TomTom One 130S 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Factory Refurbished)
From the ManufacturerManufacturer’s Review (January 9, 2009)This is a refurbished GPS. Refurbished generally means that the unit has been returned to the manufacturer, who brings the navigator back to like new conditions. Some GPS may contain cosmetic blemishes. There is a six month guarantee on parts and labor on TomTom refurbished products. TomTom is going for the ultimate in portability with the 2008 ONE 130 and ONE 130S by integrating a nifty fold-out mount right into the devices. No more trying to figure out where to stash that big, clunky mount in your car — just pop it off, fold it up and carry the whole thing in your pocket. Of course, the ONE 130 series also features the plug and play ease of use, rock-solid navigation, and sleek designs we’ve come to expect from TomTom. The ONE 130S adds text-to-speech to the base 130 model. This means instead of hearing “turn right in 50 feet”, you’ll hear, “turn right in 50 feet at Ohio Street”. In our experience, this is proba (Special Offers & Product Promotions…)
This is my first GPS purchase. I researched various products at wildly different pricepoints on the web before choosing the refurbished TomTom One-130-S. While it may not have all of the bells and whistles of the more expensive models, it is very functional. I was somewhat disappointed that TomTom’s “Latest Map Guarantee” does not apply to refurbs, but a call to customer service led me to find that the unit’s map was only about six months old…so no problem. I’ve tested the unit on destinations that I normally travel and found that when I deviate from the suggested route, the TomTom quickly recalculates wihout insisting on making a U-Turn. I’ve also used it on trips to unfamiliar areas and was very pleased with the quality of the direction.The feature of having the voice identification of street names is definately worth the few extra bucks over the standard One-130. I am very pleased with this product.
The Good News: Mine arrived in new condition, no way to tell it was refurbished except the box says “Road Tested” (i.e. someone took it for a drive before they returned it, so you could buy it!) and it includes a note in the box saying it has a 6-month limited warranty and that you’d have to return it directly to TomTom. The text-to-speech (TTS) where it reads the street names works well, though a bit wordy with highway exits (e.g. “Turn right ahead, take Exit 1 South onto Route 91, Route 10 connector” is a lot of words to listen to for a single turn.)
The Bad News: Another review here said his map was 9 months out of date. At that point I could have canceled my order because that didn’t seem to far out. But my unit’s maps are 15 months out of date, which is too long. Even worse for me, their MapShare technology will only work with maps less that 12 months old, so that new technology I’d wanted to try won’t work.
This unit only comes with 3 voices (my original TomTom ONE 300 included 9-12 voices).
The mini-USB connector in the base is very sticky/picky and it takes a little bit to plug it in. At least at first.
But to me, the savings of buying the refurbished unit is totally negated by having very old maps and no access to MapShare. So I spent $60 to update the US/Canada maps, which made my total cost $10 more than if I’d bought the new unit!
Navigationally, it works well. Have no problems with set up or anything else. However, I am disappointed that there is only one choice for “computer” voice (“Samantha”)I can use for the device. According to manufacurer, the “regular” voice choices will not allow you to use the spoken street name feature, which is why I bought this “S” model in the first place. Claims the 100’s of unique voice choices available for DL on Tom Tom web site for navigational directions will not enable the spoken street name feature for the “S” model. All in all, it’s still worth what I paid for it.