Question about Vias on the Rand McNally 720LM

Ok I'll go over some issues I have with the TM TND 720. Most of it will never be changed and I realize that but this is my view on it. Not all of what I'll mention are flaws obviously but they are certainly areas that could stand improvement and much of it is what leads to frustration for new users. The way to turn a new user into an old user is to make a device more user friendly. The TND 720 could certainly be a lot more friendly. And Mark, with all the time you've put into this device I can understand why you defend it but I know also that you have to realize it could be a lot better. It does do the job but it takes entirely too much effort on the user's part to make this happen and I can understand why some people get frustrated with it and give up trying to live with it.

For me the frustration starts with the basic hardware. The processor is entirely too slow. This unit retails for aprox $400. There are PC's in that range that do way more than the RM a lot faster. Calculations take too long. Dragging the map is extremely frustrating because it lags so badly. Zooming in and out is a chore. These points also bring me to the screen. I personally hate resistive touch screens. Capacitive is the way to go. Newer capacitive screens are cheaper than ever, more durable, more precise, and allow for multi-finger manipulation (pinch to zoom). Pinch to zoom is a much better way to manipulate the map, but is predominately available with capacitive touch screens. Zoom in and out on the 720 is a slow annoying process and the buttons are very inaccurate often delaying the process further. The resistive screens by nature are imprecise. I can't tell you how many times I've touched a spot on the 720's screen only to have it think I was touching somewhere else. It's also an issue when it misinterprets a touch and won't allow me to hold and drag my finger to make a correction. Once it makes a mistake that mistake is set in stone and off to the next screen I go. This often makes me have to go back and forth unnecessarily. Yes I have recalibrated my screen. The resistive screen on this device is one of the big things holding it back and hopefully future models will take a step forward and go to the better capacitive touch screens. I know the traditional reasons why companies have used resistive screens in the past but the advantages of capacitive screens outweight all of them.

Another issue I have with the 720 is the save function. Why bother in most cases as it really doesn't save anything but the destination. It recalculates every time I turn it on or load that same trip even if I'm on the exact route it originally set for me. This recalculation often results in a totally different route appearing, often one that I do not approve of. So the only real way to save a route is to set via's at every single turn along the way. Even then I have to be careful because if it determines a shorter route along the way somewhere I may still try to route me some odd ball way once it recalculates. I've had it happen so I have learned to be extremely careful and typically write all my turns on paper just to be safe. It's a shame that is necessary. When I click to save a route I want it to save it just like it is on the screen at that moment. The only time the device should recalculate after that is if I deviate from the course or add something on the way. And if I add something, such as a Rest Stop or Truck Stop, it should calculate how to get me to that stop and then back to the predetermined route, not come up with an entirely new route based on one single stop that barely takes me off the road. Yes I've had it do that. I've set my route, turned the device off, got up the next day and clicked on continue route to have it recalculate and come up with an entirely different route. WTF? That's all I can say when that happens.

This leads to the extremely cumbersome techniques required to set routes to begin with. I'm amazed that most stand alone GPS units still adhere to the whole City, street, # method for entering addresses. Man, get this thing up to date and let me enter it the way I want. Then have it search it's database to find the closest suitable match or matches. There are way too many unnecessary steps and buttons just to find a city on the map. All you need is an address line. I type in Chicago Ill ENTER and boom it pulls it up. The UI on the 720 could definitely be streamlined with a few changes like this.

After that setting up via's is also a pain. There are a few methods and most of them are poorly done. First of all, when I pull up POI along my route it shows me a mileage that is not calculated, it's just some mileage that is way off what it is once the route is actually calculated. Is that straight line or just a guess? What ever it is it's useless and can be a hundred or more miles off target which is of little help when I'm trying to trip plan. I don't want to spend the time to check every POI that might be of interest by waiting for the device to recalculate the whole route so I can get an accurate mileage. If this thing had a decent processor it would be able to calculate those mileages accurately from the get go so I could actually use them for planning. Intersections could have been really helpful if they were set up properly. Instead of trying to have me guess what city the intersection is in why not just let me put two roads in and have you tell me the places where they intersect and I can pick the best answer. How many times do two roads cross anyway? I tried finding the city of two major highways in Chicago and it didn't show up anywhere. Why it doesn't show up under Chicago is beyond me but I tried every other town on the list and it didn't show up on them either. I've had that happen several times. And regardless of what it may actually be under I takes entirely too long to look up an intersection using that method. End of Day, again how does it calculate this. Seems off to me and I never use that feature because when I tried it, it was way off. The best way to set vias is just to zoom in and out on the map, find the spot to set the via, and set it manually. But again because of the slow nature of the 720, as well as the terrible inaccuracy of the touch screen, zooming in and out is slow and frustrating. Even if you can overlook the inaccuracy there's no denying that it's a very slow process. Having a capacitive touch screen and a faster processor would make setting via's much more intuitive and save a ton of time.

We've already discussed the problem with the entire route not showing after a via has been applied. How did this ever make it past QA? This is a very basic function of trip planning and extremely important to anyone wanting to make a long trip. The way I've found to get around it is to plan my trip backwards applying via's from the end and backing up to the beginning. That is really the only way. Then all you can do is hope it hasn't recalculated some part of the trip that you can no longer see in a way that you did not intend. This is an absolute failure on the part of the programmers of this device and is extremely frustrating in regards to trip planning on the 720. You talk about a future update but this major flaw should have been corrected the moment someone pointed it out. Poor support noted.

And as for making things easier, when I'm looking at the turn by turn directions why not let me see the mileage to the turn at the top of the screen somewhere when I click on one. As it is I have to click on part of the road, then close turn by turn to see mileage and them I'm not really sure if that's actual mileage or some guesstimate that the device makes since it seems to be so fond of doing that. It doesn't take any time to figure it up so I'm going to assume it's not true calculated mileage but you tell me because maybe that one time it's actually helpful. It would still be much better if the mileage showed up when you clicked on the turn instead of having to go through 4 extra steps just to look at mileage and go back to turn by turn. The main reason I want to see mileage on turn by turn is that it would be helpful as far as planning a stopping point for each day. That mileage should be very accessible and very accurate.

Another issue I have is that I set the unit to do no U-turns but guess what, it constantly instructs me to do U-turns even though there is a perfectly viable route straight ahead that takes me to the same destination. That's one of the things I just don't get about this unit. At times it seems so willing to change the route at the drop of a hat and other times it ignores its own protocol in an attempt to force me back on to the predetermined route. That just makes no sense.

The reason's I'm still using this device: It's truck specific so it does at least attempt to keep me on truck approved routes even though I look at my paper map to make sure. It has all of the truckstops, weight stations, rest areas, ect in POI which I find to be very helpful. Once I do have a good route set, all via's set to ensure that I'm going where I desire to go according to a paper map, it does a good job of informing me of upcoming turns. I like that most of the time it shows mileage markers and has warnings about sharp turns and hills that seem to be accurate for the most part. This can be important in inclement weather, at night, or if a sign is missing for some reason. I bought it and I want to get my money's worth out of it. Once I do have a good route, set with via's so it can't get me off route, I can save that route and use it again when I go back to that location.

Oh yes, if you really have influence over the new units, for goodness sake have them include an option to turn off all the timers and all that other junk that some of us don't want to use. I don't want to see any of that stuff popping up every time I start moving. It's a major annoyance.

I know that most, if not all of what I've mentioned here will never be addressed on this particular device. But if any of it could be changed for the next device, whenever that is, it would be most welcomed. Well at least until Google decides to make a truck specific GPS. If that ever happens you guys are in trouble.

 

Originally Posted by Garrison64
Ok I'll go over some issues I have with the TM TND 720. Most of it will never be changed and I realize that but this is my view on it. Not all of what I'll mention are flaws obviously but they are certainly areas that could stand improvement and much of it is what leads to frustration for new users. The way to turn a new user into an old user is to make a device more user friendly. The TND 720 could certainly be a lot more friendly. And Mark, with all the time you've put into this device I can understand why you defend it but I know also that you have to realize it could be a lot better.

Everybody has a different aspect of how a GPS should act. In reality it is totally different. The GPS has to use the users parameters and based upon that the router has to determine a legal route based upon what is in the DCA map segments. The GPS router has to be tweaked for all areas. The 520/720 are hot spotted to your mobile device. If your mobile device goes into a 1x area and loses internet, the hot spot will drop since internet has been lost. Everyone blames the TND for the loss of the internet. It is a device that is receiving a signal from the users device. The TND will tell you that internet has been dropped.

No idea why you brought up the internet. I never mentioned that. It's not a feature that I'm really concerned about on the TND. I don't even have a hot spot atm.

It does do the job but it takes entirely too much effort on the user's part to make this happen and I can understand why some people get frustrated with it and give up trying to live with it.

The screens were build to have the least amount of button pushing to obtain the result. True, depending on what you are doing it may take a few more screens or button pushing, but you cannot build code to do what you need to do with only one or two button pushes. Your smart phone does not do it. But, the phone uses apps or shortcuts. Try to change the screen brightness on a smart phone. It takes more than a few button pushes.

On my phone I simply slide my finger up from the bottom of the screen and the brightness slider is right there. One simple step. The programmers can make it easy if they want to.
[FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]Any new user feels resistance to anything. It is not like what they used before so therefore it is wrong? Nope. I do not use Apple, but from time to time I do have to use in my testing. It is different that an PC. But, do I shun it? Nope. I see how the layout is and go from there. Win 7 to Win 8 is a big jump. Do I like it? Not at first, but I can get to where I am going without too much issues. It is all about feeling the change and seeing what is different.[/FONT]

[FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]This isn't a resistance to a new thing. I've used GPS units just like this one before and the main reason I gave up on them and went to Google maps on my phone is that these stand alone units are too clunky and cumbersome to use. The one and only reason I'm even using the 720 is because it is truck specific, and does have some useful features for trucking, and from what I've read during my research none of the other truck specific gps devices are any better. So please don't pretend it's simply because I'm using some new tech that I'm not experienced with. If you guys refuse to hear end users where feedback is concerned, and continue to make excuses, the product will never move forward and eventually will simply die. RM could sell a lot more units if they would listen to end users and make a list of the most requested features and then [/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]implement[/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif] them. [/FONT]
GPS's will never be alike. Some features work great on some and not so great on others. All have their pluses and minuses. Just like every human being is different. If all were the same then the world would be boring.

I don't want them all to be alike. I just want to see improvements where improvements are needed.

Calculations take too long. Dragging the map is extremely frustrating because it lags so badly.

A lot depends on what zoom level you are at. If zoomed out the screen has to "paint" a lot more details than in a zoomed in level. I suggest if you drag the map around and wish to see long distances, zoom out, but let the screen keep up with your swipes. The more you swipe the more it buffers and this creates the "lag" you see. The buffer is trying to keep up. Swipe, pause, let the screen paint, then swipe again.. It is all about learning how the screen responds.

Doesn't matter what zoom level I'm at, dragging the map is slow and tedious. The new unit, whenever that happens, could definitely stand a processor upgrade.

Zooming in and out is a chore. These points also bring me to the screen. I personally hate resistive touch screens. Capacitive is the way to go. Newer capacitive screens are cheaper than ever, more durable, more precise, and allow for multi-finger manipulation (pinch to zoom). Pinch to zoom is a much better way to manipulate the map, but is predominately available with capacitive touch screens. Zoom in and out on the 720 is a slow annoying process and the buttons are very inaccurate often delaying the process further. The resistive screens by nature are imprecise. I can't tell you how many times I've touched a spot on the 720's screen only to have it think I was touching somewhere else. It's also an issue when it misinterprets a touch and won't allow me to hold and drag my finger to make a correction. Once it makes a mistake that mistake is set in stone and off to the next screen I go. This often makes me have to go back and forth unnecessarily. Yes I have recalibrated my screen. The resistive screen on this device is one of the big things holding it back and hopefully future models will take a step forward and go to the better capacitive touch screens. I know the traditional reasons why companies have used resistive screens in the past but the advantages of capacitive screens outweight all of them.

I don't control the hardware. When hardware is bought it looks at what is available at the time. Cost factors have to be determined in any hardware. If you use a stylus or the tip of a fingernail you will have better response. The flat of your finger does not work well due to the area you are pushing.

Fingernails and styli tend to scratch this type of screen. And even those don't fix the inaccuracy issues with a resistive touch screen. They've always had such issues.

Another issue I have with the 720 is the save function. Why bother in most cases as it really doesn't save anything but the destination. It recalculates every time I turn it on or load that same trip even if I'm on the exact route it originally set for me. This recalculation often results in a totally different route appearing, often one that I do not approve of. So the only real way to save a route is to set via's at every single turn along the way. Even then I have to be careful because if it determines a shorter route along the way somewhere I may still try to route me some odd ball way once it recalculates. I've had it happen so I have learned to be extremely careful and typically write all my turns on paper just to be safe. It's a shame that is necessary. When I click to save a route I want it to save it just like it is on the screen at that moment. The only time the device should recalculate after that is if I deviate from the course or add something on the way. And if I add something, such as a Rest Stop or Truck Stop, it should calculate how to get me to that stop and then back to the predetermined route, not come up with an entirely new route based on one single stop that barely takes me off the road. Yes I've had it do that. I've set my route, turned the device off, got up the next day and clicked on continue route to have it recalculate and come up with an entirely different route. WTF? That's all I can say when that happens.

There is not a save build in for the routing. You simply pick a location and route to it. Nothing is saved for the route line. The trip locations are saved since you have routed to them.

You can always turn off Auto-Recalc. Again it is simply a router determining your physical location to your via or destination point and it is done by Lat/Long. Not by line of sight if you can see the freeway. If you turn off the route the Lat/Long senses you are going in a different direction and it will recalculate to find a legal route to your next location in your route. It does not have "eyes", nor can it know what your intentions are for the going off of route.

Well then it might be a good idea for future models to have them actually save the chosen route. I'd like to know when I get up in the morning that it's going to load the same route I was on the night before that I was ok with instead of loading up something completely random that may take me miles off my route. And yes it has tried to do that. It may not have eyes but it calculated that route somehow. If it calculated it then it should be able to save that data and pull it back up exactly like it was. It's all numbers. Just use the same numbers. That's basic programming.

This leads to the extremely cumbersome techniques required to set routes to begin with. I'm amazed that most stand alone GPS units still adhere to the whole City, street, # method for entering addresses. Man, get this thing up to date and let me enter it the way I want. Then have it search it's database to find the closest suitable match or matches. There are way too many unnecessary steps and buttons just to find a city on the map. All you need is an address line. I type in Chicago Ill ENTER and boom it pulls it up. The UI on the 720 could definitely be streamlined with a few changes like this.

You mention address line, but you give a city/state as a example. Too many streets are named the same in a lot of cities, so to narrow the search down it asks for City/State first, then you can either put in an "house" number or street. It is all about processing time.

What I mean is keep it simple. Have an address bar where you type it in naturally like 5044 S Kedvale Ave Chicago Ill. When I type that on Google it pulls up the whole address by the time I've typed in Kedvale. That's what it should be like. Not this step by step stuff that takes longer than it should. Yea all by itself it's maybe not so time consuming but when you start adding up all the things about this unit that take extra time it does become time consuming especially when you're trying to plan a trip that covers a thousand or more miles.

After that setting up via's is also a pain. There are a few methods and most of them are poorly done. First of all, when I pull up POI along my route it shows me a mileage that is not calculated, it's just some mileage that is way off what it is once the route is actually calculated. Is that straight line or just a guess?

"By the way the crow flies", since it really does not know what route you will be taking to get to it. Simply add about 15% and it will give you a more accurate distance. Again, it goes by Lat/Long from point A to point B using what it has set for parameters and what is in the map segments for that DCA.

Well it knows the mileage to the route it actually calculates pretty accurately. What I'm saying is that if the 720 had enough processing power it could calculate accurate mileages based on the route it calculated instead of "by the way the crow flies" whatever that is. I'm not on a crow, I'm in a big truck and I need accurate mileages not +15% guesses.

What ever it is it's useless and can be a hundred or more miles off target which is of little help when I'm trying to trip plan. I don't want to spend the time to check every POI that might be of interest by waiting for the device to recalculate the whole route so I can get an accurate mileage. If this thing had a decent processor it would be able to calculate those mileages accurately from the get go so I could actually use them for planning. Intersections could have been really helpful if they were set up properly. Instead of trying to have me guess what city the intersection is in why not just let me put two roads in and have you tell me the places where they intersect and I can pick the best answer. How many times do two roads cross anyway? I tried finding the city of two major highways in Chicago and it didn't show up anywhere. Why it doesn't show up under Chicago is beyond me but I tried every other town on the list and it didn't show up on them either. I've had that happen several times. And regardless of what it may actually be under I takes entirely too long to look up an intersection using that method.

Give me examples.

I 294 and I 88 in Chicago. They meet but if I expand Chicago and find 88 I pull up every town on the list and none of them show an intersection with 294. I never use that function any more because it takes too much time to look up the exact town where some of these intersections occur and sometimes, like this example, they simply don't seem to exist or take way too long to look up. Now I just zoom on the map and tap where I want a via because even though it takes too long it is dependable at least.

We've already discussed the problem with the entire route not showing after a via has been applied. How did this ever make it past QA?

Probably since it was not in the code. Not in the code - nothing for QA to test. As mentioned in a prior post, it is in the next update. But will show up only on Highways, not the detail listing.

Nothing for QA to test? How about basic trip planning and the overall usefulness of the device? What If I've set all my vias and realize I want to add something else towards the end of the trip? What if I want to go back and change a turn somewhere along the way. Oops I can no longer see the rest of the trip to add anything. Seriously change the code then. And please don't suggest I go back and delete all my via's as a viable option for changing something. You do realize the amount of time I spent adding all those vias on a 1000+ mile trip don't you?

This is a very basic function of trip planning and extremely important to anyone wanting to make a long trip. The way I've found to get around it is to plan my trip backwards applying via's from the end and backing up to the beginning. That is really the only way. Then all you can do is hope it hasn't recalculated some part of the trip that you can no longer see in a way that you did not intend. This is an absolute failure on the part of the programmers of this device and is extremely frustrating in regards to trip planning on the 720. You talk about a future update but this major flaw should have been corrected the moment someone pointed it out. Poor support noted.

Features are added on a priority bases based upon the monies available and the need for it. The programmers do a fine job with the criteria given and what needs to be coded. They do not just code what they think needs to be in it. All this is based upon business decisions. This is a standard business practice. Items and features do not get added on the fly for the customer. A release is scheduled and when all the items or features are added the code is locked and testing begins.

Maybe some of those "business decisions" need to be replaced with the customer's needs. What happened to the customer is always right? I'm not saying I'm right about everything but hopefully someone at RM is keeping a list of most requested features from actual truckers and is trying to implement them at some point. I mean who better to ask than the people actually using this device for thousands of miles at a time on their jobs where they actually depend on them to get to where they are going. I see a lot of complaints on the forum about the exact same things I've mentioned here so I know I'm not the only one with these issues.

And as for making things easier, when I'm looking at the turn by turn directions why not let me see the mileage to the turn at the top of the screen somewhere when I click on one. As it is I have to click on part of the road, then close turn by turn to see mileage and them I'm not really sure if that's actual mileage or some guesstimate that the device makes since it seems to be so fond of doing that. It doesn't take any time to figure it up so I'm going to assume it's not true calculated mileage but you tell me because maybe that one time it's actually helpful. It would still be much better if the mileage showed up when you clicked on the turn instead of having to go through 4 extra steps just to look at mileage and go back to turn by turn. The main reason I want to see mileage on turn by turn is that it would be helpful as far as planning a stopping point for each day. That mileage should be very accessible and very accurate.

I am not really understanding this. The Turn by Turn does list the mileage to each turn at the moment you slide out the T-B-T screen. It shows overage mileage at the top. It is not interactive meaning the mileage will not count down while the T-B-T is out.

I realize it shows the mileage from one turn to the next. What would be nice is to see the mileage from the origin point to the point selected. In fact that could even be calculated and shown along with the turn to turn mileage which would make it even simpler.

Another issue I have is that I set the unit to do no U-turns but guess what, it constantly instructs me to do U-turns even though there is a perfectly viable route straight ahead that takes me to the same destination. That's one of the things I just don't get about this unit. At times it seems so willing to change the route at the drop of a hat and other times it ignores its own protocol in an attempt to force me back on to the predetermined route. That just makes no sense.

See prior posts on the support thread and this thread about how the TND and any other GPS sees the roads. It does not see the road like you can. It uses DCA's which have road parameters set in segments.

If this is as you say then why bother having a No U-Turn option? If it's going to do it anyway what is the point? When I check "NO U-Turns" I expect it to never instruct me to do a U-Turn. That's not rocket science.

Oh yes, if you really have influence over the new units, for goodness sake have them include an option to turn off all the timers and all that other junk that some of us don't want to use. I don't want to see any of that stuff popping up every time I start moving. It's a major annoyance.

Warnings and timers can be turned off in the current version you are using. See the Manual for this which can be gotten via the Dock and downloaded to your computer. It is 100+ pages.

It is possible to turn some of them off but Driving session, Driving hours, Total days, ect under Truck Tools/Timers do not have an off function. Even the user manual tells us to run the time up so high that they will never go off. And while that works, why not just have an off button that covers the whole thing?

 

Well I can see that making any kind of positive suggestion to you is pretty pointless as you have your mind made up that it's just fine the way it is so I'm not going to waste any more of your, or my, time. I'll never agree with you that this device is fine as it is because it's not fine. It needs work and some things, such as the via's causing the rest of the route to disappear are outright flaws that you seem willing to gloss over. Unfortunately the companies making truck specific gps devices have us all by the short hairs at this time because there isn't really much competition so if we want a truck specific gps we just have to learn to deal with their shortcomings which is what you seem so willing to do. But I know I'm not the first or last person to make these complaints or suggestions here. That massive support thread tells me that. So you go on telling everyone it's just fine and those of us using it will continue knowing that you are blowing smoke up our collective tail pipes.