TomTom Via 52 Review

I suppose in a world dominated by smartphones and their built-in navigation solutions, the Via 52 tries to combat the effect of the latter by offering a pacakge that combines the best of both worlds. For one it gives you the option to link-up to your smartphone (using tethering) to get access to its core TomTom Services, such as Traffic, Safety Camera alerts and so forth, while secondly it offers the benefit of a larger 5"screen, Bluetooth hands free calling, voice recognition and offline up-to-date mapping of the UK & Ireland.

I say up-to-date in the sense that for £139.99 (best online price) you do get lifetime map updates (which is roughly equivalent to 4 major map up-dates in its life-cycle) and with the TomTom Via 52 being part of the TomTom community you also get community updates that can be downloaded using the MyDrive software which is an upgrade to the TomTom Home software of old.

I’ll talk more about the pros and cons of everything in just a moment, for now let’s just take a quick look at the device's aesthetics and box content.

Design & Box Content

The TomTom Via 52 comes in a sleek package that pretty much fits the dimensions of the 5” sat nav, thus you don’t have any wasteful packaging.

On the box it highlights a few of the key features of the device, while under the sat nav itself you will find the accessories.

The first of these is the compact cradle which can fold-out when required and stuck onto your windscreen via its suction cup mounting system. A turn of the accompanying dial will then secure this cradle in place. At first what looks like a flimsy cradle mount is actually pretty sturdy and it allows the sat nav to click into place with relative ease.

For example I found even with one hand you can yank off the sat nav once it’s clipped in, which despite sounding a little harsh is testimony to the quality of the suction cup that holds the cradle to the windscreen.

Additionally you will find a small USB cigarette lighter charger which is joined by a micro USB cable of a reasonable length. I would say, at least 1.8m. It was certainly plentiful for reaching the cigarette lighter charger from the top right portion of my Fiat’s windscreen.

Other than this you will find a basic Quick start guide which rounds up the box content.

As for the TomTom Via 52, it’s been a while since I held one of the dedicated units in my hands and the design for the most part is pretty good.

Its light and fairly thin considering it’s housing a 5” screen. At the back is where you will find the port for the microUSB charger, which is great that they are using universal chargers now; rather than their sat nav's of old which required you plugging the device into a propriety cradle to get the power.

Also there is a microSD card slot which I have to admit I nearly missed because it’s hard to see unless you are looking for it. This is used for getting hold of the tracks that you can record with the device. I’ll explain about this particular feature later on.

Sadly for me the build quality could be a touch better, I found that squeezing the sat nav does result in a creaky flex of the plastic on the bottom left corner. On the plus side when it’s mounted to the cradle you won’t really be that concerned, but it’s something to note none the less.

Setup

Setting up the TomTom Via 52 took me about 20 minutes, mainly because I was getting to grips with all the features.

In order to get access to the TomTom Services, which comprises of MyDrive access (which works like Google maps in allowing you to sync routes between your computer, smartphone and the sat nav), TomTom Traffic real-time updates and 3 months safety camera updates. You will need to a Smartphone with a data contract in-place. This will be required to activate the latter and to setup an account. Though you can do this via your computer beforehand. 

Sadly you will need a safety subscription after the 3 month period ends if you want to continue getting access to updates, but it costs about £16 from Amazon for a 12 month subscription.

The device will prompt you on-screen how to go about pairing your device anyway and the whole process was relatively stress free.

Once this is done you can start to get to grips with the interface which has been refined a lot since I last looked at one of their products.

Interface Navigation

With a quick press of the map view menu option you are now greeted with several large icons that are displayed across a number of screens. While this may sound like the same a before, the icons are lot more refined and stylish in my opinion. Plus with a long press of the icons you can now move them into whatever position you want; thus you can have instant access to the features that matter most.

Mind you the immediate icon allows access to the search function and this can be configured to search on a different radius. For example you can search either locally or across the while of the UK/Ireland if needs be. With a smartphone link up you can also search online for additional results.

For the most part the search engine is responsive to finger presses (once the device has warmed up from a cold boot) and it's intelligent enough in terms of its search algorithms. As soon as you start to type you can view all the available matches on the left, while at the same time the box to the right will display any nearby points of interest (POI).

You can also search for places using the voice recognition system or the old fashioned way by navigating to the map view itself and then it’s a case of tapping on the map/street name to bring up the relevant menu option. Similarly with POI you can also select these from the map to gain additional info such as, address, phone number and so forth.

From the menu there is also the ability to set a destination from the map as a starting point, so you can do some route planning using the map view as well, if needs be.

Home & Work

For me though I soon headed back into the interface to continue with the initial setup and there is a lot of variety here. First I setup my Home and Work address so I can quickly access this from the front interface or use the built-in voice recognition system. Yep, the TomTom has this feature as well, but I will go through the pros and cons in just a moment.

After this I delved into the settings option and from here you can adjust the colour theme of the interface, so if you want a lime green colour you can.

Delving deeper you can then adjust how the navigation aspect will look during use and how the alerts will be dealt with such as speed warnings and so forth.

Interestingly you can also adjust the phrase word that the TomTom uses to activate the voice recognition system. By default you can say the words 'Hello TomTom' and it will then listen for your next command, but by customising this it can add a little more fun to your journey.

Then again it’s not all plain sailing as the custom phrase needs to meet the parameters indicated on-screen otherwise certain phrases will make it harder for the system to recognise.

I’ll be talking more about the voice recognition later, but on the whole there is a fair amount of customisation that you can do on the TomTom Via 52 which is good to see.

In Use

Now for the nitty gritty aspect of the review as the interface so far in the early stages was good, but then it came to using the device and here I found it was a mixed bag.

Configuring the device initially was fine, but I noticed that careful placement of the TomTom Via 52 was paramount as the screen’s anti-glare coating was not performing as I would expect.

Possibly the design of my car did not help as in the Fiat I own there was an extra side panel which lets more light into the car and I think this was hampering the visibility of the sat nav’s screen. Thus without careful placing or I should say angling the screen to a specific point I was getting glare that made it hard to view the device's screen in natural light.

On a positive note the TomTom’s spoken voice was loud and precise, with plenty of repeated warnings to make sure you get into the right position on the road. The map view also remains simple, but it has been enhanced with a right side panel that indicates approaching POI, road works, safety camera’s and traffic en-route. The panel will also dynamically change to indicate the length of delay caused by traffic, the distance to a POI/safety camera and indications that it has found quicker routes along your journey. 

I thought this was a nice touch and the safety camera warnings were certainly useful when exploring areas that I had not been to before. I also liked the dynamic zoom which kicked in as you approached complex motorway junctions or roundabouts.

Sadly while the 2D/3D map (depending on your settings choice) also displays a colour coded system to indicate your route. When it came to certain minor road junctions it was not that clear as to which lane you needed to be in.

On the plus side it does have a reasonably accurate current road speed warning system, so you usually are kept informed as to what road speed you are supposed to be doing. However it’s no use for variable speed limits, so it’s not that clever.

At least you have the option to correct any map or POI mistakes using the built-in reporting tool.

Accurate Routing

On the whole I found the device did come up with plenty of useful routes to my destinations, in fact it helped me discover plenty of short-cuts during my long commutes that have expanded my knowledge of new areas. I was also impressed at how accurate it's predictions were for time of arrival, so I would always end up where I wanted to be at the correct time.

Route-recalculations were likewise calculated swiftly so I could take the odd detour and the system new where I was at all times.

In fact when I took the device on holiday with me I was on plenty of single-track roads and while the convey I was with had a sat nav in their car, it kept loosing satellite reception where the TomTom Via 52 worked flawlessly.

Now for the downsides, which for me were placed firmly with the voice recognition system and the TomTom traffic service. The latter mainly suffered due to its dependency on my smartphone.

On the route to work it was not too bad, but on the way back I don’t get as strong a signal so this resulted in some ghosting. In other words indicating traffic that was supposed to be there, but in reality it had long gone!

This could also pose future problems when you do actually encounter traffic. For example TomTom can recommend alternative routes if it analysis the traffic and detects a faster way around the problem. However on one occasion it told me that I could save 1 min 30 seconds by going a different way, so in the spirit of testing I folded to its advice (using the TomTom voice recognition system to indicate the choice) only to get to the other side and be dumped in a massive traffic jam that I was stuck in for over 10 minutes!

In fairness it did find me a way out of the hole I was in, which intern made me learn another new route to my home destination, but it did leave me with a lack of confidence in the Traffic system. However as I said before the traffic is only as good as the updates it receives from the smartphone.

Speaking of which according to the TomTom website it polls the traffic servers every 2 minutes and will only use an average of 10MB a month, so hopefully this info will be of some use.

Voice Recognition

I’ve spoken briefly about the voice recognition part in the review, but this section will look at the feature in more detail. Unlike other voice recognition systems I’ve used in the past there is no initial training involved, as by enabling the option from the main interface you can just utter the passphrase 'Hello TomTom' and away you go.

Sadly the voice recognition system is still a little slow, in that when you have uttered the phrase it takes a while before it speaks back to you requesting what to do next. You will then be prompted with a range of common commands (displayed on-screen) indicating what is controllable using your voice. For example adjust volume, change to night colours (though it can do this automatically), clear route and go to a new route.

You also have a 'say all commands' option which will then list all the available commands in its repertoire. However which ever option you speak there is initially a further delay as it brings up the next instruction. This is more evident in the address part which I found was its weakest link.

Possibly I was doing something wrong but when it asks you to speak the address I tried using a combination of a single postcode, followed by a full address with a partial postcode and nothing worked. It simply provided me with a list of choices but none of these were anywhere near my destination. Thus a useful safety feature was scuppered. I think after further use the only way to get the voice control to work is to speak the address and city but leave the postcode aspect out. I had slightly better luck with this in terms of the city was correct, but it was still not recognising the house number or street correctly. 

What it did do well in the beginning of testing was for changing volume, driving to work or coming home. So for example I could place the TomTom in the cradle, drive off, speak 'Hello TomTom' and then say 'Go to work' and off I popped.

Other than this though I only dabbled with changing the volume and turning the night mode on, but I found the responsiveness was not on the ball. Sometimes it would not recognise my voice and at other times options did not flow so it felt like a disparate part of the system.

Cold Boot time

Another drawback of the voice recognition system is that it can take an age to respond if you turn your device back on from a cold boot start. By this I mean you have the option to either shut the device off in standby or completely shut down. The latter is pretty sluggish I have to admit and is more so when you have not cleared your previous route beforehand. Additionally because of the sluggish boot time I though the voice part was not functioning, which made me have to intervene by touching the screen and this counteracts the safety feature that the voice recognition system is supposed to bring to the table.

So if you are going to use the TomTom make sure you keep this in standby for a more responsive experience.

Battery Life

On offset of the link to the smartphone, which applies to both parties, is the extra drain it places on the battery, especially as Bluetooth is involved. I found the sat nav tends to run low on batteries pretty quickly so it was a case of leaving this plugged into the cigarette charger at all times.

I would say the same rule applies to your smartphone, depending on your journey time of course. Sadly as my device is in a charging cradle at all times I could not give you an idea of how much battery life goes down. However as the TomTom uses the tethering side of your phone and in my case the iOS device enables both Bluetooth and WiFi. The drain on battery life is going to be a lot more than your standard battery life consumption, so something to be aware of here.

Hands free kit

In all honesty I rarely used the hands free system, partially because I have a Parrot kit and the TomTom is no match for a dedicated system. In use the TomTom was clear outside the noisy environment of the car, so with no ambient background noise both parties could here each other clearly. Out on the road though the device could be louder. The display will showcase you have a call and which number is calling so it has all the basics for a hands free kit, but it's not a deal breaker in my eyes.

TomTom MyDrive

Finally I need to mention the MyDrive system which basically allows you to plan and sync routes between your smartphone (there is an app for iOS and Android that you can download) or your computer to your TomTom device.

You can also use the software to import Ov2 routes which some may find useful...

However for me the biggest benefit of the system utilises the recording function of the TomTom Via 52. By enabling the recording it essentially records the route that you make on your journey, so for example if you found a really good route you can record this and then re-use it another time or best of all share the route with others via the device's built-in share function.

This is what utilises the microSD card slot, so by copying to the card you can then give this route to someone else. It also saves the route as a .gpx file which if memory serves can be used with Google Maps alongside the MyDrive software.

Summary

The TomTom Via 52 does have its merits, however it’s anti-glare system is not as good as I would have hoped for (careful placement is a must) and the voice recognition system for me lacked performance and accuracy.

Additionally the traffic relies on your smartphone and this could explain why some of its warnings were not as useful as they could be.

Apart from this and the odd niggle with the lane guidance, I found it was solid product with plenty of customisation options, intelligent routing and accuracy (in terms of the times it stated I would arrive at my destination were usually spot on!). I also liked the above recording system and the safety camera warnings, so there are plenty of positives still.

Even so if I was being brutally honest while the Via 52 had solid navigation, which of course matters, I think if I was looking for a navigation solution I would still take a gander at the TomTom Start series if you are not that worried about the Via's fancy features. Alternatively you could scope out the TomTom Go mobile app (if you own the original TomTom mobile app you may be able to upgrade to a 3 year licence for free) as this is pretty much based on the same software that the Via 52 uses anyway!