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Review by Jackson Harris for Garmin nüvi 1490/1490T 5-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic (Factory Refurbished)
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OK … First things first. When the 1490 was first released in 2009, the firmware was so buggy that the unit even suffered from spontaneous reboots … IN MID ROUTE! Occasionally it would not even restart again without the 10 second hold on the on button. THOUSANDS of these units were returned to COSTCO who got the original release. In fact, so many were returned that Garmin actually released this product again … as a refurbished unit. The only change being loading new firmware and packing it in a white box.

So now … for under $200 you can get a new … almost … Nuvi with the best form factor, feature set, and … now … rock solid firmware on the market.

Here is what to do …

1. Buy this unit … just get it.

2. As soon as it arrives, scan the Amazon paperwork … you’ll need it for step 4

3. Log on to [...] and attempt to register the unit (you will need the S/N)

4. If you cannot register the unit … you likely cannot … call Garmin support (excellent USA based support) and tell them you cannot register your refurbished unit. They will ask you to send them proof of recent purchase … immediately email the Amazon paperwork scanned in step 2. They will make an entry on the spot and you can register right away. Also explain that you want new maps. They can hook you up with a download of the newest maps since you are a new owner.

5. Download and install Garmin’s free Webupdater program. You will need that to get the latest firmware updates. Latest version was issued May 10, 2010 and is version 4.10.

6. Finally … install in your car and enjoy.

I know, all this takes time. The new map downloads alone are 2 hours, and the scanning thing … well, just know that it is worth it. The 5″ screen is awesome and since the resolution is unchanged, everything is bigger and clearer. Audio is louder and clearer on this model. Battery life is better. Bluetooth now works very well. The eco info is very useful and the traffic is perfect now … in this latest firmware. Lane assist is ‘da bomb. And don’t forget about the little extras like an awesome photo viewer and available micro SD slot (I put in an 8 Gig card and Nuvi had no trouble reading it.)

All and all, you score big as a result of Garmin’s short sighted decision to release an unfinished product too early. But now that the firmware is fixed … WOW!!!

Review by Andy Royce for Garmin nüvi 1490/1490T 5-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic (Factory Refurbished)
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I, like others before me, researched many makes and models of GPS units and finally settled on the Garmin 1490T (T for traffic support). I’ve used this unit for over almost two months and am very pleased with my selection. At first I was not sure I would use it every day back and forth the twenty two miles to work but after initial use I have it on almost all the time. Reason…for the traffic updates. The traffic update feature is well worth the added expense as it gives you plenty of warning both visually and via voice that there is traffic ahead…the traffic shows on the screen with either yellow or red beside the route you are on. When the traffic icon warning goes yellow or red (it tells you how long the delay is) you have the option to select the traffic icon and can then push options to see where the traffic is being reported ahead of you and you have the option to route around the problem.

Other features I like are the fact that this is a wide screen which means I can see more of what is on the map even when other information is on the screen like miles per hour arrival time distance and so on. This model comes with a feature called junction view which I was skeptical of at first but when it comes on is very handy because it shows you a picture of complex interstate intersections with easy to follow verbal and visual directions. It has pictures of only complex interstate intersections…spaghetti junctions. The picture pops up when you are about .8 mile from the intersection so you have a visual image of what the intersection looks like. Kinda cool. If you are directionally challenged you will like this feature. There are also features for 2D and 3D tracking…2D for an overhead shot of your route that automatically zooms in when you get close to a turn and 3D for an upclose look at your route all the time…2D is best overall and 3D when your route is complex.

Other features are this one has a pedestrian mode for using in strange places and when you want to find the bus stops. It is supposed to work if you are on a bicycle. This one has lots of options for shortest route or fastest route or most economical like most GPS units. Depending on what option you select may generate some strange routes. I tried all the options and found one day it had me exiting from the interstate then getting right back on several times…very strange. I saw in advance what it was doing and ignored the command to take the exit then later changed the setting to fastest route and that corrected the strange commands.

It also has the ability to connect to Bluetooth which is OK but people complain there is lots of background noise…they can still hear me but it is not the best feature if your car has wind noise. Bluetooth connects automatically when you turn the GPS on and will not work if you also have an ear bud Bluetooth…turn the ear bud off.

Finding a place is very straight forward. You are prompted for the city, then the house number then the street name. When you start entering the street name the unit will respond with some options to select from. Very easy to use the on screen keyboard…not while driving of course but non-the-less easy to use.

Routing is a challenge if you know the best way to get to your destination because the GPS may route you differently depending on how it is set. You can force it to go a certain route by selecting intersections to route through. If you do not know the way then let the GPS do the route for you and you will be fine. If you go off route or stop along the way it will recalculate reroute you in a few seconds.

I used the Points of Interest feature a few times and find it does a nice job of finding gas stations, restaurants and other points near to where you are.

This GPS also connects to your computer for updates and to a Garmin product called MapSource. MapSource is kinda cool because you can use it to upload and download routes from your GPS to the computer. Create a complex route on a map on your computer with lots of waypoints or stops along the way then download the route to the GPS and you are good to go.

One stumble I had was when I purchased my 1490t it was described as used or refurbished but I got a nice discount over a new one. When I went to get the free map update I got a message from (…) saying that I did not qualify because I was outside the 60 free period. Since I had just bought it and received it a few days prior I wondered if it had anything to do that it was refurb. I poked around on the mygarmin site and noted that it showed that my particular serial number had already received a map upgrade almost eight month prior to my owning this device. I sent an email to the support people and they simply had me send them a copy of the sales receipt to validate my recent purchase. Then they set (…) so that it recognized my unit as eligible to receive an updated map.

Now I am good to go with fresh maps and am pleased with my purchase…it works well and the Amazon price was the better than any of the others on offer.

Review by Warren E. Cortesi for TomTom XXL 540S 5-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Factory Refurbished)
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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!

Review by Stephen T. Porter for TomTom XXL 540S 5-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Factory Refurbished)
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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.

Review by W. Santianna for TomTom XXL 540S 5-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Factory Refurbished)
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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.