Friday, August 12, 2011
Thursday, August 4, 2011
TomTom or, the GPS Saga
Back while I was driving truck I got a GPS, and there-in lies a story.
I saved my pennies for over a month, and bought a Rand McNally TND 700. $500, but it was designed and programmed for truckers by the same people that write and publish the trucker maps and truck stop guides, and it was supposed to have the best info built in. Bridge heights were supposed to be considered, trip and route planning with single or a pair of drivers, fuel stops; all these were supposed to be included.
I had been using the GPS in my LG Rumor phone, but I was also very aware that it had no consideration for the size of vehicle I was driving. I was hoping for an easy way out.
After two very short trips, less than 150 miles total, I returned the TND 700 and got my money back. While my cell phone GPS had never steered me wrong, the TND consistently ran me the long way around, consistently led me off the truck routes. And I paid over $500 for this functionality! And I was only clearing $150 a week at the time!
But I still wanted a GPS. The screen on my LG Rumor is too small to see, and it can be used as either a phone OR a GPS, but not both at the same time, which is rather inconvenient. So, I started looking.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend 2010 I spent the night in a WalMart parking lot. I went in the store and picked up some groceries. On Black Friday, this WalMart had the TomTom Ease for $50 or $60 (don't remember now). I figured that was worth a try.
The Ease did me pretty good. I never did quite trust it, and always did my trip and route planning and used the TomTom to help keep me on route and schedule, mostly using it for daily running. I would pick a landmark a few hours ahead and route the TomTom to it so I would know time to my next stop. Worked well. I did rely on it exclusively for one trip that I took in which I was short on time, and didn't do any backup. When it said I had reached my destination in the middle of nowhere I called the customer and asked for directions and told them where I was. The first question I was asked was "Are you using a TomTom?" seems that TomTom users always had this problem.
I've been using it since for navigation learning my way around the Puget Sound. It seems as though any secondary (or lesser) roads that are less than 5 years old it knows nothing about, otherwise pretty accurate and the ETA has always been within a few minutes. And since the vehicle I'm driving has a flaky speedometer (always reads high, between 15% and 50% high!) I've been using it as my speedometer.
But last night when I hit the power switch for the trip home nothing happened. It had been working OK just a couple of hours earlier. Even after charging all last night nothing happened when I hit the power switch.
I need to check the battery voltage, and I might pop the cover off and glance inside for obvious problems. But I'm going to miss it.
I saved my pennies for over a month, and bought a Rand McNally TND 700. $500, but it was designed and programmed for truckers by the same people that write and publish the trucker maps and truck stop guides, and it was supposed to have the best info built in. Bridge heights were supposed to be considered, trip and route planning with single or a pair of drivers, fuel stops; all these were supposed to be included.
I had been using the GPS in my LG Rumor phone, but I was also very aware that it had no consideration for the size of vehicle I was driving. I was hoping for an easy way out.
After two very short trips, less than 150 miles total, I returned the TND 700 and got my money back. While my cell phone GPS had never steered me wrong, the TND consistently ran me the long way around, consistently led me off the truck routes. And I paid over $500 for this functionality! And I was only clearing $150 a week at the time!
But I still wanted a GPS. The screen on my LG Rumor is too small to see, and it can be used as either a phone OR a GPS, but not both at the same time, which is rather inconvenient. So, I started looking.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend 2010 I spent the night in a WalMart parking lot. I went in the store and picked up some groceries. On Black Friday, this WalMart had the TomTom Ease for $50 or $60 (don't remember now). I figured that was worth a try.
The Ease did me pretty good. I never did quite trust it, and always did my trip and route planning and used the TomTom to help keep me on route and schedule, mostly using it for daily running. I would pick a landmark a few hours ahead and route the TomTom to it so I would know time to my next stop. Worked well. I did rely on it exclusively for one trip that I took in which I was short on time, and didn't do any backup. When it said I had reached my destination in the middle of nowhere I called the customer and asked for directions and told them where I was. The first question I was asked was "Are you using a TomTom?" seems that TomTom users always had this problem.
I've been using it since for navigation learning my way around the Puget Sound. It seems as though any secondary (or lesser) roads that are less than 5 years old it knows nothing about, otherwise pretty accurate and the ETA has always been within a few minutes. And since the vehicle I'm driving has a flaky speedometer (always reads high, between 15% and 50% high!) I've been using it as my speedometer.
But last night when I hit the power switch for the trip home nothing happened. It had been working OK just a couple of hours earlier. Even after charging all last night nothing happened when I hit the power switch.
I need to check the battery voltage, and I might pop the cover off and glance inside for obvious problems. But I'm going to miss it.
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