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Won't Save Route When Turned off
First, this unit is easy to use and picks some good roads to get around traffic.
On a trip from Virginia Beach to Maine, it directed me to a road around New York that I never would have picked from a map, but there was minimum traffic and I made good time.

Second, some of its choices are bad. For example, take my trip from Va Beach to Maine - instead of going up the DelMarVa peninsula, it wanted me to drive through or around Richmond, Washington DC, and Baltimre. I was able to tell it to go the Eastern Shore route, using a POI (point of interest) but there is no option to save a special trip (only can save destinations). So I had to leave it on while I stopped at a rest area or restaurant and hide it in the armrest console.

Another annoying thing it does is, out of the blue it says "there is another route that will save 6 minutes. Do you want this route?" That's all it says - No other info. How's a person supposed to know whether the other route is really better?

On the plus side, it gets a signal fast and recalculates fast when you make a wrong turn or pursposely deviate from the planned route.

The TomTom XXL 550 is an excellent, affordable, "user-friendly" GPS unit that will please a wide variety of users ...
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RA9B27OETQJA1 Many people prefer "user-friendly" items and the TomTom XXL 550 just happens to be one of them. A few days ago I was in one of those big box stores and two different manufacturers had set up their units on an end cap where people could compare and decide for themselves which one they might be interested in purchasing. The TomTom seemed to be garnering the most attention, especially from the older audience. The larger keyboard may have been one of the things that was attracting people. I know that one unit I have is difficult for me to use simply because I have a tendency to tap on a letter adjacent to the one I need. This is the perfect unit for the entry level GPS user.

When planning a vacation in the past you may have purchased a travel guide, but even the best of them are not all inclusive. One of the best features of the TomTom XXL 550 (and all the other TomToms for that matter), is that it includes approximately seven million preloaded points of interest. You'll not only be able to find that gas station, hotel, ATM machine, and restaurant, but you'll also be able to find POIs from numerous categories. No more paper maps unfolding in the front seat, no notes posted on the rear view mirror, and no more pulling over to the side to check out your Mapquest directions.

There are a few minor issues with this unit which are discussed in the video, but the positive aspects and features of the TomTom XXL 550 5-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator certainly override them. The potential purchaser of this unit can read all the specs, but the best way is to actually take a look at the TomTom in the video. Just take a look see and you just might take a fancy to this user-friendly GPS, a unit that will get you where you want to go in the fastest, easiest way possible!

Will never buy another Tomtom - hate it!
I bought my Tomtom at Christmas and after the initial fun that I had playing with the extra features, I wished that I had saved my money. I will just give a summary of things that I don't like:
-suction cup mount does not stick. GPS falls off window
-bottom "plug" location makes it difficult to use the extra "sand bag" for mounting
-compass routinely points in the wrong directions - we are driving south, and it shows east, etc
-POI's are terrible - hardly ever has state parks listed
-driving in the country is bad - we always get routed onto dead end dirt roads and driveways
-multi route itineraries are not easy/may not be possible to do. have to do the routes one at a time
-screen is not nearly bright enough if sun is shining on it

things that I do like:
-screen is big, easy to see
-lots of options to change the screen display

Overall, don't wasted your money. I thought about giving this to my 17 year old son, but the directions are so unreliable that I don't trust it enough. I will buy us both Garmins

Krista

Don't throw away your maps yet
I have never used a GPS before and I'm not a good navigator, so I had high expectations when I tried the TomTom XXL 550.

This TomTom comes with a car adapter charger, a USB cable, the EasyPort mount and a very skinny instructions booklet. The booklet gives the estimated time for charging the battery at about 2 hours. One has to go by the estimated time because no "battery charging" icon appears when the TomTom is connected to a power source, so it is hard to tell when the battery is completely charged or if it is charging at all.

Programming the TomTom is easy and intuitive. The menus are almost self-explanatory. I encountered a problem when I couldn't enter some addresses because they have a number prefix separated by a hyphen and the number keyboard doesn't include a hyphen key. In such cases, I had to tap the "crossing" button to enter the street name of the nearest intersection, which meant, if I didn't know it, I had to look it up on a map. Once the departure and destination locations are entered, the device calculates a route and you're ready to go. However, there's not way to review the directions, which is something I would like to do before I jump into the car. I want to know beforehand such things as what streets are along the way and what exits I have to use

For my first trial run with the GPS, I chose a trip to a nearby supermarket. It identified the turns, exits and streets correctly--but only on the screen. According to the box, this GPS is supposed to have the capability of speaking street names aloud, but in my case, this feature was either not working (are Hawaiian names too hard for it?) or I needed to first subscribe to it. Another feature that's listed for this device but did not show up while I drove was the Advance Lane Guidance. Again, I have to wonder if this one is also by paid subscription only.

As long as the sun is not hitting on the GPS, the screen is easy to see. But once sunlight shines on it, the glare would render it useless since there are no controls to adjust for brightness.

As for voice instructions, I would have much rather preferred hearing "Turn right after Leoku Street" than just "Turn right" because I don't know if it is warning me that the turn is coming up or if it wants me to do it right away. Voice volume is good, loud and clear at 60%. For English, there is a selection of 4 female voices and a male one to choose from. Voices for Spanish and French are also available.

For my second trial, I chose to drive to a shopping center, but this time I decided to take the "wrong" exit to see how the GPS would work. It "found" me but it kept giving me instructions toward every point of interest that was along the way. My expectation was that it would automatically recalculate a route to the shopping center based on where I was. I guess this have to be done manually instead.

I thought this GPS is user-friendly but the features struck me as pretty basic. I felt that my map book still has a place in my car and that this GPS is better used in conjunction with Google map driving instructions when I need to go to unfamiliar places.

Forget EasyMenu. Full menu is possible!
If you have a choice between the XXL 540 and XXL 550, go with the cheapest. They are virtually the same, save for the inferior EasyMenu on the 550 (which can be remedied, as I'll explain below). In fact, if they are at the same price point, go with XXL 540 and save yourself the trouble of converting the "EasyMenu" to "Full menu".

I would normally use expletives to describe TomTom's new EasyMenu interface on their XL/XXL *50 models, but Amazon probably wouldn't like that very much. ;) Let's just say that EasyMenu is bad. Everyone hates it, and with good reason. It lacks every type of advanced customization you can think of, like proper routing (i.e. lacks toll road or highway avoidance preferences), route planning, itinerary, alternative routes, turn by turn text, the ability to disable IQ Routes, and many many other options that are available in the older XXL 540 and XL 340 versions. Yes, EasyMenu sucks. It's literally a dumbed down version of the original TomTOm menu. It is so limited that only your technologically impaired friend will be able to appreciate it. If you are one such person, I guess EasyMenu will be OK for you. EasyMenu's only pro is that it has sharper graphics, but I don't care much about sharpness when essential routing options are missing.

Unfortunately, TomTom decided to ship all their newest units with this dumbed down menu system. They apparently interviewed a bunch of people, and the interviewees said they don't care about anything other than getting from point A to point B. I guess TomTom took their word literally, and created the freakish EasyMenu.

So far it seems like this device is nothing but a failure, so why not give it 1 star? Well, the internet folk has figured out a way to enable the full menu on these newer EasyMenu-based TomToms, that's why! It's a very simple tweak, and can be done in less than a minute as long as you follow the instructions. I can't post links to the instructions here in the actual review, but you can find them in this review's comments section. Or you can search "easymenu menu options" on Google, and click on the first result.

Yep, you can enable the fully featured menu, if you care about any advanced option. All those features that were missing on the EasyMenu will now be enabled and fully functional. Proper routing, itinerary, advanced planning, road avoidance, advanced POI management, ability to turn off IQ Routes and all other options will be there. All these features are in fact already built in the preinstalled OS software. TomTom in all their wisdom chose to hide them. I don't understand this intentional dumbification, and the lack of a simple option to allow us more advanced users to enable the advanced functionality. But as long as there is a tweak to overcome that, I am happy.

In any case, the tweak is very, very simple. Simply create a text file called TomTom.mnu, copy paste the customized menu structure (follow the links and read the threads!), save the file, create a folder called "SdkRegistry" in your GPS navigator's root directory, and finally copy paste the "TomTom.mnu" file you created in there. If the file is present, EasyMenu is disabled and the full menu is enabled. If the file is not present (or has a different name), the full menu is disabled and EasyMenu is enabled. That simple. Just follow the instructions in the links found in the comments section.

After replacing the "EasyMenu" system with the full menu, this is what I gained:

- Route customization (ability to avoid a specific road)
- Itinerary (planning a route through multiple stops in a specific order)
- Ability to actually see a list of upcoming turns in text form. You can even play a demo of the route.
- Ability to avoid highways, toll roads, and other road types.
- Full Point of Interests management and customizations, including alerts.
- Compass, customization of data that's displayed in the main navigation view
- Backlight and Brightness options (yes, you can't change the brightness on EasyMenu)
- Audio warning customizations

These are all features that are missing from EasyMenu. And now I have them all enabled. The sleek new navigation interface is intact, and you get to use all these advanced options. Seriously, applying the tweak is a must.

Before you do anything though, backup, backup, BACKUP your device. You never know when something might go wrong. However, do NOT use
TomTom Home for that task (the backup feature has issues). Instead, copy-paste everything (including hidden files) manually from your
TomTom to your PC.

So think about it. This tweak literally makes the XXL 550... a XXL 540. But with the ability to switch between EasyMenu and Full Menu at anytime. Because if in the future TomTom wises up and adds those missing features to EasyMenu, you might want to switch back to it. ;)

A few thoughts about the hardware:

- The specs are exactly the same as XXL 540. If you have one of those, you already have the XXL 550.

- It still uses USB 1.1 instead of 2.0. I backed up everything to my computer as soon as I connected the device, and that process took almost 40 minutes (1.82GB of data, with 620KB/s average speeds). It's truly unfortunate to be in 2010 and see this kind of outdated technology still implemented in new devices.

- Audio instructions are VERY loud. Louder than Garmin 1350, in fact (a good thing). I didn't have any trouble hearing them over my car's loud engine and moderate radio volume. Street name pronunciations are also very clear.

- I know some people have issues with the EasyPort mounting system, but I didn't encounter any. It's a very simple "hold and rotate"
process. The unit stays in place even during bumpy rides. I find both the Garmin and TomTom mounts adequate.

UPDATE: After a few uses the EasyPort suction cup stopped holding. The slightest bump causes the unit to fall down. However, it can be fixed by pouring some water over the suction cup just before attaching it to the windshield. It becomes so attached to the window when you do this, that it's actually hard to detach. :p

- Battery life is around 4 hours (3 hours 50 minutes to be precise on Day mode). This was after activating the "Dim screen between instructions" function (automatically lowers the brightness to a minimum when it isn't giving you any new instructions, like in the middle of a long highway stretch, and increases to full brightness for about a minute before and after each instruction). This option is, of course, only possible when using the Full menu. With EasyMenu it stays at full brightness all the time, and that is bound to shorten battery life. Yep, another good reason to switch to Full menu. ;)

Again, read the comments section of this review for instructions on how to enable the Full Menu.