Tom Tom GO 540 LIVE

After using an Alpine Blackbird (a whole new dimension of terrible), the TomTom Go 540 Live was fantastic. HOWEVER, it has let me down so badly in many ways:

it keeps 'spontaneously rebooting' (turning off and rebooting by itself up to 10 times in 10 minutes).

failing to pick up a satellite signal in open countryside for up to 20 minutes.

receiving too few satellites to place me on the right road - once it thinks you are on a different road - all hell breaks loose as far as directions are concerned.

Halfords have been outrageous in their poor customer service, denial of my legal rights, misquoting of the Law and prolonged attempt to make me go away.

3 attempts at repair, 1 replacement and IIRC over 40 e-mails & letters later I have finally won my money back.

I concur with other reviews for the TT.

I have owned the TT 540 Live with traffic updates for 1 year. I travel around 40,000 MPY. I totally rely on the TT for sat nav and bluetooth for voice calls.

My biggest regret with the TT is TT support. I too keep having crashes for no apparent reason. Sometimes with bluetooth to phone connection and sometimes without.

I have spent ages trying to get TT support to address the issues here without any success.

Its just a dam shame that no other device keep you updated in real time like the TT or i'd opt for another sat nav manufacturer.

After all the above - I wish TT would just issue a new firmware patch (or whatever its called ) and get this potentially life saving devise a make over.

A good Satnav overall, would have given 4 stars if it wasn't for the incessant crashing of the unit. Bluetooth hands free is a lottery at best with the unit disconnecting at will and requiring a restart and repairing to get it working again. Have found that the clear-flash tool by Tomtom seems to solve these issues but that is besides the point.

Otherwise the traffic updates while expensive are getting better as 2009 wears on although it is not entirely accurate here in Scotland.

I purchased the 540 when it first came out, i travel alot on the roads and did not want to be sitting in traffic. The map accuracy is good, but find £6.95 per quarter is expensive to keep updating.

Live services are good, but i find the live traffic is not accurate enough, especially if you travel on the M25.

Bluetooth for you phone i found very poor as callers could not hear you clearly,and the speaker could do with being louder.

My overall review on this product is that it is very good as a sat nav, but the £7.99 premium for live service? it does not function accurately in real time.

Would i purchase another, no! I think there are services bundled on other sat navs at a far more reasonable price.

I've only owned one sat nav before this, a TomTom ONE, which I returned as the traffic system was useless, the Tom Tom GO 540, though, is on a different level. The traffic works great, but is a little conservative in its estimates of how long the jams are - 2 minutes is often 5 - but at least it tries to get you round the jam if it's faster (Datchet railway crossing!)Don't buy the unit if Bluetooth is essential or at least check the Tomtom site first. It doesn't work with my Blackberry, whereas my ancient Movon Mk10 does it easily.My final gripe is that it recognises tight corners as direction changes. I have tried to update this for my and other drivers benefits but I can't figure out how to stop it from being silly.Everything else about the system is wonderful. The petrol prices features sounds like a novelty until, like me tonight, you need a station within 20 miles; I simply pressed the button and requested a station on my route and it comes up with all the possibles based on price and mileage - you choose the one you want and its location is added as a way point on the journey - excellent stuff.Google search is also very good. Look for any business you want either as a name or category (eg Dr Jones or Doctors) and it will offer the alternatives based on where you are or where you want to look.