TomTom Rider 400 sat nav
Reviewer: Mikko Nieminen // RRP: From £319.99 // Info: tomtom.com
I always used to be against sat navs, preferring to carry my battered old road atlas with me everywhere. Not because I’m good at navigating, but simply because I was never in a particular hurry. But as I started to ride for work I had to be in places that I didn’t know how to get to, and I had to be there on time. This is where my conversion into a sat nav-lover began.
My first sat nav was the predecessor of the Rider 400, simply called the Rider. It was a great piece of kit, but had its slight hiccups, which I was hoping that the new version would cure. And in most cases it has done.
For one thing, the new sat nav is more accurate. The old version lost its way every now and again and until you restarted it, it tried to tell you that you were ploughing through a field even when you were most definitely in a city centre.
The new model is also much sleeker-looking. Both the graphics and the casing look much better, and the overall user experience has been improved. The screen can now be tilted either horizontally or vertically, depending on your preference, and there’s a very easy one-tap selection for either a 2D or 3D view. Even the touch sensitivity of the screen seems to be better in the new device.
As before, you can link the sat nav to a Bluetooth-enabled headset (I use Sena 10C), so you can hear the instructions, but to be honest, a lot of the time I don’t have the audio on. Instead I just follow the highlighted line on the display. It usually gives plenty of warning before it asks you to turn so it’s not too distracting.
I really liked the ‘plan a winding route’ functionality of the old model. The new one has retained, and even improved, this function: now you can select hilly as well as windy routes, and creating round trips is easy. It makes finding adventures at your doorstep easier than ever.
Linking the sat nav to your smart phone also enables TomTom Services, which include traffic alerts and speed camera updates — both very useful on the busy UK roads.
When you’re on your bike, road closures can cause some navigational issues. TomTom has come up with a nice functionality that allows you to tell the device to find an alternative route around the blockage.
The two options that I use the most often are ‘Ride Home’ and ‘Ride to Work’. They’re available in the main menu, so regardless of where you start your route you can always select them with just one tap and be on your way.
The only strange thing about the user interface design is that you can’t scroll through the menus from left to right in a loop. Instead you have a limited number of steps to the right and left. Not a big deal, but if you’re looking for a specific setting you can soon lose patience going backwards and forwards.
As with the old sat nav, you can still record your rides and then share the route file with your mates. I have done this a couple of times when I’ve planned routes for group rides.
A nice new functionality is the parking finder, which shows you all the car parks near and far. It doesn’t specify which are motorcycleonly parking areas, but it’s a good indication of which way to go if you’re in unfamiliar territory.
Overall I’ve been very impressed with this sat nav. It has always got me to my destination in the UK (I haven’t tested it abroad yet although it comes with full European maps), and there have been no issues with the software or hardware.
Like most men, when I first got my hands on the Rider 400 I carefully avoided the instruction manual and went straight to using the device. There were a couple of times when I wished I had read the manual, but the great majority of functionality is really self-explanatory.
The TomTom Rider 400 is a great piece of kit. Time after time it has stopped me getting lost, and even introduced me to some great new roads. You can’t ask for more.