TomTom Car Sat Nav GO Discover, 7 Inch, with Traffic Congestion and Speed Cam Alerts thanks to TomTom Traffic, World Maps, Quick-Updates via WiFi, Parking Availability, Fuel Prices, Click-Drive Mount

Every time I buy a new sat-nav, I wonder if this will be the last one and should I be shifting over to apps on my phone instead. I have been using TomTom since the very first Go model and for various reasons, I like having a dedicated, seperate unit for naviation. My car has an out of date, rubbish system built in (no apple / android support) - my phone has google maps and Waze, but when it comes to long journeys, I just like to have a proper sat nav that just does it's thing.My previous model was the 6" TomTom Go 6000 - it was good - served me well - although it was getting a bit slow but most importantly the battery was no longer holding any charge. I needed it for a holiday trip and the replacement battery I'd ordered hadn't turned up in time, so I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to the 7" TomTom Go Discover. There were a couple of things that attracted me - my eye sight isn't what it was, so the extra inch sounded like a positive (as well as the higher res screen that enabled) and the 4x cpu performance also sounded like a good upgrade considering my 6000 was often slow at places like large roundabouts where you don't know where to exit.So, the device arrived and in many ways it's identical to the 6000 - the main thing being that any routes or places synced with MyTomTom are all present on the new device which is great.The sharpness and size of the 7" model's screen are a great improvement - not only is it easier to read the extra features such as traffic updates / POI's on the map, but you can see more of the surrounding map without having it blocked by the side bar etc.Yes, it no longer has it's own sim card for live updates but it's a simple matter to link it to your phone via bluetooth (you need to turn on internet sharing over bluetooth) and it then gets its live updates over that connection.The other new thing for me compared to my 6000 is that you no longer need to sync with a PC for updates - it has wifi built when it's on and in range of your SSID, it will update it's OS / maps automatically. This is a welcome addition for me.The OS has also been tweaked since my previous model - I don't know if it is specific to the Go Discover models but I had no issues shifting from the old GUI to this version - the main parts are the same and the new things are logical and easy to work out - I did not need to read any instuctions or researchign anything - I was fully configured and up and running in a few minutes. It took me loonger to work out how to turn on internet sharing over bluetooth on my phone.The mount is good and the sucker is large and feels very secure on the windscreen - connecting the device to the mount is slightly more fiddly than the 6000 as the connnector isn't at the bottom but is on the back so you need to slide it around until you've worked out exactly where it is - similarly the magnet holdign it in place is stronger than the 6000 so taking it off the mount also requires a bit more force but once you've worked out the best way to do it, it is not an issue (for me, it requires holding it from the top and pulling it down and forward).The functionality of the device is the same as any other TomTom if you are famiilar with it so I won't cover that - if you like TomTom's, you'll like this.Whether the screen size or cost can be justified is a personal choice - for me, where my windscreen is quite far from the driving position, the extra screen size is worth it and physically it is not much bigger than the 6000 so it didn't change anything for me in terms of storing the device or blocking my field of view etc. If you don't need / want a 7" screen, the smaler screen sizes would be just as good and cheaper.I did eventually get the replacement battery for the 6000 (you can find it on Amazon) and it was a very simple job to open the device and swap out the batter (you can find how to video's on youtube). That fixed my charging issues with my older device, however now I have used the Go Discover, I won't be going back to the 6000 so will pass that on to someone else.

When my old GO 6000 stopped working - I suspect from either a hard drive or memory failure - I had to bite the bullet and get a replacement. Which? recommend TomTom over other makes, so my decision was narrowed down to which TomTom model and size of screen to choose. I didn't like that new TomTom models rely on connecting via Blu-Tooth to your own smart phone to connect to the internet, so would be using your mobile data as you travelled. My old GO 6000 had its own built-in modem to independently connect to TomTom & Traffic services - very useful if driving abroad as you don't need a sim card from a network provider in the country you're travelling through. However, as I no longer drive outside the UK that would hopefully not be too costly using my UK sim card.I'm making comparisons with my 6" GO 6000 and this 5" GO Discover. You can get 6" & 7" models nowadays but based on my familiarity with a 6" screen I reckoned a 5" screen would be more than adequate as well as being cheaper. The 5" screen is fine and performs well, but with hindsight I ought to have bought the 6" version as that's what my eyes have been accustomed to. The GO Discover is significantly faster with a much quicker response in everything, but otherwise the menus perform much as the old model. So if you've had a TomTom previously you'll have no problems using the newer models.In use I found if I wanted to benefit from Traffic or TomTom services, I needed to connect my GO Discover to my Android phone by enabling Blu-Tooth, and to enable a personal hotspot in 'Connection & Sharing'. However, if as on occasion I forgot to link my phone, my GO Discover would work OK if for example I selected a destination from 'My Places' and drove as usual. The only thing missing would be the lack of heavy traffic avoidance and re-routing that linking would provide. In practice when linked with my phone, I found the amount of data utilised through my phone to be negligible, so my fears of running up bills for large data usage were unfounded.My old GO 6000 took hours to update via my computer, and often 'lost' its connection when connected via cable to the computer, meaning you had to restart the download. These new models don't need to connect to a computer... they easily update via your home wi-fi as fast as is your broadband speed. You can set it so that it only downloads over wi-fi and not your mobile data. Much better than using my old GO 6000.So in summary, I recommend the GO Discover, but would suggest you consider the 6" model over the 5". Personally, I reckon the 7" screen versions simply too big.

I've always bought TomToms because of the excellent Traffic services, but have always found in the past that they had annoying issues - traffic connection dropping out, suction pad keep falling off, power connectors broken and REALLY slow software.TomTom Go Discover solves all of the above.- The software is now really fast with the updated processor - no more lagging. Much more enjoyable to use- The UI is the best yet, you can tell the developers have really thought about it this time from a user experience point of view, being able to zoom out and stay there (to see wider traffic issues) is a huge bonus- For those used to an always-on connection for traffic in older models, don't be worried that this version is now connected via mobile, for me the connection has been extremely solid via mobile with only extremely rare dropouts now- The suction pad has been massively improved, very solid on the windscreen now, no more falling off- The power connector has been redesigned so it and/or cable doesn't break anymoreIn summary, this TomTom is the best one I have bought (and I've had quite a few), just go ahead and buy it, you won't be disappointed!