Thought this might be of interest with black Friday looming and all the great deals out there. I have an older Garmin GPS that's outdated. Cost $75 to update it, and I decided just to get a new unit, as there were many on sale for $150 (from $250). I figured I'd rather put the $75 towards a new unit than upgrade the old one.

So I decided to give TomTom a try. I've had it for a few days now and problems are becoming very apparent that I've seen no one talk about, even in stores at sales pitches.

On the Garmin, no matter where you are, you can search for any place by name. Looking for a place to eat, it's all there. Looking for a store, it's all there. Very inclusive.

On the TomTom system, it doesn't have all that. For instance, I decided to let it take me to a camera store that's been there for 20 years or so. I type the name in and get nothing. I type in the word "Camera" and get nothing. I type in a commonly used word for companies in this area. Not a single name came up. Hummm.....something is wrong.

Next day, driving out at lunch, sitting at a stop light in front of a McDonalds and hit the "show restaurants near here" and it shows McDonalds, but many miles away. That store has been there for at least 30 years, yet it's not listed. Granted, it may have decided McDonalds wasn't a restaurant worthy of eating at, but that's another story.

So I contact them (all based in the UK), so it's all via email. I ask them how to get the stores and restaurants to come up. They tell me via email that there are two ways. One is to get the stores to register with them, and then they will be included, and the second is to manually input them all myself.

What? You are kidding, right? So I'm supposed to anticipate where I might want to stop along a route that I've never been on before and manually enter all those places? I'm supposed to anticipate when I might need to stop and have a flat fixed and enter possibly places? I'm supposed to anticipate where I'll need an automotive repair place and manually enter the info myself? I'm supposed to sit down with a phone book in my area and manually enter every business in the phone book that I might possibly use in the future?

I honestly don't get it. I was ready for a change from Garmin, but this isn't quite the change I was looking for. Fortunately, I have two weeks to return it for a full refund, which I will be doing this weekend.

So just a little heads up to anyone looking at the TomTom units- they don't have the information you'd think they should. They do offer restaurant and shopping downloads that are supposed to add to it, but it's only 20,000 shops nationwide, and with companies like Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, etc. out there, that 20,000 isn't anything other than a handfull of chains.

If you are typing in an address, it appears to work fine, but if you only know the name of where you plan on going, then you're screwed.

Save your money folks.