Standalone Truck GPS units that are NOT Rand McNally?

Hammer comes from right here, Truckers Report. I've had less trouble from it than Google Maps.

 

Yes, I understand. I have been an associate with the owner of this web site for over a decade. I truly am pulling for the Hammer product to be another gamechanger for him and for you.

 

I tried the latest Rand McNally 85 and returned it. I'm very thankful that I got my money back or that would have been $500 in the toilet. Garbage! The routing sucked. The display was crappy dim. No custom waypoints without using an online app and exporting to it.

Back to Copilot on my iPad. I should have never left it. They have their act together. Excellent truck GPS, amazing compared to RM.

 

Bought a rand mcnally tablet GPS, don't remember the model but it was the most expensive at the truck stop last year, big ### like 8" screen. It was clunky and slow, used it a handful of times and threw it in the cabinet where it has stayed. 500 bucks out the window on that one.

 

Copilot on an iPad has zero lag. Zoom in or out and all the controls as fast as your fingers. With the added bonus of the brilliant display of the iPad. The iPad itself I purchased used in excellent shape for about 300 bucks. The software and routing superior to RM.

It would take a lot for me to go back to a stand-alone.

 

Oh, regarding the lag. I wonder if that is because the RM tablet is based on Android, or if it is because of the bloating of the RM software. The RM 85 I had was really laggy as well, and it’s the newest model they have released late 2019. Horrible experience.

 

The hardware that standalone GPS units run on is FAR inferior to any sort of modern tablet.

If you could pull the software off RM devices and put it on a modern iPad, it would likely be 10x as fast.

 

For the long run, it would probably be a good move on their part to release to the app stores and move away from the hardware market.

As of today most truckers use proprietary solutions primarily from RM or Garmin, but the innovation seems to be from the software only GPS developers and that will likely be where the future growth is. Devoting and supporting hardware just weighs them down. They risk becoming dinosaurs.

 

It takes about 4 months for orders to be placed and shipped from Asia to here. That's for hardware. Software is easy. It can be sent instantly. It has made my 770 LTD DEZL a much better unit. Of course on traffic they get that from a 3rd party, so it's a crap shoot. I usually access google or waze to see if it agrees with my Garmin.

 

You should check out TDP(Truck Driver Power) app, the navigation is great and the social stuff adds a bit of fun. Free on Android/iOS