Garmin and Tom Tom

TomTom was founded in 1991 in Amsterdam and has offices in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.

(Garmin): What started out in 1989 with a handful of dedicated engineers and a great idea for a product has grown into the Global Positioning System (GPS) leader–both in sales and critical acclaim.

The info was taken from both the Garmin and TomTom sites!

My personal choice is a TomTom One NE!

ML

Good Evening Claude,

No, Garmin and tomTom are two different companies as the previous posting stated.

I have 2 Garmin GPS's, a Rino 120 and StreetPilot 7200 and a TomTom GO 700.

TomTom is extremely popular in Europe and you will find that there are more options for the TomTom in Europe - especially maps and "additional features" such as Traffic notifications, weather etc. TomTom is now expanding into the United States.

Now, on the other hand Garmin is an older GPS Company with more products and maps - their Maps for the GPS's are one of the best out there in my opinion.

I am partial to Garmin, I love my StreetPilot, this is my second one and while deployed to the Middle East, my Rino saved my butt on more than one occassion. When it comes to voice guided Navigation, the TomTom is the best out there.

Harry
StreetPilot 7200, Rino 120, and TomTom 700

Sounds like you have some stories. I bet Garmin would not mind hearing them... stories@garmin.com

Thank you for your service.

One of the most important features of a GPS is efficient routing. An independent test of Marmin, Magellan and Tom Tom clearly puts Tom Tom in last place for routing in the USA.

http://www.gpsmagazine.com/2007/06/garmin_vs_magellan_vs_tom...

I think Garmin is the best one because it's more popular than other brand.

I have not owned a Tom-Tom, but was leaning towards it when I started researching. In every store I went to, the Tom-Tom was not working (3 Circuit City's, and 2 Best Buys). Possibly these companies weren't getting the best mark up?? So... went on line and started reading comments from actual users for both units. Garmin always rated higher because of mapping, customer support, and reliability. (None are perfect - if you know a route - you don't need it). My experience with Garmin has been very positive - support is excellent. I have not regretted paying a little more. Remember, you get what you pay for. Does Garmin have everything I want - no. Doubt that Tom-Tom is either. Gotta love competition, we are eventually the winner!

Although TOMTOMs have more features compared to the Garmins in the same category. Price is a great category to use. TOMTOM 910 has a lot of features, I had almost bought it but put it back on the shelf, did some more research and picked Garmin Nuvi 350. Am I happy with it? Yes and No. No, because it doesn't have features that I wanted that the TOMTOM 910 had and very minute things that you can only figure out once u get the product and Yes because it hasn't gotten me lost yet.

TomTom does not have text-to-speech that many Garmin units do have - which I think is a very big plus on the Garmin side of the features balance sheet.

Keith,

That is not true as TomTom 910 does have that feature. I used TomTom in my PDA phone and very happy with it. As far as the features and customization, well hands down to TomTom period. As far as the routing, it appears that different map releases affect the routing a lot and TomTom releases maps very frequently so that may be the problem. I think they use two different map companies and that also confuses quite a bit.

Jeff

Hi claude. I think both companies offer excellent products, so it may come down just to personal preference. I am a Pocket PC user and Garmin is the newcomer on this arena. As far as I know they do not offer a software-only package just yet. On the other side, there have been several versions of TomTom Navigator, so the online community for it is extensive. Customization options are great, for example, there are specific color schemes to match a car's dashboard illumination, or optimized for sunlight, etc. I have not had any problems with the TomTom/Pocket PC setup.

Some TomToms have Text to speech...

The most recent, and often touted in comparison to Garmin's 600 series - the OneXL does not.

And yes, Garmin & TomTom use different providers for maps...Navteq and TeleAtlas respectively... google navteq vs teleatlas for more discussion...TeleAtlas & TomTom may update more frequently, but their data is often older than Navteq & Garmin.

Keith,

TomTom does have its problem. I have their 2007Q1 (665.1293)update and 2007Q2 (675.1409) update. The Q1 actually routes better then the Q1 in the exact same route which really puzzled me (with same program). Some of their units have Navteq map and some others have TeleAtlas map is the major problem with TomTom. I think they only use TeleAtlas for US and both Navteq and TeleAtlas in Europe. I stick with TomTom because they are probably the best in PDA category as I prefer one less unit to carry around.

Jeff

Thank you for all this information, it will help me for my next perchase...