TomTom vs Garmin

[Tiggymonster]

I've got both, bought the Garmin 3 years ago and TomTom came with a recent new bike.

TomTom 400 very user friendly, quick start up and locks on to satellites straight away, Garmin Zumo 660 slower to find satellite, but battery life off the bike is longer than the TomTom.
Both came with lifetime Europe maps and updates included.

Both do the job well, but I would agree with scutty and herman

[Discoed]

Just replaced my ancient TomTom rider 2 with a Garmin 590 - so far so good I like it a lot. Feels well made and robust.

Will report back when it's had more of a test.

[steve172]

I have only used an older style TomTom Rider, and now use a Garmin Zumo 550LM.

The Tom Tom, I found, worked ok at giving you directions etc to an address or POI but wasn't much good at anything else (I struggled with creating pre-planned routes etc) and it wasn't very glove friendly. I just never really got to grips with it.

The Zumo, on the other hand, is pretty much better in every aspect for me.

[drdaveboy]

I've had garmin 660 and 350 lm which were good I've had nearly all the tomtom riders and I'm using the rider 400 now which is my favourite to date , I'm using motogoloco for route planning and putting on the memory card for the tom tom i like this program for route planning over tyre because i can use with my mac

[Chunkychops]

I used a Tomtom Rider V2 when I rode down to Spain 3 years ago and had few problems. I traded the Tomtom for a Garmin Zumo 390LM when I rode around Europe last year simply because the Tomtom could only hold 1 map region at a time. I updated the Garmin on the day I left.
I had a nightmare with the Garmin. The mapping was rubbish - trying to get from Kaunas in Lithuania to Poland resulted in being taken to Kalingrad - a Russian enclave and then I struggled with trying to navigate to Romania from Poland as the damn thing kept wanting to take me to Ukraine - whatever options I was entering and in the end I had to navigate from town to town. Both in France and Spain, major roads didn't exist on the Garmin. The Points of Interest were generally speaking a laugh when it came to campsites throughout Europe to the point I was taken to high rise apartment blocks in Helsinki and other cities. The way the POIs are displayed also has no bearing on actually how far they really are. The initial screen simply shows a list of POIs as a crow flies and on nearly every occasion, the actual distance was massively more - sometimes 100km or more or in different countries! Loads of times the friendly voice would tell me to take the 'next exit' - on hairpin bends. All in all, the damn thing probably wasted a couple of days of travel. I have sent it back and with the full refund, bought myself a Tomtom rider 400.

[P4ulie]

The question is abit like asking whether Mac or PC is better :whistle:

There's not much in it these days, you can plot routes on both. I would say go with whichever has the best deal?

My hat in the ring I have a Garmin 390LM which replaced my Zumo220. It is significantly better & been using it regularly since July. The only issue for me with Garmin is basecamp, which I just cannot get my head round & takes me longer to plot a route than ride it :S Unfortunately tyre doesn't do mac....last time I checked

[-Ralph-]

Tom Tom every time for me, easier to use and the winding roads function is great.

[P4ulie]

The new Garmins come with 'twisty routes' option Ralph so theres nothing in it. Still yet to use it mind you, only used it 3 times without banging in a postcode & they were all pre planned routes.

I've probably banged in 1000 postcodes & I like the fact I can actually make a route on the device just by that! Makes my site inspections a lot easier

[sven]

Older Garmins were awful (car and bike versions) with some really strange routing. I didn't like Basecamp either.

Offline route planning isn't really an issue nowadays as internet access is available nearly everywhere.

I've had a Tomtom Rider v2, Rider and now a v5. I plot routes using Tyre and they've taken me all round Europe and the USA without a hitch. The twisty roads and shortest route options come up with some very interesting routes, even locally.

However, the powered cradle was rubbish on the v2 and Rider (I went through two) and the processor seems slow on the v5 compared to the 390LM, nevermind newer units.

The Tomtom Rider 400 seems to be getting very mixed reviews, so I may jump ship to Garmin next as the reviews suggest they're much improved

[MikeS]

OK, thanks for your feed back Steve.