Car GPS Navi Shopping

TomTom lineup

Obfuscated Marketing Buzzwords (OMB’s) abound in this segment… it’s taken me many GC’s (Google Clicks) to distill what is sold down to differentiable features.

As always Wikipedia is our friend.

Euro vs US product availability – if you sit on the Car Navigation product page and flip back and forth between the various locales (very bottom of all pages), you start getting a feel for what’s available where… DE has the “Via 125” listed right now, where GB has the “Via 120 Live” and the US doesn’t even list the Via line at all.

“GO” product line – the main difference I see here between the X/XL products is that GO includes microSD card slot and the prices are significantly higher for otherwise equivalent model/features.

“IQ Routes” – application of historically collected consumer based traffic data to your current route (TomTom.com IQ Routes home page).  This data is collected from all of us by uploading via USB connection to the “Home” application on our PC’s.  This data represents driving speed per road segment per time of day in order to be most accurate.

“HD Traffic” – analytical combination of mobile phone generated traffic data in addition to traditional government traffic data sources. Highly detailed white paper (from HD Traffic home page).  Delivered every 3 minutes to capable devices via Live services (see below).

“Via” – appears to be the latest model line sporting most of TomTom’s contemporary functionalities combined (e.g. 5” screen, voice control, Bluetooth-hands free calling, Live Services, 4GB internal flash mem, etc, but notably NO SD slot)

“Live Services” – wireless updates via integrated cell/SIM (includes HD Traffic, etc). Delivered every 3 minutes.  Requires a subscription (estimated $10/montly, even though some come with 12 months for free, any subscription like this is a big personal turnoff).

“RDS-TMC Traffic” – live traffic data delivery via radio receiver (product link).  I have confirmed directly with TomTom customer support that the RDS-TMC receiver is indeed included in the box on XXL 540T and XXL 540TM models via the car charger cable.  And that it does provide lifetime traffic information.

Memory – XXL 540TM World Traveler Edition (WTE) appears to be the only XXL 540 model one that comes with 4GB mem.  Although other models are listed on TomTom.com with 4GB, it has been confirmed by buyers that all other XXL 540 models are 2GB only as recent as Nov 2010 (best reference, also see the main thread).

Great hands on comparison between Garmin Nuvi 1490T and TomTom XXL 540S

TomTom enhanced software hacks

• TripMaster – provides many things include track log

Openbravo ERP & POS – Open Source ERP, FINALLY!

Openbravo – heck of a BoD/CxO roster, InfoWorld bOSSie awards last three years running, solid funding … looks pretty good

Blu-ray Burner & Media Shopping

Burner: Pioneer BDR-206

• Provantage has brown box OEM for $130.37 (+ $11.70 APO shipping)
• Dual Layer capable
• 3D capable (whatever that means)
• Write: 12x BD-R (DL), 2x BD-RE (DL), 5x DVD-RAM, 16x DVD±R, 8x DVD±R DL, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD+RW, 40x CD-R, 24x CD-RW
• Read: 8x BD-R/RE/ROM (DL), 6x BD-RE DL, 5x DVD-RAM, 16x DVD-ROM, 40x CD-ROM
• 4MB cache
• some write performance competitive comparison specs

Media:

• Vinpower’s “Optical Quantum Best Print” product line is competitively priced and covers the specialty gamut well (hub printable, etc)
  • In particular, the Water-Resistant Media using “Liquid-Defense” version sounds pretty cool: The OQBP water-resistant media is a new innovation using nanoparticle technology. It secures the printed matter to the disc preventing moisture from separating the ink which causes smearing and bleeding.
  • Rated at 4x for BD-R *BUT* RunTechMedia.com says – “This media can record up to 8x speed in certain 8x or higher speed Blu-ray burners, please refer compatibility list for more info.” and goes on to list the previous gen Pioneer BDR-205 as capable of 10x with these discs (sweet :)
  • Google Shopping Search 
  • RunTechMedia.com has competitive prices
    • OQBDR04LDWIP (White, Hub Printable, with Liquid Defense) 10pack = $30 ($3 a disc is a little rich for my purposes, i.e. photo backups initially)
    • OQBDR04GWIP-H (*GLOSSY* White, Hub, NOT water proof) 25 pack = $46.25 ($1.85 is top end of ok in my book, fair tradeoff if I do want to print something for friends)
    • *NOTE*: VinpowerDigital.com doesn’t promote all the various formats they actually manufacture…I originally missed that there was even a glossy version available… if you’re not up for the top end pricey Liquid Defense, I absolutely recommend *GLOSSY* white finish at least… the plain white (i.e. “matt”) finish I’ve tried once on another generic brand was much less impressive… it only ups the cost of the 25 pack by $6.24 over the non-glossy format (OQBDR04WIP-H) and I think it’s totally worth it.
    • RunTechMedia had solid eMail sales support and actually price matched Provantage on the Pioneer burner, for a markdown of $40 (schwing!)
    • They charge $9.55 for APO *PRIORITY* shipping on single spindle case qtys… that’s fair
    • fyi, even though their confirmation email listed depressing "Media Mail", my package did arrive promptly via Priority as quoted.