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TomTom GO 300 Portable GPS Navigator Review from Jim. I can’t imagine doing my job without one!, I had been using an older Garmin GPS in my car for some time. It wasn’t a street pilot, it was a Garmin III. I bought the TomTom Go 300 and can’t believe how good it is.

The TTG 300 includes everything you need: Detailed maps of the USA on the 1 GB SD card with those maps and additional maps on CDs. It has mounting hardware, power cords, etc. but you probably know all that.

I am impressed with how well it picks up the satellite signals. My Garmin would never pick up a signal inside the house, and it would often not find one on a cloudy day. The TTG works fine in both cases.

The voice is clear and loud (adjustable) and you can have it give you a new instruction at any time. It will navigate to an address, a nearby “point of interest” (bank, airport, park, hotel…). And it will find alternate routes if you hit a roadblock or just don’t like the suggested route. You can tell it to build routes that are fastest, shortest, for biking or walking. You can avoid tolls or not. I really like the choices.

I think the screen is easy to see and the screen updates are plenty fast.

So far the map data has been fairly accurate. Around my home town I notice that some roads that are 3 years old are missing, but I would expect that. The TTG will show you on the road even if the map data is a little off. In other words, it will snap your position to the map road even if you drive off it a little. But if you go far enough off a road, it will show you exactly where you are (in the middle of field or whatever).

The menus are very easy to use. Much easier than I expected. You use the touchscreen to pick a city, street, address, and you’re off. It does have the 3-D view of the map which is similar to the view out your window, but I still prefer the typical 2-D map view. You can see more streets that way.

The point of interest database has lots of places. I don’t know the exact number of categories but I would estimate there are at least 25 categories (banks, airports, rental cars, amusement parks, gas, theaters, courthouses, police, hospitals, doctors, dentists, border crossings, zoos, etc.) And you can create your own categories and add places. I did not find a list of ATM’s, however, and this would have been useful.

You can also view the satellite signal strength, battery life, and actual Lat/Long. I wish you could enter a Lat/Long as a destination, but alas, you cannot.

As other people have said, it is very difficult to see in bright sun. At times, I have to reposition it to reduce glare, but this inconvenience would not stop me from buying it again.

I have not used the bluetooth feature and can’t really see myself paying for the subscription feature.

Overall, it is a Very Powerful navigator. It comes on when I start the car and goes off when the car stops (because the cigarette lighter goes off). It is very easy to use and very easy to follow. I actually want to take more trips now just to let the TTG figure out the best way to get there. And now my friends all want one. I see Garmin now has a similar model, which I haven’t tried. But I would still buy the TTG again if I was shopping for one.

Update 4 months later…

I still like the unit and its functions, but as others have said, the map data and routing is disappointing at times. It always got me where I wanted, but half the time it seemed to take me the longer way. It seems to be reluctant to put me on a freeway for short trips, even when it is faster. And I haven’t really compared this to another brand, except for the system in the the Audi A4, which does seem to do a better job: Even knowing what side of the street your destination is on. But that is not an after-market system. So if I was shopping for an after-market system today, I would most likely still buy the Tom Tom for the features, but I would take a close look at the routes is suggests while driving.

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