TomTom

This app proved ideal in a family crisis navigating 4000km+ with confidence – For this review I ask that you, the reader, indulge me in a quick back story to set the scene. I'm 50yo and have elderly parents, a father + near… Read more

blind step mother and an almost immobile mother + step father. During May /June my father was hospitalised with suspected mini strokes and my mother had both knees fall apart, needing knee replacements.

Added into this scenario was covid. My wife and I live in central South Australia. My parents live in NSW, dad on the east coast and mum in the NSW mountains. I hadn't seen my parents in years due to covid related border closures etc, these times were especially hard because I came very close to losing them at different times and was unable to travel to them, tell them I loved them and goodbye. Fortunately those weren't their time's to go.

My wife and I live in the Flinders Ranges, central South Australia. The borders have reopened but covid still has considerable influence, the NSW health system was so overwhelmed they basically told mum to get out as they needed the bed. At that time she could barely stand let alone walk etc and was in extreme pain. She certainly can't shower or dress herself. So I planned a 4000km return trip, Flinders Ranges, SA to the NSW central coast and then onto the mountains of NSW, so that I could see my Dad's and Mum's.

I tried to update the maps on my conventional GPS 2 or 3 days before I left and it failed, I tossed it into the trash and sought out an alternative. We live in a small, outback town with no GPS retailers, also getting a new one was an added expense on what was already a tight travel budget (fuel approximately $2.25/litre). I knew that smartphones had this navigational capability but was unimpressed with Google maps as a navigational aid.

A quick search of my app store led me to being overloaded with free apps that were full of ad's. I decided to look for premium apps to refine my search and also apps that were from recognised conventional GPS manufacturers which in turn led me to the Tom Tom Go app.

There were a few contenders but what swung the pendulum was the way they put their money where their mouth was, so to speak. Tom Tom Go offered an obligation free one week trial. This was long enough to drive the 2000km over, through Australia's largest city, Sydney (I hadn't driven through Sydney since the 1990's). A more than reasonable assessment exercise.

On my conventional GPS, updates weren't often, often weren't free and always involved taking the GPS out of the car and connecting to a computer. With this smartphone app, the map updates are weekly, free automatic and available wirelessly either by network data or wifi.

Yes it has the usual things such as banks, repair places, service stations etc and so much more such as live updates and current fuel prices. An example of this is when a truck lost its load on the freeway ahead of my route it even was able to tell me there was debris on the road.

It's also good for international travel having maps of pretty much the entire planet, also updated weekly and I've saved the 2 best things for last. First it has a variety of voices including bona fide Australian accents, secondly its got downloadable maps for off line use, ALL OF OCEANIA (Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia etc) are all on the one off line download) and they're accurate, even when in areas of nil mobile reception.

Summing this all up, I think it's great, don't take my word for it though, there is a no cost, week long trial. You might spend hundreds on a conventional GPS which most probably has a no return policy or you can try this for a week and then choose whether you want to subscribe weekly, monthly or yearly. It's about $30/year at the time of writing this and that suits my pensioners budget just fine.