TomTom One 130 V4 (easyport) Review

I purchased a TomTom One (Easyport) about 2 weeks ago and so far so good. Lets get to the bottom line.

Is the TomTom One V4 Easyport worth the $130 plus tax I paid for? Yes.

I've been in your position many times. I want to know if a product is worth it or not and I hate spending time reading through a wall of text. Reading my reviews, you will always get the bottom line first, and then you can decide if you want to read on. We all have busy lives and our times are valuable. I'll give you "Real talk, real fast."

So I was in the market looking for an entry level GPS. I was mainly going to use the GPS for my bike and I leaned towards the hiking/trekking style GPS's from Garmin and Magellan. After I saw the prices, I realized quickly that I had to shop elsewhere. The "good" GPS's at REI will run you well over $250. Sometimes, we need something that just works.

The TomTom One was perfect. Almost. It was in my price range and I'm sure you can find it cheaper on ebay, etc. Everything works great out of the box. The 130 Easyport offers turn by turn voice direction, 2D and 3D map view. A good quality car mount, a car charger, and a USB port. One thing that was annoying was the packaging. You know what I'm talking about. It's the hard plastic packages that are insanely tough to open. And once you tear it up, no matter how neat you try to open it, it will clearly look used and (for retailers) hard to resell if returned.

Anyways, right when you power the GPS on, it will take a few seconds to pin point your location. You will get signals from different satalites. The more satalites you get connected to, the more accurate your location. So I set my home location and played around a bit. It's nice that you can search for POI's (Points of Interests) from your TomTom. You can easily find restaraunts, malls, gas station, atms, and a bunch of other stuff just by searching. It almost reminds me of a google search. Navigation is easy. Tap the screen and tap "Navigate To" and search or tap on a "favorite". It then calculates a route for you. You can choose between Fastest route, Shortest route, Avoid freeways, Walking route, Bicycle route, or limited speed. Very easy. If you go off course or miss a turn, your TomTom will re-calculate the route and you will be back on track quickly. I love it.

Now the bads. The battery life lasts a maximum of 3 hours. You can make it last longer by turning off sound and dimming the lights but this is where my problems begins. If you choose to dim the lights to 0% and check off "Always turn off screen" in the Battery saving preferences, it gets buggy. The screen will be dim at 0%. After a few seconds, it will turn off. When you tap the screen, it will come back on but at 100% brightness. There is a workaround but you will have to settle at 5% brightness as a minimum. It's not perfect, but it's not a deal breaker. I emailed customer support and they said it was a software issue. That was not the case since I updated the software once I got it. Oh, you are given a free update once you purchase your TomTom so update your maps within 30 days. Maybe in the future, this will get fixed but I'm not going to waste any more time on it. If you are using the car adaptor, and plan on just driving, this is probably a non issue since I had the brightness set to 60% while driving. I'm sure your setting won't be anywhere near 0% while driving.

The TomTom is NOT waterproof. This is to be expected. Another nice thing, if you ever get in trouble and need a rescue, you can "call" for help with your TomTom. Pretty cool. It will tell you your location and nearby streets. It's easy to learn and everything else is self-explanatory. This is NOT a hiking GPS. It is strictly a road/navigation GPS and it does it pretty well. The build quality is nice and the mount is sturdy. The screen is bright and the voice is adaquate. Yes, bottom line, I would recommend the TomTom One V4 Easyport.