It may well be that ANY detector is going to be rendered about useless in an EMI polluted city, which most are today, I suspect. And I’m not going to spend a $1,000 or more to find out. This unit acts exactly like low/moderate priced units of the 1970s.

It looks like most cities/counties are still using K/Ka-band, so if it’s your first RD, start with something under $50 & see if it’s of any use in your situation. This unit won’t be much better. Professional highway drivers might find this OK as a starter unit, but will probably pop for the $1,000+ units in the end.

Ease of hook up B

Display D-

Programming B

Sensitivity B+

Selectivity D-

Mounting/Power Hardware C

Nice to have Extra F

Documentation C-

Internet Support B

Bang for $ C-

True, this is radio detector not a compass. However, it made me doubt its accuracy and quality overall. I recently passed a few hidden police officers in their favorite spots for speeding tickets, but this device did not show any responses. Well, it could be that the police was not using the radar, that’s weird, because I know they were targeting speeding. In a few other cases it displayed the frequencies of Ka but I could not find any police officers.

Plus, I also have trouble to read the text display. I have to pay attention to that because when heading into the radar zone, it only gives 2 beeps at the very beginning then no sounds or more alerts except for the display. So, if I wonder whether my car is out of the radar, I have to read. The situation get worse when I have sun glasses on sunny days.

Now, I do have trouble to trust whether it is working or not and I am actually thinking to return it to Amazon. At the same time, I am driving slowly so not to pass any posted speed limits. (My purchase is still within 30 days.) Any comments are welcomed. Thank you.

Thanks

My old 330S is such a nicer unit .. the new map was nice though, so I will pay $100 for the new map now. Ready for my list .. this is what they TOOK AWAY.

- No auto-dimming.

- No auto power off option (when you turn your car off)

- No POI features .. they give you tons but you cannot add your own or even set up POI to alert you (handy for doing your own speed camera file).

- No screen or menu customization .. the display is the display, so for instance 2D-3D toggle is dead centre and I endlessly would keep flipping between the two by accident — would be nice optionally not have it on the MAIN screen.

- Numbers are itty bitty now and you are forced to have information you may or may not find useful. for instance counting down the time to arrival, I just need the estimated time of arrival .. too much information takes my eyes onger to find what I need (which is a MAJOR factor and pest when driving).

- no map “log a point” feature anymore, so harder to fix errors (granted the map probably has way fewer errors to worry about).

- the map .. it take a good hour to download and install. it was nice, but was wondering if I was up to doing that every 3 months.

- only one additional dash sticky disk (the idea being they gave you two in case you had a couple cars, or change the vehicle you had. Just seemed cheap.

I am pretty certain that these new units are designed to have no customization, and any “feature” has to be turned on and controlled by TomTom — ie. subscription to say a unique POI warning.

On a good note, the speaker seemed better .. a tad deeper and that gave it a quality sound more.

I have been buying TomTom (they would have been the 5th) because like just flipping over my speed camera, school zones, tim horton, bank POI file (and setting the speed camera up with an alert). I bought one for my niece and dad and I would just give them my file to drop in. With these new restrictions — it is VERY likely I will look at other brands very carefully as there is no reason for me to stick to this “format” anymore. If this is your first GPS and are happy signing up to their subscriptions etc .. you probably will find it is just fine as you essentially have nothing better to compare it too.

Very disappointed .. let down I guess.

This is my first TomTom as I have been a Garmin user, and in fact I used both of them on the trip, since I didn’t even have time to program in a route on the TomTom before I left.

Here are my impressions, both positive (+) and negative (-), keeping in mind I am used to a Garmin model

Positive

+ The interface is generally very streamlined with very crisp clear fonts on the maps, especially street names.

+ I liked that I could not get stuck deep in layers of menu like I can on my Garmin.

+ Finding nearby points of interest/locations (like restaurants) is very streamlined. This made it easy to pick up and go somewhere at a moment’s notice.

+ The lane guidance is an great feature that my Garmin doesn’t have (though I am sure newer versions do)

+ the lifetime maps is a killer feature. I know for my Garmin that would be worth at least 80 dollars in and of itself.

Negative

- Streamlined simplicity is gained by severely limiting features and customization options.

- I did not like how I couldn’t simply use the TomTom XL 350M to keep track of where I was unless I had programmed a route. If I did not program a route, it would go to screen saver ever few minutes. Since I like to use my GPS to see upcoming street names, that was more than a bit annoying.

- I could not figure out any way to find locations like restaurants further ahead on my route or in other cities. This made it hard to plan ahead.

- The suction cup mount would often loosen while we left and fall off after we started driving. This happened on both the windshield mount method or using a friction mount (not included with the GPS but purchased separately from Amazon)

My wife, who has never used a GPS before, likes how simple this one is to use. When we were in and about town in Buffalo, we used this GPS almost exclusively because finding places we wanted to go was much quicker. I therefore think this is a great “starter” GPS. For the price , with free maps, I don’t think it can be beat.