow, I disagree with most of what's being said on here. These are not one-to-two year disposable units. I have a refurbished Garmin that I bought four years ago, and it still functions perfectly. And thank heaven for the lifetime maps that I paid extra for, because they've gotten me around several tangled construction zones of brand new highways that I've navigated. My daughter has a TomTom and loves it. At this price, I would buy one of these, but thanks to the reliability and durability of the Tom Tom and Garmin that we already have in the family, I just don't need one.

100% agree with waydek. I have a 2 year old TomTom because I prefer the UI. My SO has a 3 year old Garmin which is prefered due to the UI. Both have lifetime map subscriptions and I update them a couple times a year at least.

This summer I left my TomTom in my car in 105+ degree heat, and I thought I'd killed the battery. The car must have been 160 degrees since it was in sun all day. I took it inside and after it cooled off, it worked again, but did not hold a charge. I left it inside for days in an air conditioned room, and now it works fine.

I would like a new one, because I like to see how the latest technology has changed the devices. But I don't get a new one because, as they say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

I've had a TomTom with LIVE services. It was not worth the expense, which after the free period was about $10 a month. You'd be better off getting a GPS with the free lifetime traffic and maps. And as someone said, it is very slow.

For $55 (before tax and shipping), I'll give it a shot. Everything else I've found locally is crazy. My local Radioshack only had units at $150, $400, and $500.

Plus, I think this might be the same model my fiancee used to have (except she didn't have Live services), and she loved it. It did die eventually when the software went corrupt on her (I tried everything to fix it), but she was still upset to move to something different.

The sad thing is, I have a 340 already - but it would be just as expensive for me to get this with the free map update vs. updating the maps on my 2 yr old one

ThunderThighs wrote:RE: Suction Cups

Police will tell you that the ring print of a suction cup is a sign for a thief to break into look for a GPS.

I use the suction cup mount on a beanbag mount made for GPS units. I keep an anti-slip pad on my dash and put it on that.

Then the entire thing gets put out of sight just before I reach my destination and/or parking lot.

I do the same. The beanbag is also much more convenient than trying to reach forward to the base of the windsheild and fiddle with the mount there.

I wound up using my Nexus 7 tablet as a GPS navigator w/ CoPilot Live. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one left without a smartphone!

I got one like this from Woot some months ago. I liked it OK .... until it recently FAILed. The touch screen will not respond. Updated software doesn't help - it just sticks at the disclaimer screen. I also have complaints about the suction cup - it seems to fall off the window every time the temperature drops a good bit over a short time. I had the traffic updates for a while, but pretty much ignored it - how can you trust it to be correct enough to do a re-route that you KNOW will usually take significantly longer? Even the LOCAL traffic reporters aren't always correct enough to trust for that. It also took me on a couple of really strange routes a couple of times, using residential streets and (what appeared to be) alleyways when there were main thoroughfares readily available.

$60.00 annual subscription rate after the first twelve months for "Live" services. Seems like it would better to buy a unit with "FREE" lifetime maps and traffic.

Of course, I could be wrong.

markmc27 wrote:

PS One time it did have me turn right on to a one way street which a month early had changed direction because of the opening of a Giant new Target.Target got the city to change the street to one way.I took a right into it,luckily there was no cars.I was very lost at the time. Just FYI

No GPS is going to be *that* up to date, but one nice thing about the TomTom is that you can make your own map corrections and make that street one-way (or close it down, or change the speed limit, the name of it, or whatever else you need to do) so it won't happen again.

Will this let you download routes from google maps? I live to preview my trips in google maps first, drag the route to different highways to see how this affects travel time. I would like my GPS to plan on the same route from the beginning rather than updating when I deviate from it's original route.

fgarriel wrote:Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one left without a smartphone!

You are not alone. ;-)

RogerB wrote:Will this let you download routes from google maps? I live to preview my trips in google maps first, drag the route to different highways to see how this affects travel time. I would like my GPS to plan on the same route from the beginning rather than updating when I deviate from it's original route.

I don't know if you can download from Google maps, but you can create an itinerary with up to 48 waypoints, and save/edit that itinerary. This is one of the few TomTom models with so many waypoints and the itinerary saving feature. I have an XL340TM, and use this feature to set up, for example, a scenic route following specific back roads that the GPS would never choose on its own.

A handy reference guide listing features of many TomTom models can be found here:

http://www.tomtomforums.com/t21826-tomtom-model-feature-reference-updated-11-2-2011-a.html

I bought one of these last time. It's ok. The Live service doesn't work though.

ThunderThighs wrote:RE: Suction Cups

Police will tell you that the ring print of a suction cup is a sign for a thief to break into look for a GPS.

Except why would they bother now that a new GPS is les than $100? What would they get for a hot one? $10?

I used to have a thing to stick into the Blaupunkt cassette deck in my car to make it look like a factory radio. But that was in 1985. Stealing car stereos went out of fashion ages ago and cell phone and GPS thefts followed not long after.

The risk/reward of breaking into a car because of a suction-cup ring is too low nowadays.

That being said, I prefer the bean-bag to the suction cup!

markmc27 wrote:If this is your first GPS,I got a Tom Tom for $89 a year ago, I have a tip.

On GPS devices the volume is very low until you have it up on against the windshield.I know this because mine kept falling off all the time, so I put it with the speaker pointing up between my seats could not hear a thing. Do buy a $14 no slip GPS holder and some two sided tape.That is the only way mine stayed on my dash board. The suction cup thing was just a joke.

Good Luck

PS One time it did have me turn right on to a one way street which a month early had changed direction because of the opening of a Giant new Target.Target got the city to change the street to one way.I took a right into it,luckily there was no cars.I was very lost at the time. Just FYI

I'm Fairly certain that the suction cup is for the windshield, and 99 times out of a hundred they come with a disc with 2 sided tape already on it you can stick on your dash, which in turn, you can use the suction cup on the disc, on the dash. the end.

Radical12 wrote:$60.00 annual subscription rate after the first twelve months for "Live" services. Seems like it would better to buy a unit with "FREE" lifetime maps and traffic.

Of course, I could be wrong.

The comparable unit with "free lifetime maps" costs over $90 more than this unit, according to Google. The XL 340 TM is $149. I would rather buy this one and when the battery goes dead (2 years) or it gets stolen/broken or if the maps get frustratingly out of date, I can buy a new one (probably with better features) with my savings. I have owned 4 TomToms and the last one I bought had lifetime maps. I updated the maps once before it was stolen. This time, I am approaching the purchase like I am buying a disposable item not a lifetime investment.