Truck GPS units are making my head spin!!

The trouble is it didn't display "utah" as one of the choices.... I had to go back add a comma and type it. Like I said, no big deal. It just kinda suprised me.

 

my mistake, good call thanks. it was the 510.

 

I have a Garmin car unit. It's been sitting in my truck since I bought the 720 and I was going to drop it off at home when I went by. I've had no issues with it other than the fact it's not designed to deal with large trucks, and I wanted a truck unit. And the Garmin keeps up very well with what I want it to do.

I rarely have issues with what I buy. I use a desktop replacement laptop on the road, and I can't slow the thing down to save my life.

A minor freezing I can deal with. However, having a unit freeze to the point it's unuseable is not acceptable considering what these things cost.

Garmin is the way to go because GPS is how their business was built. That is all they have been doing. Everyone else is too far behind to catch up.

 

Which Garmin are using and is it a truck specific device? I don't believe I have ever had any issues with either Garmin or RM when searching for addresses, poi, whatever.

Mark

 

RM TND520 . Then again, it is possible that it offered Ogden, UT as choice and that I somehow missed it. The issue would have to come up a few times before I rule out "driver error".

 

I don't know what you're doing exactly. If you could run through step by step what your doing I can do it on the 520 I have and see what I come up with. You are running the 520 and not the 510 right. Just please know I am not the Mark from the RM support thread- he's the one to talk to if you think there are serious issues here.

One thing to keep in mind regardless of the brand of device. You will run into instances where addresses just will not pop up. This is do to the lag in map datum where new roads or extensions to old ones just haven't made it into the map yet. It's frustrating but not a fault of the device or its manufacturer.



Mark

 

It also depends on how the address is formatted. Some units want to see it input exactly as they have it in their database. If you're off, then it wont assist you. You just have to get as close as possible by manually clicking on that spot in the map.

 

I have had no problems with addresses other than simple respelling or substitutions such as "fort" for "ft" etc, I haven't yet had to go into the map and click on the map where I want to go, which is sort of defeating the whole purpose of the idea isn't it. Both Garmin and RM have rather powerful search features which negate having to select a point on the map. In practical experience, if the address isn't there, it's because it isn't on the map database, it is in another town (this happens with rural poi a lot), or the address has been renamed which isn't reflected on the current map datum. Another issue is when it shows as a county road number or state road number but within a municipality, has an actual name. Then there is county or state roads that might or might not contain the state's name or abbreviation in conjunction with the road number, the word "state" or "county" and road number or just the road number. Experienced users know to use different search parameters when looking for an address or poi. Inexperienced users usually just get frustrated and blame the device.

Address numbers can be affected by unknown changes is road name or segment designation and/or municipality affected changes not currently reflected in the current database. Industrial complex seem to reflect this where sometime after the current database change, the city or town or village-whatever, added or lengthened a road segment and some built a warehouse whose address is not now in the current on-board database. So going into the map and attempting to manually select the location is useless because that particular segment just doesn't exist in the current database.

Mark

 

Here you go. As I am a GPS testing geek, I made you a video comparing the 3 most popular units, including your Rand.

Here is entering Ogden Utah on each:

[video=youtube_share;N5DMjQT2Inw]http://youtu.be/N5DMjQT2Inw[/video]

 

DB: yup that was the procedure I used but didn't see UT as a choice. Like I said, it very possibly could have been me missing it (I'm hoomann dang it!!) It's showing up now, so it must have been me screwing up and missing it.

Seriously, it's been a fine unit so far. I was pleasantly surprised at how easily it handled Salt Lake City addresses with their odd formats: IE 3200 west 2516 north, sandy UT etc.... (that's a made up addy, don't try it..). Very pleased on how easy it was to add fuel stops and search for parking along your route. It's even helped me to find groceries while on a 34. It removes a lot of questions while driving (where is the next rest area? scale house? etc) and takes a lot of stress out of the driving.