Admiring the Ground Floor

On a recent weekend excursion I had to rent a car, and seeing as how I was in unknown territory and not about to navigate my way to a wedding by the sun, I decided to get one that had a GPS system along for the ride. I was away for three days and I got to test the Tom Tom One 130s for all of those three days. I had to do a lot of shuttling of attendees seeing as how I was the only college friend clever enough to rent a car and I got a lot of use out of my GPS while trying to find all the various hotels and restaurants we patronized. Overall, despite a few problems (some more serious than others), this is a good entry level GPS system and really quite adequate for anyone just getting into the GPS craze.

The first thing I noticed about the 130s is that its mounting system is completely different from anything I have seen. While the technology has come a long way from licking the backs of suction cups and then streaking saliva across your windshield, the people at Tom Tom have shown that even suction cups are always moving forward and there is more to come. Rather than relying on oral secretions to maintain a tight seal, the unit has a wheel-type lock that clamps down and applies pressure. This ensures that 130s doesn't go flying when those man-eating potholes come out of nowhere. The mounting mechanism is also significantly smaller than those I have seen in the past; it all folds small enough to be easily stored in the pocket of a jacket or a small bag. Jutting out from the suction bit is a well designed arm to allow the viewer to place the GPS at the most comfortable angle for driving.

The screen of the unit is on the smaller side at only 3.5". This is one of the two big grumbles I have about the 130s (the other is coming later). While I do prefer a bigger screen both for safety and ease of use, this screen is first-rate for its size. The resolution and brightness are more than adequate. I was able to read the screen easily in both bright sunlight and at night. Sometimes text can be too small on smaller screens but the text on this unit is eminently readable and large enough that even someone with failing eyes like me should have no trouble at all.

The other big criticism I have for this unit concerns the audio. While I have read reviews that are both in agreement with me and those in disbelieving opposition, I cannot but relay my own experience which was that I could rarely hear the system as it spoke the directions to me. Even with the windows closed and the radio off, I still found that I had trouble clearly hearing my instructions. Since this is the most essential function of a GPS unit, this is a fairly damning issue. Since there are those out there to whom I offer the benefit of the doubt, I do believe that I didn't have everything adjusted quite right. Perhaps my arrangement of the arm of the unit somehow interfered with the speaker and prevented it from reaching its volume capacity. I invite those who did not have this problem to educate me on the art of hearing the 130s.

As with all GPS units these days, there is an extensive point of interest list built into this system. While I was able to find all the restaurants and hotels once I knew the name, my friends and I were unable to search for the desired Chinese food by category; only the names are searchable. Again, as with most other machines, all other amenities including gas, ATM, movie theatres, etc. were easy to find and the list was seemingly up to date.

One of the features meant to increase a drivers safety, included in other Tom Tom units as well as this one, is the Help Me feature. Pressing the appropriate buttons will direct you to the nearest emergency services as well as giving you multiple methods of relaying to those same emergency services your current location. This can be very helpful should you encounter some type of road accident in an unknown area.

The text-to-speech capability means that the unit will tell you to turn on Jefferson Street rather than saying make a turn at the next street. While this is a standard ability on any high end unit, this is the cheapest unit that I have seen which includes this talent. I think this is one of the best features of this unit as it really singlehandedly improves the safety of using a GPS more than any other one feature.

The 130s is very easy to control; this is done almost exclusively on screen. The only button on the outside is the power button. Everything is controlled through fairly intuitive menu screens. The text input is done with a predictive feature that makes typing easier than one might think on a screen this size, although it could still be cumbersome for those with larger fingers.

The unit is fairly quick and was able to recalculate the route with admirable speed on all of the many occasions I failed to pay attention and went off course. The startup was also pretty quick. The GPS satellite signal was found within a minute or two every time and the rest of the unit had completed its startup routine before that happened.

In addition to using the GPS for my driving adventures, it did accompany me on some walking tours of the historical areas of the town we were staying in. The battery life was an admirable 2.5-3 hours and I never ran out during any of my walks. While in the car, I kept the 130s plugged in with the included car adapter and was able to charge the unit with the same cord.

Since we can't all get on the GPS bandwagon on the ground floor and some of us have to jump on when the wagon is a bit higher, it's good to know that there are quality systems out there like this one. This is an entry-level system that performs like one of the big boys and truly deserves to get the coveted spot on your dashboard.