TomTom's two-way HD Traffic GPS unit clears the FCC

TomTom's two-way, Dash-like HD Traffic GPS device has been helping European drivers help each other for some time now, and it looks like it could now possibly be headed to the US as well, although that's still not quite a sure thing. It has cleared one of the major hurdles on that trip though, with it recently sailing through the FCC with flying colors. No word on any changes to the device itself though, so we can presume that, if and when it gets here, you'll still get the same 4.3-inch LCD, 1GB of storage and all-important SIM card as our European friends, which promises to help stack up the unit with 5x the traffic updates and 10x the road coverage of typical traffic systems.

[Thanks, Rich]

[W.D.W. @ Jul 8th 2008 12:45PM]

I'm genuinely wondering, how long are these kind of things going to be around? With more and more phones having built in GPS, aren't the days of the stand alone GPS units numbered? I mean the only limiting factor in my mind for the phones are that the screens are a bit small.

[thedesolate1 @ Jul 8th 2008 12:57PM]

I know and tablet PC's are so much more convenient that if the add GPS it will cost the same as an expensive stand alone gps but with much more value for the bucks. On top of that a bigger screen and it can also replace your in dash dvd player.

[tekdroid @ Jul 8th 2008 1:17PM]

W.D.W. @ Jul 8th 2008 12:45PM
I'm genuinely wondering, how long are these kind of things going to be around?
-----------
I'm guessing 300-500 charge cycles of their internal, non-removable batteries :)

[Steven Shvartsman @ Jul 8th 2008 12:48PM]

GPS unit will be around for a long long long time. If you think everyone has an iPhone or a phone with built in GPS you are 100% wrong. Also people have no idea that there phone has GPS and how to use it...... Plus TomTom is really nice :)

[W.D.W @ Jul 8th 2008 1:42PM]

Coming from someone who sells GPS, among other things, for a living...tom tom is at the bottom of the big three in terms of reliability. Sure, they have cool features, but they use a different, lesser map provider than Magellan and Garmin.

Tom Tom just has a better advertising department then the other three. There's a reason pilots don't use Tom Tom, they use Garmin. We sell probably 5 garmins for every 1 tom tom.

[Andrew @ Jul 8th 2008 2:02PM]

W.D.W., let me guess - you live in the US, right? Because the rest of the world prefers TomTom to Garmin. Sure, in the US Garmin is hot - but outside of North America not so much.

[thedesolate1 @ Jul 8th 2008 12:55PM]

fuck it.. just throw in bluetooth and the ability to make calls with a gsm carrier and we are all set. Sim cloning any1?

[James Jones @ Jul 8th 2008 1:00PM]

Another company playing that "HD" card knowing the clueless consumer will eat it up!

[Robert @ Jul 14th 2008 10:40PM]

Forget GPS on a phone, everytime a phone call comes in you stop getting directings until the call is over.

[Akio @ Jul 8th 2008 7:50PM]

"ooh, HD! this means I'll get to my destination in better qualityzzz, sold!"

[Wwhat @ Jul 9th 2008 7:12AM]

The trick they use (in europe) is that they made a deal with cellphone companies to track the density of cellphones on roads and their movement (as a group, not individual personalised) and using that data to detect trafficjams, since then lots of phones aren't moving or moving slow and all concentrated at the jam.
That enables them to give superior results while calculating the routing.
It's a cleverly thought up scheme I guess

[Snatcher @ Jul 8th 2008 2:12PM]

When are people going to realize that a phone with a GPS is not a GPS ? What do you do when you are trying to follow a route and your phone rings ? I don't want to miss and exit because of a "you got mail" coming on the screen either.

[LordRaider @ Jul 8th 2008 3:22PM]

i agree, a phone with a GPS is not a GPS they are not loud enough to be heard on the cheesy speaker phone and even if they did my phone battery would have died before i reached my destination. I been using a GPS for about five years not and i would never use a phone as a GPS its just not practical. I have an iphone and dont always use the map feature only use it
when i want to get a quick idea on where im at. Now if the GPS company's would add blue tooth to their units to work with my iphone like a previous poster said that would be sweet.

[rob @ Jul 8th 2008 6:49PM]

i've been using bluetooth gps with msn live maps on my htc710 for a while now. no problems when a call comes in while driving. i mean, i just figure out what the next turn is before hand, so it's not like i need to be looking at it every second. i guess unless i'm on a route that requires turns every 30 seconds or something, which is extremely rare. only downside i guess is not having voice turn-by-turn directions. but i've never used that much before, so maybe i don't even realize the usefulness of that feature.

what i don't understand is why people would pay up to $700 for a stand alone unit... i can possibly see dropping $200...

[Alan @ Jul 8th 2008 6:49PM]

I'm using Garmin Mobile on my N95. It works great in South CA. I don't have a data plan so I can't use AGPS. Well... I don't think I need it tho.

[cooney @ Jul 8th 2008 6:25PM]

Filed under "gaming?"

[Jason @ Jul 9th 2008 6:27AM]

Oh please! No you can't!

1. You don't get voice directions.
Frankly, who wants to look at their navigation screen constantly. Use a real (dedicated) GPS device and see how it is supposed to work.

2. You lose your maps when you have no phone reception.
Getting navigation directions on your phone screen (with no voice prompts) is cool for about 2 minutes, or until you are actually using it go get somewhere, and then you lose your phone reception (for any number of reasons), and oh look I have no map data displayed any more, great...