Product Review: TomTom Go 50

Crosstown Traffic 

Tech giant Google has put a dent on stand-alone GPS/navigation devices as of late with its Google Maps app. After all, it’s free and there’s very little that a modern smartphone can’t do. But can do doesn’t always mean should – and recently there’s been an update to the regulations on driving while using cellphones, as it’s now an offense to even hold a phone while driving.

In that sense, TomTom’s updated range of discrete GPS units couldn’t have arrived at a better time. By discrete, we mean they’re stand alone, but in this case they also operate in a loophole outside the law, since you don’t need to hold one, and definitely shouldn’t hold one,  while driving.

The 50 model occupies the mid-range of the Go GPS range, and it has a generous enough spec: a 5.0-inch 480 x 272 pixel resistive touchscreen, up to two-hours of off-cable operation, lifetime maps and turn-by-turn navigation.

Unpacking it is simple – you have the unit itself, which feels very solidly made and relatively slim too, at 2.2cm thick. The supplied cradle/mount is likewise, feeling very strong and robust which is just as good since you’ll likely drop it all the place while trying to mount it in the nooks and crannies of your vehicle. Once in position, the sucker mount is very strong, and the unit itself pops in and out of its magnetised cradle easily with the right gestures.

While the screen has a very light pixel harvest compared to the latest, newfangled phones, it’s still easy to read thanks to TomTom’s clear user interface and graphics, plus if you don’t like the colour scheme you can always change it. There isn’t much to fault with the navigation system itself, it’s easy to use and packed full of features, ranging from a distance bar to a speed and red light camera warnings as well as speed warnings. It’ll make a great buy for habitual law-breakers will find the $250 chump change compared to being caught at 20km/h over the limit, and that’s without even being nabbed wielding a smartphone in one red hand while driving.

As is typical with TomTom units you can save your favourite places (home, office, etc.) and bring them up with a few clicks, while also choosing from a huge variety of voices and languages for the audio guidance. Another novel feature for the Go series is 3D buildings which is particularly useful when navigating heavily urbanised areas like Shenton Way.

But all that doesn’t entirely justify the Go’s existence, until you take into account the newest feature: TomTom traffic. You can pair the unit via Bluetooth to your smartphone and it accesses TomTom’s servers directly. If you key in a route and there’s a traffic jam or slowdown along the way, the unit will give you a choice of alternate paths and project your estimated time of arrival – it can also do this on the fly. With features such as mobile speed camera reporting (like the navigation app Waze) it becomes a very useful feature indeed.

There are only a few flies in the pudding. The unit does encounter some processing slow downs once in a while, and linking your phone via Bluetooth means you can’t link it to your car’s audio system if you do.

But with the new features, as well as the pleasing build quality of the unit and the decent price, the TomTom Go 50 makes a good case for itself as something that can save you time, and possibly lots of money, by leaving you hands free.  

TomTom Go 50

Price: $249.00

www.tomtom.com/en_sg