Don't waste your money on Rand McNally GPS

[paulandkaci]

Bought the Good Sam Rand McNally GPS 7735. I really wanted to like this device. I like the Good Sam trip planner so it seemed this would be a good pairing. The size, touch screen, and navigation met my expectations. First two uses after dusk or at night, no problems. The we took a day trip! Even with the Sun Shade literally can not see the screen with bright ambient light, even worse with Sunglasses. Since CW will not take back opened electronics, I have a very expensive night time only GPS. Don't buy it.


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[BuddyRay]

If you have a smartphone (iPhone or android) you really owe it to yourself to try the WAZE app.
Positives:
1) the most accurate maps out there because they are crowd edited. Anyone can become a map editor - I'm a level 2 editor and update the map all the time. Editors have to prove themselves over time and be reviewed by higher level editors. But even if you don't want to learn to edit yourself, if you post a map error or question, one of the volunteer editors will get back to you very quickly because they are earning higher ranks by successfully resolving map issues. Google recently paid a ton of $ for Waze to get their maps.
2) its really cheap
3) The maps are in the cloud so you always have the latest.
4) there is real time traffic, accident, and police data. Every Waze driver, and there are hundreds of thousands of them in each state, is automatically contributing to this data just by driving- and manually contributing accident and police info.
5) Because of the real time data and massive stored data on transit times for each road segment by time of day, Waze routes to avoid traffic, construction and accidents better than any GPS out there.
6) Turn by turn spoken directions with street names.
7) An amazing search function that looks for addresses in your contacts and in Google. You can type things like "Homedepo" and will pull up the 2 or 3 closest. Enter "Campground" and it will pull up a list by proximity.

Negatives
1) No RV specific mode (yet)
2) Uses your cell data at a high but not excessive rate.
3) uses cell battery at a very high rate - you need to plug up.
4) you can lose cell connection for a few minutes (Waze caches maps ahead) but not for long. The ONLY time this has ever been a problem for me was in the Big Bend area of Texas.

It's cheap to try - check it out.


Buddy Ray - Atlanta
---------------
Jayco Eagle HT 26.5RLS
Ford F150 Lariat, 3.5L V6 Ecoboost
Max Tow Pkg, 36gal tank
Reese Sidewinder and Reese Titan 16k hitch

[Vaneta]

Originally Posted by paulandkaci

Bought the Good Sam Rand McNally GPS 7735. I really wanted to like this device. I like the Good Sam trip planner so it seemed this would be a good pairing. The size, touch screen, and navigation met my expectations. First two uses after dusk or at night, no problems. The we took a day trip! Even with the Sun Shade literally can not see the screen with bright ambient light, even worse with Sunglasses. Since CW will not take back opened electronics, I have a very expensive night time only GPS. Don't buy it.


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You're exactly right on that and since I have posted extensively on the good Sam version of that Rand McNally, I won't repeat myself but you can't see it in the daytime, you can't get updates to work on Windows or Mac and the algorithms they use frequently have you turn off a perfectly good road to do a side road that is longer both distance and time wise. And no the settings are not wrong. I won't even give mine to a friend. It's laying on my desk while I went and spent several hundred more dollars to go back to a Garmin. I really like having a GPS rather than using my phone on longer trips with the RV

[Larry G.]

Our 7710 works fine and would buy another if the time came.

Oh...I believe most manufacturers GPS's may be hard to see in the sun...that's not an excuse not to buy.

[Mustang65]

[QUOTE=BuddyRay;456419]If you have a smartphone (iPhone or android) you really owe it to yourself to try the WAZE app.

We use this just to see where all the officers of the law are hiding out... not that we are speeding towing the trailer (62 in a 70 zone). I would say that on I75 between the GA mountains and Clearwater FL area, they were well over 90% right on with their inputs... thanks to the other drivers. We drive with the phones plugged in, Windows tablet for the rearview camera and occasional web search for questions needing immediate answers.

We use, believe it of not, MS Streets and Trips for a backup and between the Rand McNally and it they do fine. We select our destination in Rand and verify with Streets Map. After it has been checked we head out... less headaches.

Yes that is a homemade tablet stand made out of PVC.
Don

[paulandkaci]

Originally Posted by Larry G.

Our 7710 works fine and would buy another if the time came.



Oh...I believe most manufacturers GPS's may be hard to see in the sun...that's not an excuse not to buy.

I can only speak to the 7735. Being a gadget geek I have found it not uncommon these days that manufacturers rush to market to have the latest and greatest with only lab testing not real life use. This is about the 15th GPS unit of various brands I have owed and based on that comparison this model has the poorest screen of any. The screen technology is not new, I have a Garmin 64st used for hiking and you can view the screen in direct noon sunlight. The poor screen on this model is a shame, many of the other features are outstanding. This one will likely be heading to eBay auction in the next few days.


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[koko]

We have the Rand McNally Good Sam and love it. We call it Bossy Bob the Backseat Driver, because he almost gives us too much info. We've used it in conjunction with our brand new Garmin, and their directions always concur.