TomTom XXL 540S 5-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Factory Refurbished)
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See more and drive easily with an extra wide screen. Touch screen technology gives you the easiest operation to make using the TomTom XXL540s a pleasure.
Features
- Factory refurbished
- Advance Lane Guidance
- Spoken instructions and street names
- 5″XXL Screen for better view
- Easy Port mount
- Dimensions (W x H x L): 7 x 3 x 7 inches
- Weight: 1 pounds
Happy camper
I bought this GPS because of the excellent price. I decided to take a chance on a refurbished product. Now that I have it in hand I am very happy with my decision. The unit looks and works like it is brand new. You can not tell it is refurbished. This is my second GPS and my first Tomtom. This Tomtom is easy to use. It starts up fast. It aquires sattelites pretty quickly and even inside my house. I like the computer website interface and updates. Mapshare and IQ routes are pretty cool additions. The voices are very good contrary to some of the negative reviews I had read. I like the fact that Tomtom has map updates available four times a year and the subscription fee is very reasonable. My only complaint, and this is a big one, is the suction cup mount. The suction cup does not hold securely. The GPS unit can easily fall off the mount and get damaged. I overcame this by making my own simple dash mount(removable). This mount works well and will not allow the GPS to fall. Disclaimer: I only use my GPS a few times a year for trips and vacations. It suites me perfectly for that purpose. I strongly recommend this Tomtom in spite of the inferior suction mount.
Signal Catching Problem
I purchased this refurbished item around 2 months ago for $99.
Pros:
- Huge, high resolution and easy to use touch screen.
- High volume quality.
- Very easy menu.
- Long battery life.
- Lighter weight than expected.
- I love the “advanced lane guidance”.
- Sexy voice options
- Cute “my car” icon selections.
Cons:
- It takes around 2 min. to catch the signal once you turn on the device. (yes. every single time!)
- I recommend you to mount to the windshield. it takes around 4-5 min to release from the round dash apparatus.
Even if it is mounted to the windshield, it unattaches where the road is bad (like nyc).
- It take a while to mount, not that easy.
- Once you mount somewhere, don’t try to adjust the angle, because it releases. I think the “easyport mount” apparatus sucks. the device is heavy for it. But no problem if roads are nice and smooth. Watch some youtube videos before you buy.
Overall it provides a lot more than you pay ($99). speed limit warning is very useful and “points of interest” database is very large. you can not find better than this for $99.
I satisfied
As other customer said, when I opened the box, I didn’t realized it is refurbished. It is like brand new and I didn’t have any problem with it yet. The only problem is since the screen is 5″, it uses more battery but because I use it in car and always connected to charger, there is no problem at all.
Returned item–no more TomTom’s for me!
I purchased this unit yesterday, it arrived today and it’s now sitting on my desk, packed up with a return label and waiting for the UPS Store to open up on Monday. This is, in fact, my very first review of a product I’ve gotten from Amazon, and it’s a very negative one. There seem to be a lot of very happy TomTom users out there, but I’m certainly not one of them….but I really gave it a try! Actually I gave TomTom TWO separate tries–I bought a TomTom ONE 140S a couple of months ago as a cheap but adequate (or so I thought) replacement for our Garmi Nuvi 660 which we lost on the way to our new home in New Mexico. I was never able to get the 140S functioning properly (see below) and returned it about a week later.
The reason I’ve always had a hankering for a TomTom is probably because I really like the POTENTIAL of the “TomTom HOME” software. It’s nice to be able to access and manipulate the device via the computer and the possibilities for this really being a super-useful feature tempted me. TomTom also seems to have a very large and loyal following, they look good, seem to have a lot of bells and whistles–so what’s not to like? Here’s my list:
The original 140 never worked properly. The first thing I did was hook it up to the computer and followed the instructions to get my free update to the latest map. Bad idea. After downloading the map (1.5 hours) I was greeted with a message saying that the NEW map was too large for the device. I placed several calls to TT tech support but none of the recommended fixes ever restored the unit to full functionality–including a complete reformat of the Garmin and reload of ALL the software. It may have been fixable, but after several hours I threw in the towel and sent it back. However, had it worked right out of the box it would have gone back for the same reasons that the XXL 540 is being returned:
A. Text-to-speech is terrible. When I took the XXL 540 out for a test run today I was surprised to find that there were no street names being announced in the turn-by-turn directions. A call to tech support revealed that I had to choose on of the “computer” voices in order for that feature to work, so, OK–I switched it over. Only to find that the street names were virtually unintelligible–just a very quick blurt that if you listend VERY carefully you MIGHT construe as the name of the street you had to turn on.
B. Tried to enter an address on a well-know street here in Albuquerque: “Tennessee Street SE.” TomTom only brings up “Tennesse St” and tells me there are no street numbers available, would I like a cross-street? Well, no, not really, but I entered the nearest major cross street anyway and was told that street didn’t exist. Another call to tech support: it turns out that for SOME streets, for SOME reason you have to actually enter the entire street name. So entering EVERY letter of “Tennessee St, SE” did bring up the street and then allowed street number entries. Arghh.
C. I entered an “intinerary” into the 540S (as well as several “Favorites”). For some reason I was expecting that the 540S would make some kind of intelligent attempt to put the various waypoints in logical order. No. Well, OK, then there is a feature to order waypoints up or down in the intinerary, so all I would have to do is check the distance from whereever I happened to be to the remaining waypoints–that would help. Uh, NO distance to waypoints OR to favorites is listed! That’s a deal-breaker, folks. My last Garmin, the 1490T handled itineraries with multiple waypoints pretty well and even the cheap Magellan 1440 that I bought for my wife has a current distance to all favorites listed in the favorites/address book section. (More on the Magellan below–a really nifty little basic unit!)
D. Screen brightness/legibility. Very poor on the 540S. Both Garmins I’ve owned shined in this aspect. The Magellan doesn’t hit the Garmin mark, but it’s slightly better than the TomTom, even with a 4.3″ and not a 5.0″ screen.
E. Back to my original point where the 140 was destroyed by trying to get a upgraded map….after this happened I found out that this was NOT an isolated occurrence and that to some degree or another TomTom has been aware of this problem for quite some time. In my chats with tech support today I brought this up since I didn’t want to have the same thing happen with the 540S. I was told that this problem was both easily avoidable and fairly easy to fix, but that first-level TomTom techs weren’t too “up” on it and it had caused a lot of problems. Also during my 3-4 tech support calls today, the TomTom servers were “experiencing problems” and the techs didn’t have access to a lot of their information. OK, fine….except the same situation existed when I had the 140S a couple of months back….mmmmm????
Anyway, the bloom is off the rose for TomTom’s and me. I’m over the convenience of TomTom Home. The text-to-speech and the especially the lack of distances to waypoints and favorites are just absolutely deal-breakers for me. I can’t for the life of me figure out why these shortcomings exist. Granted, this is a refurbished unit and quite a bargain @ $99–but that’s $20 more than the brand-new Magellan 1440!
I guess the silver lining, for me at least, is that my throwaway purchase of the Magellan 1440 has opened my eyese to what a great set of features this unit has! No, it doesn’t have ANY connectivity–can’t even download an address from Google maps. Nor does the Magellan have any intinerary/route building features, at least not in this inexpensive unit. But it does have all kinds of very useful features: you can save any entry to an “address book” with complete info including phone numbers for destinations. There are a whole set of user-definable “one-touch” buttons that will bring up a saved a destination OR (and this is really useful) a favorite SEARCH. The “Advanced Lane Guidance” feature works better than the Garmin or the TomTom. Not bad for $80.00, brand new! So I’m either heading over to Costco to pick up another one….or, maybe I’ll just continue on my search for the “perfect” GPS… which would include: instant alerts for all speed cameras, complete interactivity with Google maps, including the ability to customize a route on Google maps and download it to the GPS (I think this might be do-able now, but it doesn’t seem to be easy????). Oh, and a built-in radar detector
.
To summarize: I really WANTED to like the TomTom! I really wanted to use TomTom HOME. I really like the “IQ” routes technology (although I don’t know if that works as advertised either). But they’ve got to get the BASIC stuff implemented to a much higher standard before I’ll consider one again.
For those who are happy with their TomTom’s–all the best. If you are considering purchasing one, if the shortcomings I’ve experienced illuminate the decision-making process at all, great. If any of this makes an impact on TomTom, even better.
very pleased!
I got this as a birthday present for my husband (his name is Tom so I got him a tomtom- get the humor?!) for his 25th birthday at a very good price and even though it was refurbished it came in new condition and he (or myself) could even tell the difference. We have not used it yet but he loves it and I was very pleased with the price I paid! I have heard some people say that Garmin is better but for this price this gps is pretty good so far. I will review it again once we have used it on the road.
TomTom XXL 540S was “like new”
This TomTom is an excellent unit.
I had a Mi0 brand before this GPS, so I have something to compare from. There really is no comparison, in hindsight the Mi0 sucked.
- I’ve already had bad directions such as incorrect lane notifications (around DC and I-95). For a new unit I think the maps are out-of-date and it needs a refresh.
- the “S” model does not have lifetime map updates
- but there is Mapshare…
- There is no Back button on the menu.
- When zoomed out in 2D, it automatically zooms back in. I would like to be able to turn that off.
- No speech recognition
- 7M POI, wow!
- Although a refurb it was like new condition and the price was less than half of what it sells for at Targ3t and Be$tBuy ($259) and H$N ($199).
- The windshield mount is pretty neat.
- Speaker is loud.
- Display is very large and clear.
Tom Tom GPS
Bought on price and product reviews. As such product performs completely as expected and am happy with it. Customer service from Amazon excellent with product delivered the next day.
Bargain Price, but not the best GPS I’ve used
Given that I got this GPS for 200 dollars off a 300 dollar product I wasn’t expecting gold. I think it works well as a basic GPS unit. It gets you were you’re going (if its an address) without fail, and good estimation of the time required. I never have to use the ’shortest distance’ to trick it into getting the route I want. The points of interest though have about a 40% percent accuracy rate for me. For example, I tried having it take me to a Wells Fargo bank in the Twin Cities, and on two different points of address it took me deep into residential neighborhoods where there were no businesses at all , and from the looks of the architecture there hasn’t been any in at least 30 years. Over all, if you’re considering getting one of these at the less than 100 dollar price I’d say go for it, but don’t think you’re actually getting 300 dollars worth of functionality.
tomtom
Really liked this for a couple days. then it kept loosing it’s signal. returned it. may try another one. this one was “refurbished”
Mexico was a problem
I bought my TomTom GPS specifically for a family vacation to Mexico, and while it was loaded with the Mexico maps, it couldn’t recognize/find my hotel’s address in Playa del Carmen, and neither could it recognize/find one of the Seven Wonders of the World – the Mayan/Toltec ruins at Chichen Itza. Kept getting a placard on the screen that said, “Limited map information.” So, to me, it was a wasted purchase. I will add, however, that before my Mexico vacation, I had a business trip to Toronto and it worked pretty well, except for the fact that it couldn’t identify Niagara Falls as a “place of interest.” The TomTom rep I called about it said Niagara Falls had to be put in as a city. Since there IS a city of Nigara Falls, I think it should have come up in both categories, because at the time I didn’t know it was also a city. I mean, I’d never been to Niagara Falls, but I was interested in seeing a big waterfall.
Great GPS!
Great product! Works really well for Mexico and all the features described in Amazon are included. I have bought the refurbished one (saving a lot of money) and works perfect. Don’t hesitate, buy it!
Lousy speech; slow gps startup; and sparse POIs
I seldom leave feedback, but buyer beware on this GPS. To start, I’ve owned Garmins and Magellans. Of these, the worst performing one was this one due to the following:
1) Super-slow GPS connection. I had to drive a block before it recognized the signal. This and the Garmin 365wt where about even in this regards. The Magellan was by far the quickest.
2) Screen hard to read. Again, the Magellan had the best screen. This one washed out in a bright day.
3) Subpar usability. It takes too many steps to perform basic operations. Read other reviews for details. Again, the Magellan and Garmins were better.
4) Lacks POIs compared to the Garmin and Magellan.
5) Terrible computer-generated voice (the only option if you want text-to-turn). Enough said.
6) Some reviews may disagree but routing is just so-so. Not better than Garmin or Magellan based on about a month of use.
Wanted to keep it due to nice build quality, but decided to return it due to the many shortcomings that I experienced above. Hope this helps with your GPS shopping.
My third Tom Tom
I don’t drive long distance much as I live near my job and most other destinations, but when I travel, I like to have a GPS for peace of mind.
I bought this unit which is my third TomTom and I’m dazzled. The unit looks and works like a new unit, but it was only around $100. With advance lane guidance, text-to-speech and a 5″ screen, it’s like having a much expensive, top-of-the-line unit. The Easy Port mount works great in my 2007 Maxima b’cos I can mount in right on my dash above the information center. I leave the mount there all the time and pop on the GPS when I need it. Very convenient.
Everytime I’ve purchased new units, I’ve had to contact TomTom to have my new unit linked to my account. Their customer service is tremendous and responds quickly and thoroughly. I work in the supply chain industry and I’ve been contract administrator, purchasing agent, buyer, vendor relationship manager, etc. and this type of quality and service from all suppliers would make my job a pleasure.
Way to go, TomTom!!
xxl Tomtom
I think the xxl is the nicest one I have had so far. I don’t mind not having handsfree as much as I ENJOY THE REST OF THE FEATURES.
Great
I received this product 5 days after placed the order. This product has been working great. I love it.
Why buy a new one? Refurbished looks and feels the same!
I received this for a birthday gift (that I picked out), and I can not tell it from a new one. I even got the latest map update! Not sure if that was luck or not, but I’m not complaining. I’ve had two other Tomtom’s, and they work fine for me, although the Garmin’s do have a better looking interface. I drive a semi, and although this does not have truck routes, if you use some common sense you’ll do just fine.
The lane guidance is nice, as is the junction view (although a little gimmicky). I’ve even found the pronunciation of street names to be quite good, unlike what some others have said (even does a good job of saying “Puyallup”!).
I can easily recommend this product, especially at this price for a 5″ unit.
Do yourself a favor and get the ARKON TTEP115 TomTom EasyPort Windshield / Dash Mount to replace the near useless mount that comes with this model, though!
Best value for your dollar
I’ve used TomTom, Magellan and Garmin in the past. Rather than repeat the feature list I’ll state that this is far and away the best unit I’ve ever used. I tried the latest Magellan and Garmin, but neither had a chance against the TomTom. Stop shopping, buy one… you’ll like it.
Great Deal & Works Awesome
I made a purchase this refurbished GPS 540S for my son, and he found it so happy to use on daily basis. It looks totally new I guess this is a really great deal & price. I’m sure you wouldn’t get disappointed.
Works like new.
I had lost my old TomTom and ordered this refurbished one. Works great out of the box and in my opinion, works as well as a new one while saving a significant amount of money. I shopped this model used on EBAY and the price was the same or more than the refurbished.