Support Thread for the TND 500, TND 700 or future Rand McNally products. (part two)

I can figure out where snapshots are stored on the tablet have been having rerouting issues. On a trip from Bloomington IN to Joliet IL I pulled the first rest area north on Indianapolis when I left it rerouted since I was on a connecting road but the route wanted me to take next exit and turnaround go back to Bloomington but called Bloomington Joliet.
Also GPS seems to lockup any time I come into Indy from the north side. It takes a reboot to get it started again.

Is there anyway to cut down how many times it tells me of a turn? I only want once about 2 miles out.

 

I want to commend Mark for going far above and beyond to rectify the problems I had been having with my TND 720. I was getting pretty frustrated and annoyed with the unit but thanks to his efforts all problem have been addressed.
I have my doubts that the techs at Rand would have gone to the lengths that he did to get my unit whole again.

Thanks Mark (You the Man)
John

 

After doing the latest map update, I have found that all of my ratings for truck stops have disappeared. This includes both the number of dots highlighted and any written comments about the facility that I had noted. Any help in getting this info back will be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Ron

on the contact & about tab:
Version: 4.5.3593.1820.116912 (405837)
Usa001010731(140817) 15131003
from the os version button:
TND-520
serial no. 520-022162-EL-13W26
os ver. A5.RM.2T520.130301.0
gps start 10/13/2015
map data ver. 3140607
construction data ver. 01/01/1601
rmlayer ver. 2.2.3.0

 

After using the TND Tablet for several weeks, I have a few observations:

Having used GPS devices since the days before they were able to "rubber-band" routes to roads - i.e. they could only draw an "as the crow files" straight line from where you were to your destination - and having owned dozens of different models, plus a dozen or so different navigation apps, both iOS and Android, I believe this is the best GPS I've ever used. At the very least, it definitely has the potential to be the best on the market, by far, when the kinks are worked out. Given the newness of the product, the kinks don't surprise me, though they can be very frustrating at times. So, on to the specifics, starting with the "issues":

The first thing I noticed was that the turn notification tone is so low, relative to the voice volume, that most times I couldn't even tell when it sounded. It should be the same volume as the voice, if not louder, and ideally should be separately controlled. If there's a setting for it somewhere, I couldn't find it.

As a bit of a nit-pick, it would really be nice if the trails icon could be turned off, and if there could be an "on by default" setting. I'd prefer to have it on all the time, and I don't need to lose the screen real estate telling me it's there, or letting me turn it off there. In any case, user interface consistency should dictate that you turn it on and off in the same place, which would also get rid of the icon on the map screen.

It's a bit hard to prove, but I'm fairly certain that the curve warnings for .4 and .2 miles are swapped. At the very least, the .2 mile warnings occur sooner (farther from the curve) than .4 mile warnings.

Local Search frequently would tell me that there were no listings or that I didn't have network connectivity, even though weather, fuel prices, and traffic info was working and a check later in the same location would find results.

Several times, I had a strange problem when stopping at a location not included in the route (such as an unplanned detour into a rest area): Upon resuming travel, the unit recalculated an "as the crow flies" route to my final destination. I had to recreate the trip by picking the ultimate destination again, then re-adding my interim via point(s).

There were a half dozen or so occasions where I got a message saying that "No suitable route could be found" right in the middle of a trip and the trip was essentially terminated. Recreating the trip (as above) solved the problem.

There were a half dozen or so occasions where the screen froze and/or went completely blank, but the program continued to work - voice prompts continued, etc., but the screen wouldn't return until I powered the tablet off and back on.

On one occasion, the dash cam started reporting that it couldn't access the camera. Nothing would clear that up until I paper-clipped it.

I'm a little puzzled by the traffic feature. Although I see Inrix in the traffic credits, the unit repeatedly failed to "know about" incidents that Inrix, Waze, and Co-Pilot (all running on my iPad) knew about. It's not that the TND doesn't know about any traffic incidents, but it certainly seems to be a lot more "behind the times" on the things it does know about, and for some reason has a lot less info overall than the other apps.

I also have a concern regarding charging the device: I have several different 12v-to-USB chargers which are rated to be capable of delivering 2.4a charging current, but the best of the bunch will only prevent the unit from completely discharging in a full day's use. In other words, the power level continuously discharges throughout the day, rather than maintaining a full charge, much less recharging. I've also noticed (when the truck isn't running) a "mosquito" sound that I recognize as CPU noise that comes from the unit continuously - this is the first tablet I've heard that does this - I've heard some that make the sound randomly as the CPU utilization reaches 100%, but I've never heard one do it all the time like this one does. This makes me believe that it's perhaps running near its peak capability all the time, which would explain the current draw, as well, but I'm only guessing...

On the plus side, the screen is very responsive to touches - impressively so, in fact. I think the brightness is good, though the power consumption problem mentioned above forced me to keep the brightness lower than I would've preferred in the day-time. The number of options and settings is extremely good, and reminds me of the Garmin versions of 5 years ago or so, before they dumbed them down. (I would like to see a mapping detail-level option, though, like Garmin has, that would allow more road detail to be shown at higher zoom levels, especially useful in rural areas). Volume is excellent (though I do wish it would remember your last selected volume level, rather than resetting to 50% every time the app starts). Overall, I have to say the UI is very impressive.

One question: What's the search icon in the "minus" portion of the zoom control for?

Sorry for the length of this, but I hope at least some of it is useful.

Mark

 

I can't seem to do an inline reply from my iPad, so I'll just do the best I can with a regular one...

Re the volume, it's the alert tone (the "ding") that sounds when you're right at the turn that I was referring to, not the speech - I think the speech volume is acceptable, but the alert tone is softer than the speech volume and I think it should be as loud or louder.

Re Trails, I get it now - it's not designed to work the way they do on other GPS units - thanks for the explanation.

Re the traffic updates, I had 2 occasions where there were major on traffic jams (one on I-81 near Harrisburg PA, and another on US 17 near Warrenton) that TND didn't know about it and Inrix did (I understand that Waze info is completely different). Both of them tied me up for more than 10 minutes in stop and go traffic, so they were fairly significant events.

Re the screen freezes/blankouts, I was in the GPS app when they occurred, not in a tablet screen.

Re the version, I've repeatedly checked for updates using the Launcher app, which seems to be the same as you directed me to do, but it constantly says "Everything is up to date". The build number in Launcher is 20150529. The About info in the GPS app is 1.0.19.3450 (4212), Usa001010731(130922) 15011005.

Re the "mosquito" buzz, my tablet does it all the time, whether charging or not. If you've never heard one do it, and no one else has reported it, perhaps my unit is defective which could also explain some of the other issues...

Thanks very much for your help.

Mark