This is a continuation from my first review of the TomTom 920T, which i bought just before the holidays (Merry hoho to me). I’ve had some time to get used to my new toy, so I thought I would follow it up with some more thoughts.

Additional things to love:

• I’ve had almost no problems staying in tune with satellites. Granted I am in the bay area, but I still expected to drop out every once in awhile in rural areas like Woodside. I’ve only had some minor problems on the east side of the financial district, specifically when navigating around the Embarcadero centers.
• Great battery time. I have no quantitative numbers, but it seems to do a nice job.
• Nice night-colors. I only have my previous unit to compare to, but this is very usable and melllow, even in day time.

Additional things not to love:

• My previous review discussed iPod integration. In fact I have an iPhone, which makes a bit of a difference. The iPod Connect cable is not one of the “apple licensed and approved” devices for the iPhone. It does work, but only on the second try. When you plug it in you get a warning on the iphone that it’s not approved, and “would you like to go into airplane mode to minimize something or other”… um. No, but thanks. I dismiss the iPhone dialog box and move to the TomTom, where I navigate into the iPod control area and try to hit my driving playlist. As soon as I touch it, the TomTom reports that it lost the iPod connection. I have to un/replug the cable, dismiss the dialog box again, then it works fine. Every single time. Dunno if it’s a TomTom or iPhone thing, but irritating.
• Overly global and semi-sticky voice preference. Most of the time I know where I am going. I don’t need to hear turn by turn instructions from the TomTom telling me to keep to “two hundred and eighty Ess Bee [sb=southbound] towards San Ho-Tha [San Jose]” or “Towards San Frahn This-Kaa [san francisco]” So I keep it off most of the time. There appears to be no way to keep voice traffic alerts on while keeping instructions off. Occasionally I’ll jump to the traffic menu to have it speak traffic conditions, which it does quickly and smoothly. Unfortunately this toggles the global voice back on without warning.
• Overly chatty voice. There are several major and minor turnoffs along my usual route to work. The system seems to be unable to distinguish this so it helpfully tells me to “keep left then follow blah blah for another 2 point 2 miles” where it gives me another prompt to stay left. And another. The whole way down. Useful in an unfamiliar area, but not so much in a known area. This manifests in the text/list route browser as well: 35 miles of my trip is along 280, but the list shows it as about 10 different steps of X.X miles. No roll-up. There should be a “detailed v. simple” instruction mode.
• Stupid cabling. The worst annoyance is that the traffic antenna cable and iPod connect cable use the same port. So you have to choose which one you want. It already talks to my phone over bluetooth for traffic supposedly, but still wants that antenna plugged in. I don’t know why, and it may be an operator error. Anyway, this means I have the 1) power cable 2) the traffic cable, and 3) the ipod cable to manage. All of which have to be put somewhere, and between those three they fill up my rather small center console box when keeping them hidden.

The only thing that can’t be fixed with software updates is the cord management, so overall I am still very happy with this.

Update: Getting a little less happy with my TomTom in my third review