TomTom’s GO 5000 Review

TomTom has created an online complimentary children’s book, Alfie’s Story, written by award-winning author Miriam Moss, which is available to parents to redeem as part of an exclusive TomTom GO and book package by uploading their purchase receipt within 21 days from the date of purchase. The book tells the story of Alfie and his mum who are trying to get home from school in time for Alfie to read his new book at bedtime but the pair keep coming up against obstacles along the way. For more information on the book please visit their website.

Being caught up in traffic always causes delays and wastes time. TomTom’s GO 5000 is designed to receive real time traffic information to help busy parents triumph over the traffic to get home in time to read their children a bedtime story. With this clever information, TomTom is striving to help parents to find the quickest route home with live traffic information to get extra minutes each day to make sure they can have that bedtime story with their children.

In a further effort to make TomTom traffic available to as many drivers as possible, their Smartphone Connected devices uses your existing smartphone data plan to access TomTom Traffic as well as other services like TomTom Speed Cameras by connecting to your smartphone via Bluetooth.

Since moving to the Midlands from London, I have been relying heavily on a sat nav to get me from A to B. Even now, driving to anywhere outside of my own town, I have to use it. We have previously owned two sat navs before getting this GO 5000 and I absolutely love the live traffic features.

GO 5000 comes with a 5 inch wide-screen. I find that the touch screen is very responsive and easy to use. The sunlight legibility is a lot better with this than our old sat navs which used to be one of my biggest gripes. I also enjoy pinching the screen to zoom in 3D view which is far easier than to scroll up or down the map and using a zoom scale bar.

As well as the GO 5000, it also comes with a USB cable, light insert and wall mount holder. There is a micro SD card slot to store extra traffic updates. When setting up the GO 5000, it requires the owner to set up the MyTomTom account which will give the owner updates to the Lifetime Traffic, Lifetime Maps and Speed Cameras. We have bought a micro SD card to store the updates as the built-in memory has already been filled with the map and speed camera information. I am very impressed with their map updates as the main road around our city has recently changed (5 weeks ago) and it is already showing on the device.

The GO 5000 features an easy-to-use strip of menu icons: Search, Current Route, Voice Control, Report Speed Camera, My Places, My Routes, Parking, Petrol Station, Connected Services, Settings and Help. It is so easy to navigate the menu.

The Search feature is a keyword-based system that lets you search for a postcode, a street address, or a point of interest all at the same time. The results screen is split into two panes, with addresses on the left and points of interest on the right.

I found the Voice Control feature a bit hit and miss. The combination of background noise, my accent and longer street names or points of interest meant I keep having to repeat the words. I was pretty much successful all the time with simple street names though and the ‘Go Home’ command works well.

The next feature is the Report Speed Cameras, should you come across them which are not already listed. I have to admit that I ‘accidentally’ pressed it and it immediately registered it! I’d have thought there would have been a confirmation button here or something.

The general navigational experience is very well presented. We have set it to use Serena’s voice and chosen to have it speak aloud street names. You also can change it to use a different voice quite easily, examples includes voices from Ireland, South Africa, Sweden etc. The navigation is very responsive – it is very quick to know if you are not on the suggested route and will reroute you accordingly. In built up city areas, the 3D maps show a lot of detail of the buildings which I find quite useful to identify places.

So far the battery life lasts for up to 2 hours although I do keep it plugged in most of the time. You have to go to the main menu to view the battery life. I’d have preferred it to show on the map view during navigation so that I know when to plug in the power cable.

I would definitely recommend the GO 5000. With its live traffic features, it can save plenty of valuable time, and the device and navigation is a joy to use. No wonder results showed that 9 out of 10 testers would recommend it to others! It is available to buy from most retailers and Amazon.

Disclosure: We received the sample for the purposes of writing this review, however, all thoughts and opinions remain our own. We have included an Amazon affiliate link to the product. If you click on this and buy, we may earn a small commission.