RM vs Garmin

The Garmin does a lot of things right. You can also pair it with your smartphone for realtime traffic and weather. It notes speed changes and school zones too. Like anything, there are glitches, but they seem helpful. They just put out a 2019 update if anyone is using one. I just found out that you need to change the truck weight to UNDER 80K. If not, it may try to route you on back roads around scales. If there is traffic ahead it will offer you an alternate route.

 

Looks like the TND540 turned out to be a bust. After a couple days of use it stopped working altogether. When selecting truck gps from the menu it would go to the start up screen for that function and just freeze. I tried the repair and update functions to no avail. Rm support? Forget those clowns. I put everything back in the box, grabbed the receipt, got a full refund and set the old reliable 530 back up. Kind of sad these “tech” companies have a habit of “improving” products and just wind up making them worse. A big thumbs down for the 540. They really let me down with that new model and their pitiful excuse for customer service.

 

I believe that you must make the GPS take you where you want to go.

 

The problem is you have programmers that aren't truck drivers. Their logic is not ours. You have to give them feedback to make things better. Once done though, it's fixed forever, or until they reconfigure the road.

 

I have had both Garmin and RM MY RM was 2 720 Both i had to send back to RM for repairs. Both are now in the trash. I now have the Garmin Dezl 570 and have had no issues at all. Plus it has real time traffic and construction unlike RM. I will NEVER have another RM product again. Except for a real road atlas. Alos NEVER rely on the GPS check routing with a REAL map.

 

When Garmin prints a trucker atlas I'll recommend it. I have both on my truck. I like the voice command on the garmin but my audiobooks screw with it. Rand is about 90% on point Garmin about 75%. Using both, Google maps and common sense I've only driven off a cliff not once. I've missed exits and turns because I had brain flatulence. Get the Rand. Save your points for a Garmin.

 

too bad garmin ain’t making that 780 edge to edge display like the new car and garmin rv units... pretty nice looking....

 

I'm still rocking the TND 720. I used a DEZL 570 for a little while, but my eyes couldn't adjust to the smaller screen and I did have some issues with it. All personal preference ones... as I've had lock ups on both RM and Garmin units.

 

In my opinion, you are far better off buying the standalone model. If you want a tablet too, go buy a tablet separately.

I hate to discourage you, but nonetheless, not some but all of my friends with the tablets ended up having all kinds of problems with their tablets in time and regretted buying it.

Not so many friends though had problems with their stand-alone models. Mine is four years old and still going strong. I want to upgrade to the new 740 and relegate my old 730 to backup status, but I can't because Rand McNally screwed up on the navigation display screen on the new 740. So I'm not going to upgrade until they change back the navigation display screen to the way it was before, and if they don't do it, then I'll do something altogether different.

However, since you are a first time user, maybe the new navigation display screen on the new 740 may not be a problem for you. By the way, the main problem with the new navigation display screen in the 740 is the fonts are too small to read from a distance.

It's kind of funny, that Rand Mcnally spent a ton of time getting the navigation screens on the older models exactly right, and then suddenly just trashed the old screen and all of the feedback on it that they had previously received to design it, and just totally reworked a new screen and screwed it all up at the same time with absolutely no trucker feedback whatsoever. Kind of illustrates to us how much they care about their customers today.

One would think after all the tons complaints over the past year that they have received due to the new screwed up navigation display screen, that they would have reverted back to the old screen design by now. However, apparently, Rand McNally couldn't care less about those customer complaints and their customers. Oh well.

 

I still run copilot truck on my iPad mini 4. I had a Rand tablet 80. Returned it for the Garmin 760. Returned it as well.

You think Rand would get their #### together and make a nice useable unit and not Chinese junk.