New Garmin Dezl 760

For ETA, i just set mine to show me how many miles i have left. I usually figure for 50 mph average to be safe.

 

I've owned several of the Rand McNally units, acquired the DZL 760 about 8 months ago and use them side by side. Both are great at some things and horrible at others.

RM has the Garmin unit beat (hands down) with POIs. For some reason with Garmin they decided to use the all or nothing approach. There is no separating non-truck POIs from truck specific POIs. Why would I ever need to see every Wells Fargo branch on the unit...especially when you'll RARELY EVER be able to pull into a Wells Fargo location with a combo unit? Or most of your big chain sports bars? And for those locations you'll actually get to see a snazzy little icon specific to thos chains, yet for a Pilot, Loves, TA, etc all of those icons are a generic solid blue with a fuel pump icon. Mostly, the unit (even with filtering) will only show major truck stops/travel centers and rarely a smaller off brand. This is where Garmin fails terribly and RM stands above.

What I was impressed with the most with the Garmin unit is the speed and reliability (compared to RM). The Garmin unit starts up fast, routes fast, is always responsive and has not crashed on me once. The RM is a whole other story...that unit can take up to 10 minutes to route an 800 mile trip...if it doesn't crash in the middle of trying to create the routing. The RM unit routinely crashes for no apparent reason (I've owned 3 of the RMs and they've all done this), and the RMs have all had battery/charging issues (the DC chargers are of poor quality).

The Garmin units use of bluetooth over RMs use of wifi is superior. The wifi has several disadvantages on the road, whereas the bluetooth I can't find any disadvantages.

I find the RM address book to be much better than Garmins. With RM you can sort/group the addresses, with Garmin you can't...the Garmin unit by default sorts from closest to you to furthest from you...no options to change this. Garmin also did not include an option to add notes for a saved location, which RM allows.

Garmin's dashmount is just horrible, the unit should be similar to the RM with a flat backside. With my RM I can add some 3X velcro to the back of the unit and attach it to a flat surface towards the top of the dash in the vehicle, to avoid fines for blocking the view in the windshield (believe it or not some states are starting to enforce that law...making the Garmin useless). Unless...you want to buy that 10 pound weight to hold the Garmin upright on the top of the dash...NO THANKS.

As far as truck routing...both units have been a hit or miss, I couldn't give the edge to either one, both usually give a legal route...BUT I must say the RM has been the only unit to ever attempt to put me on roads not legal for the saved configuration once I got there. The Garmin unit has a nasty habit of taking me out of route for height/weight restrictions that don't exist (on interstates!). Both have been great for avoiding actual low clearances...never had an issue with either one.

Also...if anyone at Garmin is reading this...PLEASE get rid of the annoying voice recognition...or at least give me the ability to turn it off. That is the single most useless "feature." First...it sucks, even if I were to use it it gets it wrong most of the time, and secondly I'm not going to be talking to a freakin' GPS. Those sorets of things look cool in movies, but for everyday practicality while driving a truck...well, it's not practical. It's annoying that if I decide to listen to the radio/talk show it thinks that it's being talked to and starts showing menus instead of the routing. Absolutely useless.


So, luckily I've never 100% depended on a GPS. It is a tool!

 

Garmin does have several other mounting options available for a small price. I'm going to be getting one to mount it on the face of the dash next to the Qualcom, hopefully tomorrow. What I've been doing for now is take it off the dash and set it on the jump seat when going into scales.

 

What cord do I need to hook to laptop for updating?

 

Mine came with a mini USB cord.

 

How do I get the weather to come up on screen?

 

Anyone have theirs go blank gray and then while trying to restart it doesn't?

Happened to me today on the Jersey Turnpike.

 

FWIW...

i use use the voice recognition feature all of the time. It works great for finding scales, Walmarts, truck stops, etc.

 

Mine (560) hasn't done that, it has just shut off and turned back on a couple of times.

 

It is working again now. I think there was some weird voltage going on with my truck, because a while later the Qualcomm shut itself down and rebooted.