Home > Consumer Reviews > TomTom GO 510 4-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator (Factory Refurbished)

Good unit and it routes well.
For $299 refurbished its a pretty good deal.
However I used to have a Garmin Nuvi 660, which was stolen from my truck.
That was expensive so I thought I would try something different\cheaper.

This is a good unti for the money.
But when compared to the Garmin, its not as easy to use from an interface perspective or use in a brightly lit car.

The good:
Cheap. Gets job done.
Good unit for money.
Routing engine is very good. It does not get confused like Garmin does.
Its syncs up fast.

Things that do not work as well as the garmin.

1)Dim display, its very hard to see in the sunlight on the dash. Polarizing sunglasses also make it hard to read.

2) Windshield mount sucks. This is because the unit is pretty bulky and heavy for the bracket provided. It cannot hold up the unit without sagging in a few minutes. There is no adjustment. I ended up putting it very low on the windshield and let it rest on dash board.

3) Interface does not learn from usage. So if you are searching for a destination it provides a list alphabetically not by the closest state you are in. I live in MA....so I have to scroll through all the other states to get to my destination. Poorly thought out. It should start from the state you are in or your home location. It does a poor job of remembering the locations you reguallry search in. I am a computer tech...so I am on the road goign to different houses\businesses in same town. I have to keep putting in same town every time I search. Its annoying.

4)Points of interest are terrible. I was in NH on vacation. It could not locate most interesting things, like Mount Washington resort, restarunts, camp grounds.

5) Display info is not great. It uses the smaller fonts for things like destination duration and when to turn.
It doesn't display speed, or arrival time at destination. WHich I fine to be the most useful feature of any GPS. What time will I get there and then I will know if I am gong to be late or early.
It just says you will get there in 40 minutes,. You have to figure out what time it is and do the math.

For $300 its pretty good for a basic unit. I will get you there.
I would buy the cheaper unit though. If you are ok with spending the extra $80 or so, buy the Garmin 360 or 660.
The software patches released recetnly supposed fixed the routing issues on the Garmin.

I ordered this refurbished device because it was offered at a good price and looked as if it had everything i needed. Picture is misleading. While the device is "portable" it's the shape of a television (bulky back) which is fine for the car, but not for the purse. It comes with everything you need. Device works great- tells you to "turn right up ahead", but not "turn right on to Broadway" which is one thing that bothers me. Has a lot of POI (points of interest) which is great. I've returned it because, overall, it's not what I was looking for. However, for $300 you can get something that suffices.

The worst thing about the Tom Tom GO 510 is the software that comes with it. I know twelve year olds that could write better software.
If you make a change to your favorites menu, and then choose to back it up to your computer, the 510 forces you to reset ALL of your previously set unit preferences.
If you do a restore from the computer to the 510 the same thing happens. Apparently the only thing that truly flows between them is the favorites menu, maps, and voice files.
Why there is a need to set the clock every time, I don't understand. They could easily have pulled the clock sync off one of the satellites.
Accuracy? I don't know if it's the 510's fault but my own house location is off by about 400 yards. It's a good thing I know where I live. But in honesty, most location are, right on the money, and sometimes to the doorstep.
Speaking of money, the 510 is not top of the line, but its price for what it gives is probably a good buy if you don't mind putting up with the aggravating software.

I love this product. Only thing is I have a sense of direction and it doesn't always take me the way I think it should. My son is in hysterics when I start arguing with it! The bracket to the window isn't worth a damn when it gets warm so I sit it on the dash. So long as you can trust it, it works. Once you start playing around with it and learning how to use it, its even better.

I used to have a garmin 350, which was stolen, and this unit replaced it.

The TomTom showed up, and came with more than the garmin unit, pouch, etc. However, right off the bat, the unit needed an "unlocking" code, and it took several tries over a series of days to activate the map that shipped with the unit. Tech support was great, they answer very fast, but it was still annoying.

Compared to the garmin, the TomTom has many more features. It has more voices, more options, it calculates routes much more quickly, and it finds the satellites much more quickly.

However, the maps provided with the TomTom are not as good as the ones that were provided with the garmin. I have found several annoying map errors driving around rural wisconsin, and it doesn't seem to have a very good database of local stores; i can't find several of my favorite restaurants, and it doesn't know where the nearest target is.

The device does update with my mac, which is great, but it has a problem with my dual-core macbook pro.

Entering addresses is in some way better than the garmin, and in some ways worse. It has a superior completion mode, but you can't restrict the area as easily, so you may have to wade through a lot of similarly-named towns.

The simm card is easy to pop out, so if the unit is being used in anything but dashmounted mode, you have to be careful to leave it in place.

In short, this is a nice full-featured unit, but not as plug-and-play as the comparable garmin.