TomTom vs. Mobile Devices...

Who is better? Dedicated Sat Nav or Mobile with GPS & Apps?

On the back of the post I wrote the other day regarding the capabilities of the TomTom Go 940 Live, it seems that the margins between functionality of specialised Sat Navs and Mobille devices (with GPS) are narrowing.

Even with Google’s innovative work in plugging just about every service in to their ‘Cloud’ Mapping apps, the value-add coming from the Mobile Sector that isn’t in the field of expertise of the Sat Nav companies is slowly but surely getting smaller.

Nice features the new Sat Navs have are things like ‘lane assist’ (more accurate metadata around which lanes you should be in for a given junction/turn etc), live traffic updates (via both Bluetooth to a 3G Mobile, plus FM data-channel reception), and also Speakerphone functions for your Mobile device.

On the Mobile side, we have a slew of ‘directions’ variants, such as walking/public transport/car, street-view/Satellite/3D view mashups, and some nice recommendations/proximity services.

The question I pose is this however: on a practical day-to-day basis, which is the most useful? I put my vote in the TomTom camp, because it does one thing – but VERY well. I have a permanent power supply to the TomTom wired in to my car, and it looks neat and Tidy. And it just works. Did I mention that already?

Let us know if you have some views on this – I’d imagine there are going to be no shortage of users that prefer the ‘new services offering’ that many Mobile devices have. On the flip side, some of the new breed of Sat Navs are rather good indeed…

Footnote: the somewhat ironic introduction of ‘widescreen’ Sat Navs has started to increase the physical sizes of devices again – quite apart from the fact that ‘screen width’ isn’t necessarily the most useful extra dimension for a Sat Nav device… sigh….

About The Author

Ben Robinson

Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.

JG Mason

I am a simple guy. I like having my GPS on my phone simply because it is one less thing I can forget/get stolen/drop/learn a new menu tree etc.

I’ve played with too many GPS devices and always go back to my phone (TeleNav). I even liked it better than their new Shotgun.

I seem to be alone in this stance.
Derrick

I have an HTC Touch Cruise (Polaris) with Tom Tom 7 and the US and Canada Maps (from version 6) loaded. Although the resolution and screen size could be bigger/better, I’d have to say that it works just as good as a standalone Tom Tom GPS unit of equivalent size and has the added bonus of being with me so I can help navigate when I ride “shotgun” in a friend’s car that has no GPS.
richard

I started out with navicore on a 6680 and then on a 6110. It was much better than Nokia maps v1. Then navicore was bought by wayfinder and moved to a subscription pricing model and also dropped some areas (like the middle east). I tried Nokia maps 2.0 in Dubai and it was awful, the map data was really out of date and sometimes at traffic lights it would say “turn right ahead” and then “turn left ahead” – all the time while I was waiting at the traffic lights. Then I went to the USA and as I drove from the airport Nokia maps 2 said no license even though I’d paid a month before, I had to navigate with a paper map since I couldn’t stop to work out how to requery the license system to re-activate it. But by then I’d already ordered a garmin nuvi 750 which was only $214 in the USA. It’s fantastic, it speaks street names which is really nice (although it cannot pronounce non English street names properly and quite hilariously called Texan “FM” (farm to market) roads “federated states of Micronesia” roads !! The main drawback of a separate GPS is that the phone is much easier to carry around and use on trains and busses but in my car I prefer the garmin by a long way.