TomTom Car Sat Nav VIA 52, 5 Inch with Handsfree Calling, Traffic via Smartphone and WE Maps, Resistive Screen

Great quality, easy to use. Best Tom Tom I’ve bought to date

Replacement for my wife's old Tom Tom, works virtually the same as the old one but info is more up to date and voice info is more informative giving street names which is useful. Charges quickly and easily both in and out of the car, USB socket very useful too.

I've had this for about 4 months now so reasonable time to post a review.I used this in France (and updated it prior to leaving). We didn't have a postcode as it was some barn in the middle of rural France, but had the GPS co-ordinates, which it does allow you to input. It handled it very well and noted that it disabled the speed cameras as soon as it determined it wasn't in the UK (AA handbook states that it's illegal to track speed camera locations), so that was a nice touch. Acquiring the satellite on start-up takes a little while - 2-3 minutes but provided you're not in a hurry, this is fine. However, it's very easy to set "avoid motorways" when defining your route options which results in you constantly being sent back on yourself - if you go and recheck this, you should be ok.The updates take a very long time though - 6 hours. TomTom probably have some piddly little server in the US dishing out files on a dial-up modem. I saw everyone here complained about that, it's true. I just set mine to run overnight and in the MyDrive app, clicked on the "prevent computer shutting down when this app is open" as laptops will powerdown over night if you don't do this.Even then, it missed out a community update (only 271kb) but that was sorted in about 5mins.If you get locked out of your MyDrive account due to too many wrong passwords, all I had to do was wait a few hours - I saw a few comments on the forums about needing to call the TomTom helpdesk - thankfully I didn't need to do this.The bluetooth tethering for traffic didn't work so well for me, but then, I didn't really make much of an effort with it. If you're going to do that on a regular basis, you may as well use your phone and stick it on the dash (but I'm weird like that).I purchased it primarily for EU/UK wide travel so having all the maps preloaded works for me. To compare, when I went to France, I also downloaded a section of the offline maps on my phone to use with Googlemaps. It's good, but you have to have quite alot of space on the phone for this if you want to cover the entire journey, which to me is a pain. There is a micro-SD slot you can insert in the SatNav just for maps/routes etc. - this is better as you won't be competing for space with photos or videos.I like the fact that you have lifetime updates, as my previous one charged me £30/pa for the pleasure. The speed cameras in the UK cost extra but I suspect that the community updates have included those anyway.Finally, you might ask yourself - why would you want to buy a satnav these days?Well, yes, your phone could do the job, but the following scenario is entirely possible:-you're driving at 50mph + you have no 3G signal in a new area....-Googlemaps is updating very slowly-you haven't preloaded the data on your phone (if you tried to be clever)-you're driving in the sticks somewhere (Uk or EU)

Easy to use sat Nav with good navigational guidance. I only use it occasionally but it suits my needs. The maps needed updating, which was easy enough to do on line, by following the instructions provided.

Good quality value for money

Bought as replacement for old XL which wouldn't work properly after the recent rebooting of the clock. TomTom didn't tell us that after this it would also lose its GPS feed frequently & randomly, especially where roads in town centres were concerned - becoming in my view downright dangerous! And their offer for a replacement was only for a much more expensive model. Amazon's offer for the VIA52 was much better value.Map accuracy disappointing. My road (built 2003) has had a name given it which is totally fictional and never existed. It persists in thinking all SY24 postcodes are in Borth - they aren't, I am in Talybont - 6 miles away!!The speed limits are quite often not up to date, either.The pre-loaded French map was also not up-to-date - new speed limits not changed - so I tried the update as recommended. As others have said, it was ludicrously slow to load even with 16Mb broadband so I gave up until I actually need it.Before realising that there WAS a manual, I couldn't get anything to work properly, despite years of (satisfied) experience with the older model; there seems very little that hasn't changed. But now I've got the hang of it, it works as well as the old one did. Still haven't got the phone-linked things to go, though.Miss not having indication of remaining driving time displayed - need mental arithmetic instead! Larger screen is nice, and seems brighter. Nice to be able to keep the old 'voice' (Kathy) as well. On-off switch behind instead of on top is not an improvement, and the charging cable is too short for best positioning- the old one was a bit longer.I like to check the route details out on the map before setting off, and that is considerably more difficult than it was. And like the old model, there is a tendency to use very minor roads which are often definitely NOT quicker. On the credit side, however, the projected timings are usually astonishingly accurate - as they were before.But overall, I'm satisfied with the VIA52 at about 2/3rds the price of its predecessor; I wouldn't want to drive to any new destination without it...

Great sat navSuction did not stick on dashboard only windscreenI’ve used it about 3 times and it fell from the windscreen once maybe because of bumpy roadsEasy to set up