TomTom ONE XL: they grow up so fast...

Gone are the days when a lot of time passed between the announcement of new TomTom devices and them actually being available in the shops. This is especially true when we look at the new ONE by TomTom, the wide-screen ONE XL; announced on April 16th, and available in all shops by mid next week .

We've had one of these units available to us for some time now, and we've driven a fair amount of kilometres with it attached to the windscreen already. Enough to provide you with our opinion on TomTom's newest, in any case.

In the box

The ONE is, and remains, TomTom's entry-level model. This is clear when looking at the contents of the ONE XL box, in which only the most rudimentary accessories are found: the ONE XL, the car mount, a 12/24 volts car charger, a USB lead, the usual documentation and an installation CD with TomTom HOME, manuals and a few extra voices.

Biggest absentee is again the home charger which enables you to charge your ONE in-house. This is possible in any case though the USB port of your computer, but this is very slow and most of the time doesn't even provide enough power to compensate for the battery drainage when the device is switched on.

The ONE XL is available in a regional version (£ 249), containing the regional UK maps and the major roads of Europe, and in a European version (£ 279), containing the detailed maps of Western-Europe in the 1 GB of internal flash memory. We know from past experience, that the 'real' prices don't differ much from the announced prices in the first few months.

Wide screen

The most notable difference between the 'normal' ONE and the ONE XL is of course the size of the screen. After the 3.5 inch screens, and the 4 inch touch screen of the GO x10, TomTom has now chosen to implement the 4.3 inch touch screen which we already encounter here and there in the PND market. This screen measures 9.5 by 5.4 centimetres, which means a diagonal of almost 11 centimetres. This enables a screen resolution of 480 by 272 pixels, in 65,000 colours.

This of course also means the outside dimensions of the new ONE have grown considerably compared to the small ONE with its 3.5 inch screen. In height and depth this means a difference of merely a few millimetres, but in width 2.3 centimetres has been added. Also the weight has increased by 30 grams, making for a total of 208 grams.

As with other brands who use this 4.3 inch screen, we are very impressed with the ONE XL's screen. The clarity and sharpness are excellent and the touch sensitivity is also very good, but we still wonder why TomTom hasn't implemented the possibility of arranging the display in a different fashion than is usually the case. We would like to be able to choose whether the info is displayed to the left or right of the map, instead of along the bottom. This would enable more of the plotted route to be seen, and this is handier when navigating. We've put all our hopes into the as yet unconfirmed version 7 of TomTom's navigational software, which we expect sooner rather than later.

Simplicity

Just like it's little brother, the ONE XL just breathes sturdiness and simplicity. A run past all the visible parts is therefore a short one: on top of the device there's the on/off button (1), and on the bottom left of the front, there's the charging LED (2). On the bottom of the XL there's the reset-hole (3), and SD card slot (4), a connection for the RDS/TMC antenna (5), and a mini-USB connector for connections to the computer and charging of the device. On the back there's the holes beneath which the speaker is mounted, the connection for the car mount and the connection for the optional external GPS antenna.

Also on the inside, nothing much has changed: the ONE XL still uses the same 266 MHz CPU and 32 MB of RAM, but still, the XL seems to be a tad slower than the old ONE was. Our standard route from Oegstgeest (South Holland) to the Piazza Di San Marco in Rome is calculated in 1 minute and 8 seconds. The old ONE only needed 41 seconds for this. In practice this won't be a problem of course, because especially for shorter trips, the differences are negligible, and with the recalculation of the route, the ONE XL surely is fast enough.

GPS chipset

The ONE XL is the first TomTom PND we've tested, which features the Hammerhead GPS chipset. So this is the first chance we've had to compare the famous SiRF Star III chipset with Global Locate's hardware. We've done this by driving a few routes with both the normal ONE as well as the ONE XL attached to the windscreen, after which we analysed the GPS data with the help of GPS Visualiser.

And we can put everyone's mind at ease: the Hammerhead doesn't perform any worse than the SiRF chipset. Even more: our test has shown that this new chipset is a bit more accurate,and finds more satellites than the SiRF chipset could. On the other hand, the difference between time to first fix of both devices is negligible.

Again: the differences in real life are very small and not noticeable in real-life use. But if we are forced to point out a winner, then we choose the Hammerhead…

In practice

If we want to use the ONE XL for it's intended purpose, it doesn't seem all that different compared to the old ONE. The car mount is also more or less identical. Only the part where the ONE slides on has become one centimetre or so wider. We're not that big a fan of this mount, but we have to admit that, in practice, this mount functions pretty good. In any case attaching and removing the mount again is a cinch.

While driving, we soon forget we're dealing with the next generation ONE. Of course, there's the wider screen, but we got used to that in no time. We're sure this is due to the software which we already know so well from other TomTom devices. On this ONE XL, version 6 of the software also functions admirably, and takes us to our destination without a hitch.

Just like it's little brother, this ONE XL remains a basic no-nonsense navigational solution. So don't expect any text-to-speech, hands free calling, MP3 playing of photo viewing. The device does feature a Bluetooth chip which can be used to connect to the TomTom PLUS services though.

Also recognisable, but not in a good way, is the low battery life of the ONE XL. This time, TomTom has chosen to implement a pretty weak type, and this means that, depending on the use, the battery will last about 2 to 2.5 hours, after which the 12/24 volts car charger has to be used. So one of the major downsides of the old ONE is also present in the new ONE XL!

RDS/TMC

One novelty the XL does feature is the possibility of using RDS/TMC for the retrieval of traffic information. The normal ONE isn't capable of doing this, and this is a much-requested feature by TomTom customers.

At this moment TomTom is still busy developing a completely new RDS/TMC antenna, because they (and a lot of customers) were not very happy with the performance of the current one. TomTom expects the new version to become available by the end of May for the owners of the XL. Owners of the older model, who are entitled to the new model also, as we've written in this news post, will most likely receive their antenna by mid June.

Because of pending innovations, we were still unable to extensively test the TMC capabilities of the ONE XL, but the first tests have been very positive.

Of course, there will be more on this soon here at yourNAV.