I have a TT 720 and the battery has never lasted very long on the just the battery alone from the beginning. 2-2.5 hours max. I just returned from a vacation with my son and family who own a Garmin 255 with text to speech. He gets 5-6 hrs min. between charges on his Garmin 255 without using the power saving feature. Some thing to think about when buying a GPS that will be used on a bike and for walking, as well as your car.
I've only been using my 720 for about 1 month and not really on the battery alone.So I can't comment on the life , although it does seem to discharge quite quickly when playing around with it unplugged.
I think the manufacturers claim is for a fully charged battery, using the gps with all the functions off/ set to the minimum eg. brightness, loudness etc. and having the screen off when navigating.......
Despite a previous post where I was having no problem, a few months down the track and I'm ecstatic if my fully charged TomTom that I haven't used in the past 4 days is half full.
If I get half an hour out of that half full battery, I'm nearly doing cartwheels in the driver seat..
I have had tom toms for some 4 years and have owned 3 different models, all units battery life was an issue, not to bad at first but within 6 months the battery life certainly reduced. I found replacement batteries that came with the same plug wired to them, it was a simple task of opening the tom tom and removing the battery that is glued into place and inserting the new battery. I purchased replacement batteries that quoted long use time, this certainly was the case, but the battery pack was a little thicker in size and was a very tight fit into the tom tom case.
If the unit does not work at all because the battery is so far run down that it sucks all the charger, all you need to do is open it and disconnect the battery... the larger of the 2 small white plugs on the back of the main board. Cutting the wires as the-ingeneer describes is unnecessary
The unit will only work when plugged in.
I received a TOMTOM 720 Go for last Christmas. It stopped holding a charge so I called Tomtom to ask them to fix the issue. The customer svcs rep said they do not fix a battery issues (out of warranty). The supervisor said they do not fix issues outside of warranty. I stated the issue is a manufacturer issue, a defective battery and should be replaced.
I did everything right with the battery. I never left the unit plugged in over night. I never left it in the car to be affected by the weather. I let the battery run all the way down when I first received it.
Still they do not fix issues out of warranty. For $600 I would expect better customer service. They did offer to enroll me in their customer loyalty program and thus provide me with $100 off my next purchase. This customer's loyalty costs exactly $600.
What a SCAM! After reading a number of posts it is looking like they are using inadequate batteries on purpose so a person will have to purchase a new model.
Tomtom and Best Buy told me that it was impossible to replace the battery. Now I know that is not true. I will NEVER have another Tomtom.
My Go720 is a NoGo any time the unit is not plugged into an external power source. Even when I kill the engine for a pit stop I have to reprogram before proceeding. As I often take long trips, this disruption is very annoying.
When I called the manufacturer I received the same non-response as seen in other posts. I agree with the conspiracy theory that the manufacturer purposely used underrated batteries to force end-of-life turn-over. Well, they did it for me, I will replace my GPS unit - but NOT with any Tom Tom model.
I get about five to six months out of my Tom Tom battery and I always leave the device plugged into my car. Tha batteries just go bad and then my One XL will not work without a good battery even when it is plugged into the car.
I have a 720 that I have used for over a year, always used and charged in car. The Battery would only last for 20 minutes fully charged. Charged and discharged it several times using the house charger and the battery life improved to over 1.5 hours.