New Tom Tom 550 Rider

Direct from TomTom USA

Says, available soon. They must be out of stock for a while. Thanks though.

Mine arrived this week as well. Been having fun setting up my places and new routes. Much easier software to use than Garmin and downloaded to my unit very quickly. Mounting it was straightforward and attaching it to the battery was much easier after I crimped terminal rings onto the wires. Processor is very fast and adjusts to deviations in my route quickly, really like the way it doesn't keep saying "recalculating" in my ear a million times! One small complaint and maybe its limited to my particular unit is, under my places, it has a bunch of POIs I didn't download for locations in Germany under Marked Locations (Tourenfaher Hotels, Endurotracks etc....) and there doesn't appear to be a way to delete them. Even in TomTom My Drive under my places and POIs there isn't anything listed. Its like it was built into the GPS itself...strange but I can live with it.
Oh, and the Bluetooth connection to my phone is a little inconsistent for the live traffic updates but again, I can live with it.

There is a way to get it to stop displaying those POI’s. Just can’t think of it off the top of my head and I’m out to dinner with my wife.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lol, no worries, enjoy your dinner!

Can you do off road routes? Dirt tracks things like that, or maybe one of the BDR's? Or is it road only?

I had the same question(s) so I wrote their customer service and asked about "off road" mapping and planning.

edit: still waiting for reply however on Revzilla's review, in the comments area, someone posted that it is useless for off-road.

I have not tried off road routes, however I would hazard a guess that it isn’t any good for it.
Mind you my old Garmin 665 wouldn’t have been any good for that either.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Does it have a compass? Like to know what direction I'm going.

Not as such but you can set it for north at the top all the time and you can easily see which way you are going.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That should be interesting, hope I don't get dizzy. Florence drowned my Garmin. Ordered the 550 today from amazon.

I don’t have any trouble using it that way. You will be pleasantly surprised with the 550, I’m liking mine a lot. I’ve ridden in everything from 109 degree blazing hot here in Texas through some very heavy rain and truck spray with no difficulties at all. It’s very nice to read, even with the sun behind it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Received my response from Tom Tom... nope.. not for off road maps.

I work for TomTom. I love our maps and our products but when riding off-road, I use a Garmin PND combined with an Inreach (ToPo Maps) it's just built for that kind of riding. When you're riding cross-country through cities, traffic, need lane-guidance and accurate speed limits, the TomTom is still my favorite thing.

Just wanted to note for people that the battery on this is actually quite impressive. I had navigation running for nearly 10hrs yesterday, and the screen on for about 8.5 of that - and it was still going when I pulled in the driveway. So if you wind up in a situation like me where you accidentally kill your powerlet and don’t want to stop for a new fuse, no big deal.

Also, whatever service they’re using for traffic/accidents/etc is quite good.

Yep. The battery is amazing on mine too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So far I really like mine, screen is great, I haven't figured out all the features yet but it seems pretty easy to use.
They were out of stock when I tried to order one, contacted customer service and they sent me a 20 percent discount for the wait

So what I'm reading here is that the Tomtom doesn't work 'off-road'.
Does that mean no forestry roads? Off road in Moab? Off road on single track trails?
Just what are the limits here?
TIA

Has forest roads loaded by default and will route you down them if they fit the algorithm for curvy roads too. However if they’re not a road, the geospatial data TomTom is using wont know your tracks.

I should note that it doesn't seem to have "private" as a flag in whatever data set they're relying on. The "Thrill" trip it planned out for me that I took Saturday included one gated private farm road, and one private dirt community road. I need to figure out if there's an "alternate route to next point" option, since the constant "Make a right at X road, then turn around when possible" gets super old after a while as you're manually navigating an alternate way.