TomTom XL 330S - 4.3 in. Car GPS Receiver

I purchased my TomTom One XL 330S refurbished for about $100 from CompUSA.com about a year ago.  Since then, it's been nothing but smooth sailing!  The touch screen is an absolute joy to use and the controls are very intuitive.  Going from point A to point B is as simple as putting in your destination and then waiting a minute or two for the unit to map out a path (could be longer than that for long distances).  A number of different voices are available, including custom ones that can be downloaded (such as the voice of George W. Bush - which would cause me to chuck the unit out the window eventually!).  Text to speech is now supported through one or two voices that must be downloaded.  This becomes invaluable because it helps to know exactly what street to turn on to (or what exit to get off of).  Maps can be easily upgraded through a download, which doesn't take much time to do.  There is even a "night-mode" option that turns all the colors into varying shades of neon green, which makes things easier to read when everything is pitch black.

I will give two examples of how I have used this handy little device:

One morning on my way to work there was an accident on the interstate highway that I usually take.  Traffic was backed up and I didn't want to take the usual route.  I kept driving north on a local highway to bypass the accident.  Eventually I came to a point that was unfamiliar to me, so I plugged in my TomTom and turned it on.  I put in the nearest intersection of where my office is located.  After I was sure that I had passed the area of the accident, I wanted to get back on to the interstate highway.  The TomTom told me exactly how to get there by taking back roads.  I found my way to where I wanted to go in just a few short minutes.

On a recent family vacation, the TomTom found our destination (entered as an intersection, or cross-roads), and guided us right there, with no mistakes made.  This was incredibly useful as we made our way in the middle of the night, which would have made reading a map very hard to do.  We only made one error - we went past a road we were supposed to go down, but the TomTom basically told us that we had to turn around.  On another occasion during our vacation, we were looking for an Applebees and I was able to locate one using the TomTom (which I didn't think I was able to do).  So, the TomTom made our vacation a lot easier!

One thing I noticed during two separate occasions was that the unit became excessively slow - to the point where I had to pull off to the side of the road to give it time to recover.  This only ever happened twice in all the time that I've owned it.  Another thing that I find annoying is that the voice will literally read something as if it was written down - if something is abbreviated it will speak out the abbreviation, and if something contains a semicolon then the unit will literally say "semicolon" (which actually became rather amusing after a while).  Not all points of interest show up in the system, so it is helpful to know the nearest intersection to input your destination. 

Another thing that I find a little annoying is that the text to speech synthesizer doesn't speak the way a normal voice would (in other words, speaking with punctuation included in the sentences).  What one gets is a string of words of varying speeds and intensities thrown together.  The non-human quality of the voice just needs a little bit of getting used to. 

So, taking all things into consideration, I do recommend buying the TomTom One XL 330S as an inexpensive, easy to use GPS.  I don't understand why anyone would have to pay for anything more (unless you actually enjoy throwing money out the window!).