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TomTom 5 is already launched in Europe and about to be launched in America.
Having lived with TT5 for 2 weeks now, I can make a few comments that could help others.
1) TT5 has some good new features such as the ability to link volume to car speed and also mutiple destinations. However it is missing a few old favourites such as being able to alter the default speeds for the class of road. You have to use the ones programmed in by TomTom.
New menu layouts are good, but unlike TomTom 3, once it is running you cannot tap the top left corner to get to the today menu. My way arround this was to reprogram one of the buttons ( x5 users, avoid right hand buttons to protect Mylar cable problems)
The biggest "fault"is that each country is supplied with two lots of maps, Country and Country plus. Nowhere does it inform you which to use or why. Country Plus is much bigger and is actually the detailed country map AND Major roads of Europe seamlessly working together, so you can navigate accross borders. Pity TomTom do not inform you of this.
2) TomTom 5 has sped camera warning built into it as part of the program and uses a small selection of sounds. Warning that you are over the speed limit is not included which is a pity. To make best use of this function ( plus weather maps and many others), you have to pay a subscription to the PLUS service. Good idea but add monthly subscriptions to phone costs, this seems expensive when you can get the same for free or a much reduced cost, with much better warning facilities. Why have TomTom not yet incorporated TMC or RDS GPS facilities into their systems. Alturon already have.
At present ( June2005), none of the 3rd party POI warners such as ControlPoint or POIwarner, will work as TomTom have not provided the companies with the tools needed. Perhaps TomTom are hoping to develop the plus services by limiting what 3rd party software can be used. Hopefully this will change soon . However, you can still use the POI's from Navigating.de within the TT5 and use the TT5 POI warner ( which is limited but OK).
AXIM X5
3) TomTom 5 is NOT listed as compatable with the X5, TomTom will inform, you that although it may work, they cannot support you if you have problems. Although they also tell you this may change in the near future.
In practice, TT5 will work on the x5 but can give sound problems.
If you want to use TT5 on an x5, their are a few tips to reduce the problems you could have.
a ) Make sure that the sound volume linked to vehicle speed is not checked on.
b ) Exit the program after use, just switching off the PDA or program can give problems then next time it is used ( sound driver issue that is resolved only by a soft reset)
c ) Use a high speed storage card. Standard Sandisk cards seem to give most problems, but faster cards or those of other makers will reduce this. I am using a 2GB Toshiba 45x card which gives no problems
BLUETOOTH GPS RECEIVERS
From trial end error, I know that third party BT GPS receivers do not work logically with Axims.
To get mine to work with an X50 or x50V, I had to pair the devices, then in TomTom, configure the BT GPS as a WIRED NMEA, baud 4800 on COM7. As I say this is not logical, but now it is working . REMEMBER, do not use connect under the BT console before configuring TomTom, this will give all sorts of problems.
I hope these few comments save others a little time in setting up and also the wait whilst you get standard answers from TomTom
Summarising, TomTom 5 does appear a little faster in use and has good map software. Seamless joining of detailed country plus major roads is a plus, but the xtra PLUS service is expensive to use and compatibility does seem to be a problem. Some users can still experience problems, some of which may be storage card related.
Expect TomTom to issue an update to the software soon
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