PRODUCT OF THE YEAR

Text: Kim Adams Date: May 2009

You could be forgiven for thinking this latest TomTom is just another portable sat-nav – but you’d be wrong.

Alongside the Go 540, 740 and 940 LIVE’s route-finding, hands-free phone calling and music playing technology is a feature unique to the firm which should ensure you not only get where you are going, but also as quickly as possible.

The key is the LIVE part – a small chip within the system receives real-time traffic information, so it can route you around jams. There are no messy aerials here. Yet this is more than just a neat way of getting jam alerts on the move. Alongside conventional traffic information sources, TomTom has developed its own. By anonymously monitoring the movements of Vodafone mobile phones, it can spot a jam where cameras and monitors can’t.

This set-up is uncannily accurate, and works in tandem with the brand’s IQ routes system – which uses historical data to select the best route for when you are travelling – to keep journey times to a minimum. It is the missing link for portable sat-navs, and just has to be our Product of the Year.

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