TomTom’s latest in-car satnav comes with a big 4.3in wide-format touchscreen that the company claims “makes navigation even easier to use and safer”. It’s certainly an impressively clear display, and the extra inches mean more streets and additional information on the display.
We’re undecided about this – a more logically useful format would be taller rather than wider, on the grounds that you want to see where you’re going rather than what’s on either side. Further, TomTom puts all the location/direction information and other bumf at the foot of the screen, thus squeezing the mapping bit into even more of a letterbox format. Seems to us there’s a good argument for widescreen if that kind of information is sited in a panel on the side of the display. TomTom’s designers obviously disagree.

On the plus side, the TomTom ONE XL also comes pre-installed with a speed camera map and access to traffic information via TomTom Traffic. In addition, drivers have access to all other TomTom PLUS services including weather reports, updates on road conditions, new maps and the TomTom Buddies feature.

All TomTom devices comes with the latest and most up to date maps and fast route calculation, free QuickGPSfix software, and access to TomTom HOME.

RRP for the ONE XL will be £249 with UK maps, £279 for Western Europe.

Incidentally, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland the ONE XL European version ships with a RDS/TMC antenna in the box – elsewhere it’s a charged-for extra (about 100 euro). £75). The ONE XL can receive traffic info via TMC, so the antenna will probably be a popular add-on.