Review on 🚫 TomTom XL 340S: Discontinued 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator by Manufacturer by Lucas Rowe

UPDATE 10/29/09 I tried a Magellan 1470 Roadmate with Lane Departure Warning to see how good the Lane Departure Warning was. Magellan uses small traffic signs in its GPS with a tiny arrow on the sign indicating the lane of travel. These signs are tiny and difficult to read, and you must find the appropriate street sign and then adjust your lane according to the GPS. This works pretty well EXCEPT at night when real street signs are lit, and sometimes poorly lit and sometimes not lit at all. It's very nerve wracking trying to read a tiny sign on the GPS and then trying to find the right sign on the highway, a lot can go wrong. TomTom's Lane Assistant shows the traffic signs and the total number of lanes on this motorway, and uses large green arrows to highlight the lane(s) you need to be in. I used this Magellan 1470 on a 900 mile trip and was always a bit uncomfortable with their lane assist. In my opinion, TomTom Lane Assist is far superior to Magellan, although in all other respects Magellan was a super GPS, much better at POI location than TomTom. Bottom line, if lane assist is your thing (which it is for me), get a TomTom; if POI searching is your bag, get a Magellan. 340-S and luckily I never connected mine to a computer after reading all the problems others had and mine works fine and finds satellites in seconds. The main reason I have so many different units is because I'm looking for a good lane keeping feature. This TomTom has fantastic lane departure warning. Here in Southern California, these freeways require you to know ahead of time which lane to drive in, and my goodness, this TomTom gives precise verbal and visual directions. On the freeway, you'll get verbal directions two miles before the next turn, you'll have plenty of time to change lanes, on city roads distances vary depending on your car's speed, a very nice feature. Navigon had very good graphics, but TomTom has much better graphics. I was a fan of Garmin but they fall way behind TomTom in terms of features at a reasonable price. The only thing I can find behind Garmin and Navigon are some computer street names, mostly Spanish names, TomTom distorts them more than others, but with the street name displayed on the top right of the screen it doesn't matter, most street names are pronounced perfectly and "Dave" seems to be the best pronunciation of street names. TomTom has so many nice features that other brands are left in the dust in my opinion.