Steve Litchfield takes a sneak preview at the next generation TomTom software coming our way and tries to put it into context.

TomTom, like Symbian, seem to have been around forever, and it's not surprising really. TomTom used to be Palmtop Software BV, producing commercial software for Psion palmtops throughout the 1990s. Their flagship product was always Streetplanner and so the move over to satellite-aided street planning an navigation for Symbian-powered devices was extremely natural. I have to confess a slight bias towards TomTom in that I've been involved in helping produce much of the manual material over the years, but my confidence in them is backed up by countless user testimonies of how intuitive their software is and how well it works.

On to the very latest generation of TomTom navigation software, arriving at a store near you over the next couple of months. We've got an in depth review planned once boxed copies become available, but in the meantime we wanted to give you a little flavour of what's new and worthwhile. TomTom have worked hard to bring the core code for all platforms (Palm OS, Symbian OS, Pocket PC and their own Linux-based GO product) together and 2005's releases are the first fruits of this. Whichever machine you plan to run their software on, the interface and all functions should (in theory) be the same, which is pretty impressive.

We've been previewing TomTom MOBILE 5, which works on any Series 60 device based on Symbian OS 7 or above. Which, in practice, means the Nokia 6260, 6600, 6670, 7610 and so on. Plus the Nokia 7710 media phone. And of course the Nokia 9300 and 9500 Communicators. It's a rather huge shame that older Series 60 devices are left out in the cold. Apparently, Symbian OS 6 devices proved a little too slow to run the TomTom map engine properly. Ah well.

Having tried just about every GPS navigation system for PDAs over the last ten years, I can safely say that the latest TomTom software is without doubt the easiest to use. The very fact that it runs unchanged on the consumer GO units, designed for absolute novices who have never used a PC, PDA or smartphone, speaks volumes. And trying to get the balance right between ease of use for beginners and advanced functions for power users isn't easy, yet TomTom have done a very good job here.

Navigation is as simple as bring up the main menu and choosing to go to an 'Address', a 'Point Of Interest' (POI), a 'City Centre', and so on. There's a good system of favourites and recently-visited locations, as well as a new itinerary feature for contructing more complicated journeys. TomTom Traffic, part of their overall TomTom PLUS service, is a subscription system that we're looking forward to trying for real. It claims to present live traffic information, with the routine algorithms doing the necessary work to minimise traffic delays in getting to your destination. Also available for download are various extra POI categories (e.g. speed cameras) and city maps.

The screenshots here were taken on an emulator, but we should be able to try the real thing within a couple of weeks, on a Nokia 6600 and on a Noia 9500. Hopefully these images will give you a flavour for what's coming!

The final screenshot, at the very bottom, is from a skinned Series 90 device, such as the Nokia 7710. Plus, of course, there's the thorny question of whether UIQ users are going to get a TomTom release. Time will tell, although there's little reason why the code shown here couldn't work on all other Symbian platforms.

Drive safely...