TomTom release Webkit enabled next generation GO LIVE 1000 satnav
If there were an agency tasked with preventing the extinction of old technologies, its endangered list would look like this: the floppy disk, the CRT monitor, the standalone SatNav. Due to poaching from the Smartphone navigation sector (headed by Google Navigation and Nokia Ovi), the indie SatNav is slowly being wiped out. However, TomTom is staging an audacious conservation effort with a new evolution of the personal navigation device – the Go Live 1000.
The latest incarnation of the company’s flagship device boasts a capacitive touchscreen and is a Webkit back-end, making the device smarter, more responsive and more advanced than previous versions. It is also a bit slimmer.
The capacitive touchscreen, hailed by the creator’s as bringing about “a whole new generation of navigation devices”, is only the second personal navigation unit to feature such technology (the other being the recently released Garmin product), and brings the touch input hardware in line with smartphones, providing the user with a much more pleasant touch-experience.
The user experience also benefits from a Webkit-based interface (the same engine that powers Google Chrome and Safari), meaning speedy browsing between the numerous options and settings that come as standard on a Tomtom device.However, the unit’s speed doesn’t just come from these new innovations – there is some serious hardware backing it all up. A 500Mhz ARM11 processor, as well as 128mb RAM and 4GB of storage all add to the device’s pace.
The benefits of this speed include instant route planning and re-planning – the fastest in the industry. Although independent tests recorded an eight second reroute time on a prototype, TomTom assures users that it will be near instant on final models.
Other nifty features include the automatic volume adjustment, which raises and lowers the speaker volume depending upon the ambient noise level, and the Sim card slot, for putting in a Sim card (they are really taking on those Smartphones now.) This slot is probably to allow large data-downloads, as TomTom HQ’s back-end server systems have been completely redesigned to allow delivery of rich content and downloadable applications over the air (although the traditional cable still works, too).
The device covers over two million kilometres of road and addressable locations across 45 European countries, as well as a 12 months free access to the TomTom Live service – giving traffic information, petrol prices, service, weather alerts across 33 countries (and speed camera alerts across 16).
