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Hands on the TomTom ONE
Monday October 24, 2005 - We've already held the new ONE in our hands. Not very long, but long enough to form a good impression about TT's newest addition.
When we visited TomTom last week for a photoshoot of the new ONE (see our newspost: TomTom introduces the ONE), we also got a chance to play a bit with this new device. This enabled us to share our first impressions with you. You can also expect a full review very soon.
Flat
The first thing that we noticed about the new ONE is it's shape. It's no longer a round device like the GO is. This unit is a lot flatter. This does have one disadvantage though: the built-in speaker of the ONE is a lot smaller and thus produces sound of a lower quality than the GO's speaker does. This was immediately noticable when we turned the ONE on. The volume is not bad at all, but the sound was a lot less rich. Call it tinnier if you like.
Now, some technical data about the ONE: the heart of the device is a very powerful 380MHz ARM920T CPU which, combined with the 32 MB of RAM, should guarantee speedy calculations. Also worth mentioning is the Bluetooth support for the PLUS-services and the lack of Assisted Satellite Navigation (ASN), which brings the ONE pretty close to the 300's specs. Also, just like in the 300's case, there is no home power plug in the box.
If you want to compare the ONE with all the other all-in-one devices of TomTom, have a look at our special: "The ONE, the GO's and the RIDER lined up" (warning: Dutch text!).
On the bottom you'll find almost all the connections, with the exception of the external antenna, which is on the back of the unit. From left to right you see the connection for headphones, power supply and USB. Above that there is the SD card slot for the SD card which holds the maps.
The maps of the ONE are supplied by TeleAtlas and the ONE is shipped with a standard map of the region where the ONE is purchased. The map is NOT a PlusMap, and, just like with the 300, does not hold the Major Roads of Europe.
Plus and Minus!
Without a doubt, the biggest plus of this ONE is the new integrated GPS receiver. While the GO's still use a 12 channel receiver, the ONE (just like the RIDER) uses a 20 channel receiver, based on the already very renowned SiRF Star III-chipset. This chipset delivers a very stable GPS signal reception, under all circumstances.
But... alas, there's also a big minus. The battery of the ONE is a lot less powerful than the one that the GO uses. The official number one the ONE's battery capacity is two hours. Experience has taught us that in practice it'll probably be less than that. We understand that concessions had to be made in comparison to the GO, but on the other hand we think that 2 hours compared to 5 is a pretty big step back. Shame...
Mounting
The ONE is shipped with the same sucker that comes with the TomTom GO. But the mounting of the device onto the sucker is completely different. The ONE is slid onto a holder, which in it's turn gets attached to the sucker.
We cannot say yet how well this will work in practice. Our first impression is that the on/off sliding is a bit rough, and that might have a negative impact on the firmness with which the sucker attaches to the windshield.
All in all it's too early to draw any conclusions yet about TomTom ONE, but our first impressions are very positive. Especially if we look at the price of € 399,- (£ 269). For our final judgement you'll have to wait until we publish our in-depth review though...
To be continued!
» Pictures with this story
