Map installation

[rbrown]

Hello. I'm an American living in France but travel in the US every couple of years, so could really do with a gps that has NA & Europe maps, and I'm considering buying one of the wte models. If you were to follow the recommendation when updating the Europe maps and delete the NA ones, can you put them back whenever you want ? In other words, could you swap back and forth between NA and Europe whenever you want simply by backing one up, deleting it, and restoring the other ? If anyone has ever actually done this, it would be helpful to know how well it works / how much hassle it is, etc. Thanks for your help. R Brown

[dhn]

It is possible. You use Explorer to copy the NA map to the computer AND a folder called maps. Then delete the NA (but not the maps) folder from the unit. You are left with the Europe map only on a unit with 4 gb of space so you should (if you desire) update the Europe map and get the full map without worrying about getting the zoned maps.

When you need to go to the States, copy the Europe map to the computer and copy back the NA map.

[philinhouston]

I have the same problem. I paid double the price for this GPS because of the two map feature. I feel that TomTom screwed up and they should take responsability for there poor design planning for this unit. But they won't. It's not right what there doing. I don't think TomTom thinks or cares what we think. The don't care if we never buy another product of there's or not recommend TomTom. philinhouston

[Jason75]

The competition solved the problem by spending an extra $2 dollars to incorporate an SDcard slot when they designed and built their unit. Tomtom appears to have lacked the foresight to include the SD slot in the XL-XXL series shipped to North America. In retrospect, a significant error. Someone lacked the foresight to predict that maps would become larger and more detailed, and thus, require more space. Not saying the competition does not have its own issues, but they do not include an uncorrectable limitation on space.

[Lupus1 Elite Voyager]

Hi,

@Jason75: TT learned from that error and the one they made with the first NAV3 devices. The new devices (also the currently available NAV3 devices) all come with an microSDHC card slot being included. On my XL LIVE IQR it isn't even possible to store a complete Europe map that's 2 years old so I've got to use map zones. But for me that is ok, as I just choose the region I need and leave the rest away.


Regards
Lars.

[Kex]

Further to what Lars has stated, even devices that have only 2GB are still able to use full maps of North America and Mexico, identical in functionality to those used by the devices with 4GB or more, and without any zones at all, thanks to the use of appropriate compression algorithms. Some added perspective:

• Less than ten years ago, multi-thousand dollar vehicle systems were still chopping the U.S.A. into sections, with a different disc needed for each.
• Less than five years ago, multi-thousand dollar vehicle systems could load all of the U.S.A. on one DVD, but could not provide turn-by-turn directions in some locations (only the map was available, but no directions), and the POI database was quite limited compared to Garmin, TomTom, Magellan ...
• Vehicle systems today are usually hard drive based, or removable memory card based, so this is no longer an issue. However, most, if not all, are incapable of providing proper traffic avoidance beyond the most basic service, even though they are still far more costly.

Even a lowly XL from 2009 can still completely outsmart all of these systems, inlcuding the most costly and/or the most recent ones. Of course, the sound quality won't be as good, and the audio system won't mute automatically to allow directions to be heard without the music playing at the same time.