TomTom finally hits Android starting at $50, not ready for all devices

[bassethound]

TomTom's popular offline navigation apps have finally made their way over to Android, right on schedule. The apps have a similar feature set to their iOS counterparts, although lack the recently-added FourSquare integration. If that doesn't bother you, you'll still get all the essential features, including spoken turn-by-turn directions in multiple languages, speed camera notifications, "HD Traffic" routing, and "lifetime" map updates (TomTom says four or more per year).

There are multiple prices depending on the amount of map coverage you need. For example, the US & Canada and Western Europe editions are currently priced at $49.99 each, $10 cheaper than the same maps cost on iOS. The Google Play listing says that the prices are 'introductory offers,' so we expect them to rise to meet the regular iOS prices soon. The other price you'll pay for the app comes in the form of lost storage space: TomTom US & Canada requires 2.3GB of storage space for installation.

The apps are available from Google Play now, although device compatibility isn't perfect: many of our devices — including the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7, HTC One X, Galaxy S III, and Galaxy Note — are listed as incompatible in our Google Play account, and we're sure that list will grow as more users attempt to buy the app.

Update: TomTom has been in touch to let us know some more details on the apps' limitations. It says the apps support devices with Android 2.2 or higher, running at either 800 x 480 or 854 x 480 resolutions, but the company is "committed to supporting higher resolutions on an ongoing basis." TomTom also notes that there are some "fake apps" that have been uploaded to the Google Play store, and asks users to be vigilant: official TomTom apps will always have TomTom International BV as the developer.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tomtom.uscanada&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS50b210b20udXNjYW5hZGEiXQ..

[Stanman]

Overpriced and bit late in the day, the built kn navigation on my HTC desire is more than god enough to get the job done.

[paul362]

Overpriced and bit late in the day, the built kn navigation on my HTC desire is more than god enough to get the job done.

Have to agree with you there m8 my galaxy nexus if fine using Google maps thanks.

[Osamo1956]

A satnav app for Android named "Sygic" is based on TomTom.
Much cheaper.
I have TomTom on a dedicated car satnav + Sygic on my Android phone and can see very little difference.
I'd suggest that you need only pay the extra if you'd prefer to have the TomTom startup splash screen

[Stanman]

I dont see the need to pay for satnav on Android, the built in navigation software is spot on imho.

[judge]

I dont see the need to pay for satnav on Android, the built in navigation software is spot on imho.

exactly...
in Mumbai last few weeks & navigation on my android didn't fail me once.
Same in Goa for a weekend, the most remote roads all spot on.

[martyd]

google have spent a lot of time on navigation and it has paid off, garmin and tom tom are now obsolete for most

[Trial]

Hi,
at least the German version of Google Navigation is very often quite late with the direction info. It is OK but far from being perfect.

ciao

[Rob van der Does]

I really don't think one can compare the userfriendly, accurate and flexible GUI of a TomTom with any other system.

I'm quite happy to pay for that.

[Larry-G]

A couple of years ago i would have fully agreed with you, but i have used google maps on my galaxy s3 a number of times now and its just as fast and accurate as my tomtom, well at least on the roads i tested it with.

[Rob van der Does]

You've got a point there: probably it is (apart from the application itself) also dependant on the speed of the processing (hence the hardware it is running on). So indeed I can imagine (big) differences due to different phones.

[pooface]

I have used Tom Tom and Google nav on my s3, and I do prefer Tom Tom... would be good to have live traffic on Google nav, then I would probably just stick with that...

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

[Trial]

Hi,
I think in Germany Google Navigation has live traffic on the display but I am not sure if it is also used for route calculation.

ciao