Cobra Electronics 7700 PRO GPS

Follow-up to this post. We ordered the card. It came in about 6 days and the upgrade was simple and straight-forward.

So on our unit the version screen now says the following:
H/W: GPSM7700
S/W: 1.5.1.12
Map: na-P1502E6E122X
OS: USA_C09081401(2.4)

Thanks for the heads-up, Brian.

- Don

 

So what is the general consensus about the 7700 in terms of finding addresses & appearance of maps? Sounds like some are having issue with this & sad to have to ask about it. Not really interested in the poi stuff & can find most of the Interstate or Highway routing, but once in town you need something to get you to the address on the closest truck route possible.

 

So far address finding is good, the maps interface is a bit archaic looking. The screen is to big for the map resolution it was designed for. kinda chopping looking.

The truck settings are very good, the best so far IMHO, I bought all three units and finally settled for the Cobra. As of today, its easily the better unit.

I will admit I really wanted to Rand McNally to work as advertised. Nice clean looking interface, POI's that relevant to this industry, but had some major issues with address finding and it lost its bearing very easily which would throw off you time to destination and mileage to destination. It also routed me through wilmington, CT into two 120 degree switchback turns only to ultimately led me to a road I just passed. I guess the plus to this is, I didnt realize how beautiful the Connecticut countryside is. =\

The Garmin 465T was joke, to many things to list. I believe it to be a car gps with a few truck stops, maybe a location of a scale or two. Loved the advertisments while you were driving though....=\

Today its the Cobra, but the RM TND once fully developed should pass the Cobra but if I was in marketing for RM, I would release it as a different product.

Thats my take on it. Hope it helps.

 

holy crap, the map update just done messed up my 7700, it works but now its doing the stupid stuff car gps's do which is nonsense.

Brian, try going from Medford, OR on I-5 to Tulare, CA. It takes you a 100 miles out of route THROUGH the bay area. Thats just stupid.

I dont know if the "engineers" understand. The best case scenario for truck gps, for me anyways. I want to be on interstate 99% of the time, I want to exit, make 1-3 turns and reach my destination. Even if it takes me 5 miles past my destination as long as I am the closest tot the interstate thats what it should be. Not have me routed through the south end of town to the north for 15 miles. Thats BS, wtf!!!

I think im going back to maps.

 

I think this is consistent with the problem I reported several weeks back. I would guess it might have something to do with all those 38' foot restrictions. And it appears to be primarily in the Sacramento area.

 

Plus the Cobra unit is the only one with a lot of expanded vehicle configuration fields to put in your truck setup screen: Weight per axle / Tandem axle weight / Unladen vehicle weight / Extreme axle length / kingpin to last axle / kingpin to middle tandem / kingpin to end of trailer.

I don't know if this strategy will turn out to be an advantage or a disadvantage for Cobra yet because I have no way of knowing how each of these values truly changes the routing yet. It would seem to me that if the Cobra database had restriction info built in THIS specific, it would be taking and extraordinarily complex look at the nation's roads while planning a route.

The point is - have either you or Bosco played with tweaking those values and re-trying those routes (especially the California stuff) to see how the Cobra unit "thinks?" Perhaps that could lead to one of those values being the reason for those route directions? Just a thought for 7700 Pro uses anyway...

- Don

 

Yeah, I have a bit but not to any real degree to see any changes in routing. I know I do have to select bobtail to get to some places that I know are truck friendly.

I will say it wont let you select a high cube trailer (14') with any configuration that I can find.

But I'm not sure how "new" these maps are even. For some reason it wont find our shop in Tulare which has been there for years. Also in Medford, Central point, OR there are several on ramps to I-5 that also dont appear.

Bosco