Trucking GPS systems?

Laptop is for more practical for multitasking. 500 buys a GPS which only does one thing. 500 buys a new Tosiba dual core 4gig ram 320 gig drive and 60 bucks a month buys 5 gigs of verizon high speed broad band....you can google maps and get street level photogs of the driveway to your next stop 99 percent of them are listed and available via the Net.
for my truck I use a 2007 Acer laptop running Co-Pilot in the navigators seat! Tosiba Satelite for Surfing TV mail..... If you LIVE 4 weeks out here its nice to have a (couple) laptop to keep track of everything. I would not discount the dash mount Cobra 7700 truck model It looks like a nice Add-on. But these days you can get gps on a cell phone if you subscribe to a Data Plan... I still use a clock, Large Scale Motor Carrier Map, and a calculator as well.

2010 FreightshakerCascadia DD15 Condo pulling a 53 ft Reefer:smt035

 

I agree. Each morning when I start my day, I open up S & T with my saved trip for navigation purposes, and then two blank S & T templates with no saved trips. That way should I need to search for a truck stop or a Wal-Mart Supercenter, for instance, I can use one of the blank S & T templates without disturbing my saved trip and accomplish it in seconds and without having to wait for the laptop and S & T to boot up; or if I need to check the mileage and how long it will take to drive to a particular terminal, drop lot, truck stop, shipper, consignee, whatever, I can use a blank S & T template to quickly calculate it, or if I get sent a preplan, I can plug the trip into a blank S & T template real quick, check the mileage, look over the route, and make a quick determination to accept it or not; or if I run into a traffic backup or an unexpected detour, I can quickly create a new route in a blank S & T template to route around the traffic backup, drive around it, and then quickly resume my previous trip once I have driven around it without skipping a beat.

Not to mention that I also use Drivers Daily Log to do my logs and Mozilla Sunbird and Calc, which are free, by the way, to keep track of my all my trips and miles. Hence, all of the above programs plus a few more I also use are always running in the background on my laptop. In addition, I can also send and receive faxes and transflo my trips to get paid.

If I couldn’t use a laptop to do my day-to-day tasks and had to do all of the above things manually it would actually be work. It would also make for a far longer day. With a laptop and the flexibility to multitask, I can do all of the above in a small fraction of the time that it takes it to do manually, which then gives me much more free time to do other things.

Not only that, but I also save all my company terminals, drop lots, shippers, and consignees in S & T as I go. Thus, when I have to drive to those locations again in the future, it is just a matter of right clicking these saved locations on the map and adding them to my routes. In other words, I can do it in a small fraction of the time that it would take to do otherwise. You can’t do any of this kind of stuff with just a GPS.

Bing maps is a built in feature in Streets & Trips. Thus, if you want to look at an aerial photograph or a bird’s eye view of the map you have displayed in S & T, just hit the Bing map button and a browser window instantly pops up with an aerial or bird’s eye view photograph. I love it and use it all the time. You can actually click the location of the entrance to a particular customer on the map, add it to your route, and S & T will guide you right to it.

I also use it when my I find my directions are wrong to find the correct location I am going to. Then once the correct location is located, I right click the location on the S & T map and then add it to my route. S & T then guides you to it. It doesn’t get any easier than that.

 

Poles sujest the randmcnally is most saught after gps. where can i buy one in canada and are the canadian maps accurate?
Anyone know?

 

Don't waste your money on a TomTom. They may be cheap but its about $70 a year to get map updates and they are usually out of date anyways. Seems to take them at least a year to get new streets on there.

 

Not true! I have had a Tom Tom for several years now and have not spent a penny on map updates. Sure, you can buy more maps but I have never needed them. A Tom Tom is not a TND (Truck Navigation Device) so if you choose one check your route carefully! I like it because it will find routes and deliver you to the front door almost always. None of the navigation devices are fool proof and should NEVER be blindly followed. Always check your routes and make corrections, these things can screw you up royally. But as far as spending money on a Tom Tom thats not true. The Tom Tom is a great tool but like any tool it is only as good as the person using it.

 

Hmm, I guess I must have bought the cheap version. Don't buy the $80 basic one then. I think it was less than that but I dont remember. I threw it out a few weeks ago, the touch screen stopped working months ago.

 

I have Garmin 465T works ok, gets comfused sometimes lol.

 

I have the rand mcnally it has worked wonders for me just make sure
you update the GPS every 3-6 weeks