I purchased both units to compare them and in the end pick the unit that best suits my needs and preferences. I wanted to get a new GPS unit because the built in unit I have in my SUV is outdated. The portability, being able to use on another vehicle, and the free lifetime maps are really what I’m after but decided that lifetime traffic alerts is not a bad option either. I would like to point out that whatever you chose between the two, the decision will not be a mistake as they are both good GPS units, they both have their own strengths and weaknesses, but it will come down to what you really prefer or your comfort level.
I tested both units driving around where I live and when we went on vacation in Las Vegas. I had them mounted next to each other most of the time.

TomTom Via 1535TM

PROS:

- By default, provides more info (speed, distance, time etc) on the status bar, located on bottom of screen, compared to the Nuvi. And just above the Via’s status bar, it shows the street name that you are currently on (I find this very helpful), the Nuvi does not have this feature while navigating. The Nuvi will give you the option to display the same info on its status bar, but it will place the status bar vertically on the right side of the display that makes the main screen smaller (like an old 3.5″ GPS screen) I really really like this feature and how it’s displayed on the screen, it’s really cool to have all this info ready at all times. Something you might say, “Honey, I’m about 65 miles away and will be home in about 50 minutes, by 2:30pm, I should be pulling up by the driveway.” All this info is displayed on the unit at all times, you don’t have to calculate in your head.

- Consistently finds POIs faster than the Nuvi. It’s almost instant whereas the Nuvi could take seconds, sometimes even several minutes to find its first POI (this really sucks when you are so ready to go, even a minute feels like an eternity!). But this also depends on how popular the POI is, if you’re looking for McDonalds or something well known, then both units will give you an instant list.

- The voice command feature is great when it works and it works most of the time. I really like this feature especially when driving to a new address; it is so much easier saying where you are going instead of manually inputting everything onto the unit. It’s also great for looking for a certain POI while driving, I love how you can just say “Go to the nearest Starbucks” and it will get you there with just a single button input! The voice command feature is not perfect though, as some POI names, no matter how your pronounce it, just won’t get recognized by the unit. I tried IKEA and 7-ELEVEN numerous times with no success. I was driving on the freeway one time and my low fuel indicator flashed and in a city I’m not familiar with and all I have to say was “Go to the nearest gas station” and within minutes I’m filling up my gas tank! This is so cool! I didn’t have to fiddle with the unit to input and chose where I needed to go, keeping my attention on the road – where it should be. Even with the feature’s shortcomings, I found this feature to be a deal breaker!

- I also like the fact that you can still access the device while connected to the computer. This is helpful if you wanted to change settings or play around with the unit. The Nuvi locks you out the minute you plug in the USB cord.

- The voice on the unit sounds a lot better than the Garmin Nuvi. The voice sounds more human, better to the ears while the Nuvi’s voice sounds too robotic. The volume on the Nuvi is much louder than the Via though.

- Preloaded speed traps/traffic camera POIs. The unit will beep to alert you of incoming traffic cameras! It’ll make you rethink about running that red light!! The Nuvi does not have any traffic camera POIs preloaded, although you can download these from online.

CONS:

- The Via takes a long time to acquire a satellite signal! It takes anywhere from 1 to 4 minutes just to get a lock on a signal! You’re probably saying, what’s 1-4 minutes?! Well, I had the Nuvi next to it turned on the same and it acquired a signal in less than 30 seconds! The 4 minutes of waiting feels like forever! And this is not sometimes… this is all the time!!

- Like a lot of people say, the LCD screen of the TomTom Via is inferior to that of the Garmin Nuvi’s. And I have to agree! The display gets easily washed up under the sun! There are times when you have to really focus on the screen just to read what is on there. It also doesn’t help that the letters and graphics on the screen are smaller and the colors are not that vivid! The icons look flat as well. I was shocked when one day I was driving (almost sunset) when the sun’s rays coming from the…

I ended up picking up both a GO2535TM and a VIA1505. The GO model is more of a “top of the line” model compared to the mid-grade VIA1505. I’ll talk about some of the differences below but first let me give a brief summary of my findings with the 1505:

Pros:
Very affordable.
Very fast re-routing.
Very large screen.
Very thin/svelte.
Really helpful intersection detail screens pop up when going through a route.
No problem with polarized sunglasses.

Cons:
Screen washes out badly in the Texas sun.
Battery life is less than 90 minutes.
Suction cup mount is permanently attached.
Speed limit data is often inaccurate.
User interface is kind of slow.
MyTomTom service is barely beta quality.
Very slow acquisition of GPS signal (> 90 seconds)

FORM FACTOR
The VIA1505 is a very svelte GPS with a large screen. It’s so thin and light (with such a big screen) that you can’t help but recognize it features the very latest technologies. The price of the VIA1505 is low enough that I am willing to forgive many of the flaws I’m about to describe.

MYTOMTOM SOFTWARE
The first thing I will comment about is the MyTomTom application that one uses to perform all firmware and map updates. TomTom is kind enough to provide an initial free map update for the VIA1505 through the MyTomTom application. I installed the MyTomTom app on both a Macintosh and a Windows 7 system. The UI was similar on both computers and I didn’t detect any difference in the quality or features. The application had an annoying tendancy to keep launching even though I had changed the setting to tell it not to launch each time I turned on my computer. That is the first of many bugs.

I initially activated my TomTom GO2535TM. This went smoothly however it did not find any map updates. I then tried to add the VIA1505 to my account but I received a very cryptic error “something has gone wrong”. I’m serious, that was the error message. I googled but could not find anything. I tried about a dozen times and continued to get this error. I tried on both the Mac and Windows and continued to get the error. Finally I thought “maybe I need to create a separate login on MyTomTom for the second GPS?”. Upon creating a second login on the TomTom website, the VIA1505 linked without error and proceeded to download firmware and map updates. Of course, this leads me to wonder why my GO2535TM is not seeing map updates!

SCREEN
I took the GPS out to my car to go for a spin. I was immediately pleased to see that my polarized sunglasses did not interfere with screen visibility. Unfortunately, when I stepped outside of my house, the Texas sun so badly washed out the display that I thought something was wrong. I stepped into my dark garage and suddenly the screen was clearly visible again. I went into the settings to make sure there weren’t any power saving options or screen brightness settings that needing adjustment- there were not.

Once I mounted the GPS in my car and started driving around, I continued to find the screen (on battery power) to be barely visible. On a hunch, I plugged in the (included) 12volt adapter cord and suddenly the screen became noticeably brighter. It still wasn’t great, but it was at least visible even in the bright sunlight. I later learned that the battery life on this unit is so bad that I have to leave it plugged in all the time anyway.

VEHICLE MOUNT
The suction cup mount for this unit is permanently affixed to the GPS screen. This means you have to re-stick it to your windshield each time you get in your car. This unit is inexpensive enough that you might be tempted to leave it mounted in the car all the time but I talk to SO many people that have had their car broken into for GPS units- it seems like it’s not worth the risk of broken windows/doorlocks to leave it mounted. Because of the design, unmounting and mounting each time is definitely a lot harder than you’d expect. My GO2535TM has a magnetic removable mount that is much nicer.

USER INTERFACE
I entered a few destinations using the built in search feature. It was reasonably easy to find restaurants and other points of interest near my house. I was a bit perplexed by how slow the interface was- when I pushed a key on the virtual…

Hopefully by the end of the year (as I said, I’m writing this on April 5th 2011) this review will be obsolete but right now, if you purchase this GPS today, you will not be getting a fully supported device. I’m not happy at having been lured into Beta testing Tomtom’s new product line, this is my first GPS and I paid $200 for it, I wanted a great experience right out of the box. As it is I’m just feeling a bit sad about the whole thing, and even the charming customer service hasn’t made that go away.

The thing is, this is a really nice piece of engineering. It is super easy to set up and use. It works in a fundamentally different way to previous Tomtoms, and you can use it while it is plugged into your computer. A friend of mine has an earlier Tomtom and I know she gets frustrated at not being able to access her Tomtom while it is attached to her computer so that is a definite plus. I’m not complaining about the device itself, it is very cool. I’m told that this model is the future of Tomtom, and that in time it will do everything the other models do and more, but the fact is that it doesn’t do that now, today, April 5th 2011.

So. Early adopters and devoted beta testers rejoice! This is definitely the Tomtom for you. Buy one and enjoy yourselves. But those of you who, like me, just want to get where you are going with a bit of fun along the way, and the least amount of hassle, might want to pick something else.

Update, June 17th 2011: After using this device for a few months, I still feel that anyone looking for a drama-free GPS should go and buy something else. The TomTom VIA series is still a rich source of drama – it isn’t compatible with TomTom Home, and the MyTomTom software it *is* compatible with is just AWFUL and hugely frustrating. I’ve owned this thing for months and tonight was the first time I have ever successfully managed to update it, and that has taken me two hours and much nailbiting (At one point it managed to wipe itself clean of all maps & I had to completely reinstall everything. Fun.) On the other hand, it does seem to have finally installed the extra voice I bought for it the day I got it, (before I knew that it didn’t at that time support adding extra voices) so it will be interesting to see how that will work out. And the TomTom website does now acknowledge the existence of the VIA models, though it still doesn’t offer much for them. Progress is being made by TomTom to bring the VIA series out into the general community of TomTom products but this is very much still a beta device and I do still wish I’d bought a different GPS system.

On the other hand it is a nifty little thing, and I do enjoy using it. It has a completely intuitive interface, and it gives excellent directions both spoken and on the screen. It recalculates directions incredibly fast. It sticks on my windscreen very well. The traffic feature is excellent, and has helped me stay out of many traffic jams, though sometimes the traffic feature just won’t load, which is a shame. As many other people have pointed out it *does* take quite a few minutes for the device to locate the satellites (I had thought this was just because I live out in the sticks, in the middle of a forest with no cell phone reception even, but if other people are having a problem it must be something to do with the unit.) All in all, I’ve enjoyed using it, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I’d bought something that was a fully functioning product and not just a poorly supported beta.

I had it connected to my 24″ Samsung monitor via HDMI out on my PC, and it worked wonderfully for both that and my Blu-Ray player. Last week, however, I started to run into problems. Blue specks were distorting the picture on my monitor and causing the displayed picture to do some really funky things. I suspected it could be my graphics card or monitor, but it turns out it was the cable.

I don’t regret purchasing this cable at all because it was such a good price and it lasted for so long. I do have to warn any potential customers, however, that you may have to get a replacement in 6-8 months. This is a cheap cable, and it wasn’t manufactured to last as long as ones you will pay more for.

I’m not recommending going with a Monster HDMI cable, but I do have to let you know that a $20 investment in a name-brand or higher quality cable might be in your best interest.

So, I’m back to the 4ft DVI cable that came with my PC, which should suffice for now as DVI and HDMI can send a crisp HD signal to my monitor.

First I did research on “Brand Name” cables vs cheap ones. Everyone pretty much seems to agree they are all the same except that brand name has amazing marketing and publicity.

I received the cables fairly quickly, they come in cheap plastic baggies. I was excited to use my new TV and the whole shebang and truly hoped these would work as the alternative was spending $500 or so on what I thought were “real cables”. I hooked everything up and everything worked fine, no problems, no glitches, no fuzzy or grainy pics, sound quality is amazing (I have a $1200 Klipsch Sound System and a $600 Sony Receiver). I honestly figured the cables would eventually stop working and that Id eventually have to invest in real ones. Well, the other day (its now April 2010) the maintenance guy in my building mentioned buying an LCD TV and that he wasn’t sure what to do, as he couldn’t afford the $150 Monster Cables. I suggested Amazon.com and told him to look for Eforcity first or Abacus 24-7 (Another great cable seller on here) and this is how I remembered to finally write my review.

10 months later, cables have worked like a charm and you know what? Even if they stopped working now, Id order $10 dollars more and just replace all of them. You are probably wondering why theres a $100 dollar difference between the ones at the store and the ones here… its called “Sorry sucker, you’ve just been ripped off!”

Kudos to Amazon.com for offering vendors like this guy and I will certainly continue to purchase any cables off of him / them.

Cheers.