The TomTom GO 740 LIVE is TomTom’s first navigation device with a built in cellular connection. It comes with a three-month subscription to TomTom’s LIVE services, giving you access to Google Local search, TomTom traffic, fuel prices, weather and more.
Design
The GO 740 Live sticks to the standard PND form factor that has served TomTom well. The device measures 3.4 inches tall by 5 inches wide. The unit is 0.9 -inch thick at its thickest point (center) and tapers to thinner edges. On the front of the device you’ll find a 4.3-inch full-color touch screen with a 480×272 pixel resolution. On the back is the single speaker. The bottom edge is where the proprietary cradle connection can be found, as well as a microSD card slot, if you want to supplement the unit’s 2GB of internal storage.
The GO 740 Live doesn’t include the Fold’n'Go EasyPort mount that the One and XL models feature. Rather, the GO ships with a car cradle with a suction-cup mount similar to that of the EasyPort and a desk cradle for connecting the GO to a computer via USB for updating or charging.
TomTom rates the GO 740 Live’s battery life at 3 hours. In our testing, we found the charge to last closer to 2 hours.
Impression and functions
The Go 740 Live delivered accurate and sensible routes. It announced turns well ahead of time, and I found street names clear and easy to understand. The device uses the IQ Routes technology that impressed me on the Go 930: This feature takes into account historical data (collected from anonymous users), such as real-world speeds at certain times of the day, when calculating your route. I found that the Go 740–like the Go 930–consistently delivered accurate, sensible routes. TomTom’s route preview is the best in the business, presenting an overview of the entire route after you select a destination, then offering plenty of options if you want an alternate route. The device also supports TomTom’s Map Share feature, which allows you to share map updates and corrections with other users. The built in SIM also offers other benefits. Not only do you receive this extended traffic information, but you can also use it to access Google Local Search. No longer do you need to have to dig out the post code information for your destination if it happens to be a non-residential address. Just pop in the name of the hotel, restaurant or shop you’re heading to and you’ll be able to navigate straight there.
I hoped that the connected features would make the unit’s excellent routing features that much better, but I was disappointed. The Go 740 did warn me about upcoming traffic incidents, but consistently told me that I was “still on the fastest route” rather than presenting me with alternatives. I appreciated knowing about upcoming slowdowns, but would rather be able to avoid them instead of simply anticipating them.
The other connected services, such as the included Google Local Search, weather forecasts, and fuel prices, were more impressive, though still not worth the $10-per-month that you’ll have to pay for them. You can use the Local Search feature to browse through information (such as restaurant reviews) about local points of interest–it’s like a POI database on steroids.
The Go 740 Live’s convenient touches include lane guidance (which tells you which lane you should be driving in) and realistic views of complex intersections. Unfortunately, these images only appear when TomTom has them available, and I found them scarce in my travels around the Boston area. I also wish it was easier to clear a route or to add a waypoint to an existing route you’re traveling; both actions take far more clicks than necessary.
The speech recognition tools are another area of improvement, adding the ability to control various aspects of the device – such as switching between 2D and 3D views as well as simply entering addresses. We found this worked well, but though it recognised street names and cities okay, it occasionally had difficulty in recognising numbers, bizarrely.
And its sat-nav capabilities are just as good as the previous range. It didn’t set a foot wrong on our test routes, and though we wish it would update the rather old-fashioned non-anti-aliased graphics, it’s very easy to use and follow.
Voice instructions are loud, the maps are clear, and it’s absolutely stuffed with features, from the handy Help me! menu which lists nearby pharmacies, hospitals and so on, to the map correction tools, which allow you to mark map errors and upload them to TomTom’s servers via TomTom Home and download others’ corrections for free.
Finally, the “Weather” connected service gives you the option of of a weather report at current location, destination, and more, and shows current weather, plus a four-day forward forecast.
The list of additional features is a long one, including handsfree calling via a Bluetooth connection to your phone, and text-to-speech directions. The GO 740 also includes the best windshield mount I’ve ever tried.
Product summary
The good: The TomTom GO 740 Live is the manufacturer’s first connected-GPS device, offering up-to-the-minute traffic data, weather forecasts, fuel prices, and Local Search powered by Google. Map Share and IQ Routes technologies allow map data to be updated more frequently. Bluetooth hands-free calling and voice command help the driver to keep both hands on the wheel.
The bad: Route calculations are slow, particularly from a moving vehicle. High entry cost only includes three months of service.
The bottom line: The TomTom GO 740 Live puts a tremendous amount of information at your fingertips and makes it easy to access and process it all from the driver’s seat.
Conclusion
The GO 740 Live’s primary competition is going to be our previous Editors’ Choice winner, the Garmin Nuvi 880. Both units feature live, connected, data services for traffic and points-of-interest search. While the Garmin’s interface is slightly more polished and easy to navigate, the GO 740 Live’s superior connected services give the TomTom user a bit more information about what’s happening on the road.
However, TomTom’s menu structure continues to leave something to be desired. While the icons are bright and easily read, they’re oddly organized. For example, canceling a route requires five button presses from the map screen, assuming that you already know where to find it. On a Garmin, that same action requires two presses. Additionally, the TomTom kicks you back to the map screen when you attempt to back up through the menu structure, which makes learning the menu’s organization difficult because you’re always starting over.
Both units have equally useful and responsive voice controls, but the Garmin comes packaged with a steering-wheel remote, which is either a huge convenience or yet another part to lose, depending on how you look at it.
Overall, we were more than satisfied with the TomTom’s performance and found it to be slightly superior to the Garmin 880, which is why we’re picking the TomTom GO 740 as our Editors’ Choice.
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