Rand McNally Tripmaker RVND 7710 Warning

[Barnero]

I just received one thru Camping World. I'd advise you to STAY AWAY from them at least for a while. It appears this unit was a "hurry up and get it out the door" situation, andf all the development and product support was not in place when they started shipping them.

[jrwitt]

I hear you. Used to be a software developer for a major company. We had a favorite saying: "Why is there never enough time to do it right, but there is always enough time to do it over?"

Later I bought one of the first Blackberry Storm cell phones. Same issue. Wasn't ready for the market. One of the worst electronic devices I have ever purchased. I heard the 2nd edition was great, but Blackberry lost me as a customer because of the poor quality of the first one. Will never buy anything else from them because of the poor support. It wasn't that they weren't willing to support it. There were just so many bugs and there were no solutions. Must of had at least 4 or 5 major software supgrades in the two years I had it and still it was junk.

As for the Garmin, there was some discussion on this forum a few months ago. I remember a couple of people saying there is a trucker's GPS that worked really well for RVers. They said it had more practical applications for motorhomes than the Garmin. Maybe you can search the forums and find the discussion.

Jack

[Guest BillAdams]

I wish you would provide some information on which your post is based. What issues have you found?

[jmonroe]

I agree with Bill. What are the issues? I'd have thought most 'big' problems would have already have been dealt with, based on their experience with the mostly identical 5510. This is no longer their first rodeo.

[janandkathy]

I don't think Garmin makes this unit. I think Magillian does. Have not tried either the 55XX or 77XX because they are so new and the 77XX came out pretty quickly after the 55XX.

[sdennislee]

I found with the 5510 it was more of an user issue than a GPS issue. Once people took time to read the manual and the tutorials, the problems they thought they had went away.

[Barnero]

Have you seen what is available with the 7710?? About a week ago, their website is STILL not supporting the 7710.

[Barnero]

I have yet to buy a Garmin unit I was dissappointed with as with the 7710. It was a bad decision to release the unit without detailed data and support in place.

[HMillsJr]

I just bought a 7710 from Camping World.

What problems have been discovered?

Planning a trip out west after first of year, used my Tom Tom two years ago in smaller coach, now have a 38' and need more info that they say they provide.

Mills

Fairfield, OH.

2005 Fleetwood Expedition

63 VW with Maxie Taxi Body

[h2o340]

Good Afternoon. I purchased a 7710 directly from the manufacturer at a FMCA Rally in Madison, WI. I have used it considerably since that time and am extremely pleased with the unit and its settings.

I own a 42 ft. American Tradition and rely on the unit for my travels. To date, I certainly have not been disappointed and would recommend the purchase to those who drive a motor coach.

[whiteeagle]

Bought one at FMCA rally in Madison...Have only used it on two short trips and now on a 2000 mile journey ... It has done fine and I like the settings .. Have had to tilt it a couple of times to see the screen because it blurs out in bright sunlight more than it should , and it missed the entrance to the TopSail State Park campground by about 3 miles ..

Other than that, it has done well and I like the features of advance warning on speed limit changes, speed warnings, etc...

[slowe]

Mine also missed Topsail this summer by 3 miles, and put us on a one way,dead end street in Fayetteville N.C. We had to take the car off the tow dolly and the gps insisted our address was across the street, when in actuality it was 9 miles away.

These 2 problems were the only ones in thousands of travel miles.

I like the features.

[Krashpad]

I am trying to troubleshoot what seems to be a connection (battery) problem I plug in the little usb to both the wall charger and the vehicle charger and no indication what so ever of a charge. Then after about 1/2 hour down the road I get a low battery warning and then thats that. Rand is closed on weekends so here I am. Seems to be no way to open up the unit to check battery, anyway maybe I got a lemon.

[hermanmullins]

Take your usb cable into on of the cell phone stores and have them check out your cable. They will also have a car charger that will fit your GPS and they can plug in your GPS to see if it will charge on a different cable.

Hope this helps

[Krashpad]

OK I'll give that a try Herman.

The only reason I feel this may not be the case is that I've had it on wall charger, vehicle charger and also the USB to Laptop connection they also included and the one thing that makes me feel (now) that I have a bad unit is that when I had it plugged into the laptop through the usb I never got the unit to show up as one of the connected items on my laptop. I didn't put one and one together at that point but now realize that this was also a problem "seeing " the unit as far as the computer was concerned. Makes sense to me now , but before I didn't think along the lines of a bad connection right out of the box.

At this point I will be pulling through Kissimmee FL on Monday and might just return the unit for a new one at the CW where I bought this from online.

Anyone else have any other ideas?

[tjwentling@astound.net]

I see what is on line about the 7000 series however I am most interested in the 5510.

Any comments on this unit ??

Have been using a Garmin for years and very happy. Just wanted to get the RV additions that RM is pushing.

[Krashpad]

My unit was faulty out of the box and wouldn't recognize the usb cable or anyother connections. Camping World changed it out at the store and the new one works like a charm. Seems to have all the bells and whistles

[my86gw]

I like mine, so far the only issue is problem with glare, but positioning unit in right place and angle eliminates glare. So far works good.

[jbettner]

I purchased my 77 online. It worked great out of the box. Rand McNally is adding many many RV resorts to their data base. There is a way to recommend data changes direct to RM via satellite. We like the unit. So far have used on 1 10 day trip.

[bizsmith@yahoo.com]

I don't have the 77 but missing Topsail is not the fault of the GPS. Most GPS units will miss Topsail because coordinates for Topsail are wrong as furnished to the manufacturers. This is true of many locations that are problems with a GPS. It's best to have your paper maps as a backup.

You almost have to use the physical address or coordinates for some parks. I have run into a problem with using the name of a place many times. I don't care what GPS you have. I think many use the same data base.

[jmonroe]

A lot of times the GPS coordinates used by the GPS manufacturer are those of the mailing address for the campground/resort. Many times this is NOT the physical location. Of course they have no way of knowing this, unless the resort mentions it. Some do, at least on their web sites, but not all.

[smokeater75]

Hi Everyone, I am currently in Indio Ca. and have used the new 7710 for the past 1800 miles, I have the 7710 set up for me and my wife has our Garmin 660 Nuvi set up for her. I love the new 7710 I love the speed limit warnings, steep grade ahead, sharp turn etc. I think the unit is great. I bought it at Camping World, connected it to my lap-top and bingo I was up and running. I was sceptical at first and would have purchased another Garmin but they seem to be dragging their heels. I really don't have any complaints about the 7710. As far as process speed goes the two units seem to take turns beating each other so speed is not an issue. Just my 2 cents. Smokeater75.

[whiteeagle]

I just returned from a 3 month trip loop thru AL, FL,GA,Carolinas,Virginias,OH IL and WI..

Other than the Topsail Park issue, I liked how it performed and it's warnings / directions..

It correctly warned of a low clearance , two incidences of where I was apparently over the legal state length, (believe I'm at 63'), and speed limit changes,(and warnings), construction ahead, - and in one case ( intersection of 104/301 just north of Lady Lake FL) it clearly warned of low road clearance at a RR crossing... a REALLY bad one that had a road rise of probably 2 feet going over the tracks that would have torn everything out of the bottom of the MH..and if one had tried to make it over, would likely hang up the coach completely.... . it's probably the worst crossing over a set of railroad tracks that I've ever seen...... I saw two regular cars ( sports cars) turn around rather than attemting to drive over it also...It did have a warning sign about 50 feet in front of it but based on the condition of the scratches and groves on the pavement and rails, a lot of folks have not heeded the small warning...

Having just left a storage area, I initially did not have this Rand on yet ... stopped in time, turned it on and it clearly told me I was in the wrong place .. turned around, went to a different crossing intersection , once over the tracks, I came back past that intersection and it warned me approx .5 miles ahead to NOT take that turn ( did not have a route in it.. just using the map part at that point) .....got really lucky - another lesson learned.

[dnelson60559]

I also purchased mine at the Madison show - arrived in October and, aside for some operator errors, works fine. Rand's tech support has been VERY patient with me.

I have taken the 7710 on two trips (one to Kansas and one to Oklahoma - both from the Chicago area) without any problems.

[RoryTug]

I purchased a 7710 and loved the interface and big screen. It seemed very intuitive. After setting it up in my office, my wife (copilot) and I took it out to the coach. We were horribly disappointing with the screen quality. The screen is OLD tech. It is barely visible even though shaded in the coach. It was ONLY visible from directly in front. ANY deviation side to side washed out the screen. This made it unusable for us as my copilot does all the data entry, monitoring, etc, yet I still need to see it for use. It went back in the box and back to CW and we purchased the Dezel 565. The smaller screen is very visible. I have had Garmin in the past and find it easy to use. I cannot comment as to the accuracy of the 7710 as we never used it on the road. The Dezel is set up more for trucks and the 7710 was VERY RV friendly in its menus and database but the cheesy screen and case quality scared us off.