Looking for info on Cobra and Rand Mcnally GPS's

[layoutshooter]

Creating customized routing on a Garmin (for example) is a little complicated, but it becomes easy and natural after you've done it a couple of times. Some units make it easier by having the "Routes/Multiple" feature. You simply insert waypoints, or stopoff points, to force it to calculate the routing you want. Which is the same thing you do on the laptop, actually. Many Garmins (like mine) only offer a single waypoint, so customizing routing is a little more tricky (but still pretty easy once you've learned the unit and how it works), but other units allow 50 or more waypoints. The GPS being ON or OFF is irrelevant when customizing a routing with waypoints.

There's also Garmin Mapsource, which you can use to input amazingly detailed routing on the laptop, and then simply transfer that data to the Garmin standalone. You can also do that with Google Maps by saving the route as a .gpx file and importing that into the unit. Both are more work than just creating waypoints on the unit.

There are lots of ways to do what you want, it's just that you actually need a standalone to do them, and you need a mid-to-high end unit, as the el cheapo's don't have the required features.

As for that big laptop screen, 90% of it is extraneous information that you don't need or even look at. Going from a laptop to a small standalone, the screen size was by biggest apprehension, which turned out to be not a factor at all.

I was unaware that you could input from a computer to a Garmin. Few, if any, stores have REAL sales people who are trained in the use and features of the products they sell. Garmin, at least when I sold them, was NOT famous for training sales people and their customer service, for the 'personal units, was about the worst in the industry. I have asked at several retail outlets about inputting routing from a laptop to a stand alone and the answer that I always get is, "DUH?".

I am not sure what you mean by extraneous information. I like my ETA, which is ALWAYS in either EDT or EST times. I like the mile countdowns to the next turn and final destination. I like the speed display. One bit of extraneous information I do like is the elevation. I just enjoy that.

I STILL want the ability to turn off the receiver. We use our laptop based system in that mode A LOT.

What I want is a 'hybrid system'. I want it laptop based with a smaller 'slave display'. Any changes inputted by my co-driver could then be seen on the small display. Both my co-driver and I would have access to the display, which I cannot do with a stand alone.

What it boils down to is that I cannot buy what I want, no one makes it.

There is much that I do not like about the laptop systems. They are not very good at finding places and often not up to date. For the most part though they fit our needs a little better than a stand alone.

I would have to show you how we do things in person for you to understand fully how we use our system. Maybe someday.

 

[Dynamite 1]

i think we get that sometime if not most times you have to take a pre planned route for security reasons. the point is that with the right stand alone unit you can achieve the same results as you can with a laptop by using the way points. most times you would be surprised that once a few way points are put it that it might get your pre planned route. changing the route along the way is as easy as changing the the way points via adding or deleting them.

 

[Turtle]

Yeah, once I see how you do it, I can then let you know if you can do the same things on a standalone. As for extraneous information, the ETA and miles are all there, but the extraneous information is mainly just a whole lot of map area that's meaningless, as you still have to focus in and zero in on that little car and the areas you want to see. You can do that quicker with a smaller screen, as odd as that sounds.

 

[layoutshooter]

i think we get that sometime if not most times you have to take a pre planned route for security reasons. the point is that with the right stand alone unit you can achieve the same results as you can with a laptop by using the way points. most times you would be surprised that once a few way points are put it that it might get your pre planned route. changing the route along the way is as easy as changing the the way points via adding or deleting them.

I would have to have someone show me in person. To date, we have never been able to make one do what we want. Not saying it can't be done, just saying we have never been able too.

 

[Turtle]

Like most things, it's real easy if you know how. If you don't know how, it's a booger.

 

[lugnut1]

In the jungles of South America we once trained a monkey to pick small bunches of Bananas and bring them to us on the porch for breakfast. Our biggest problem was that once the banana tree became picked clean of bananas the monkey couldn’t figure out that a nearby tree would be ok to pick from. He became confused that a “new banana location” was what he needed seek out. We taught him how to get bananas from a new tree and breakfast was soon running smoothly with one exception, he would go each time to the original tree that was now barren before moving onto the new tree for picking bananas.

We had to retrain the monkey to a new tree each time the previous tree became barren, eventually he was coming back later and later for breakfast because he would follow the path to each of the now barren trees. What should we do, the poor little fellow was eager to get the bananas for us but he was obviously becoming overworked trying to supply us with a few bananas each day.

So, here’s what we did, we hired a local guy to bring us bananas each day for breakfast instead of the monkey. Now here’s where things got interesting, when the guy came with our bananas for breakfast the next day our monkey attacked him, scratching biting and screeching. It was brutal, and before we could stop the guy he had snapped the neck of our little monkey guy. It was sad to say the least. We dam near shot the guy on the spot but realized we had done something we should have known was a bad move. We hired a person to do a monkeys job.

The point is a stand-alone gps is in the monkey’s world for truck navigation.

 

[Turtle]

It's actually the PC based navigation systems which are going kicking and screaming. The first automotive GPS system was the Homer, and ran on a modified PC. It's neck was broken a long time ago. The reason GPS navigation has moved from laptops, where it was never really all that popular in the first place, to dedicated units and smartphones with integrated GPS receivers isn't because laptop-based navigation is superior.

I used a laptop for navigation for years before moving to a dedicated unit, and I'm fully aware of the pros and cons of each. I'm going to use whatever tool works the best and is the safest to interact with while driving. On both.accounts it's not even close, the standalone GPS unit wins. Just like paper maps, my laptop-based navigation has been relegated to emergency backup status.

 

[layoutshooter]

Like most things, it's real easy if you know how. If you don't know how, it's a booger.

I don't doubt it. I still believe that NO stand alone can do EVERY thing that I want. I know that no computer based system does, but they do come just a bit closer. Someone is going to have to show me the 'error of my ways' with these stand alone units.

I like Garmin units in general. The ONLY way I would change my mind is if Lowrance got their act together and put out auto/truck chart units as good as their boat units.

 

[Turtle]

Lowrance for boats, Garmin for roads. Was true back when you were selling them, still true today.

 

[layoutshooter]

Lowrance for boats, Garmin for roads. Was true back when you were selling them, still true today.

I would LOVE to see maps on auto units as good as those on the Lowrance boat units. Those are flat out darn good charts.

 

[zorry]

We have a mapping system on our phone. I usually pull up the picture of pu or del. often I'll get clues like "2nd driveway goes to dock area on west side of bldg."

 

[Turtle]

I use Google Navigator and Google Earth on the phone, as well. One advantage to Google is that it can often find a location by telling it the name of the business and the city/state, when none of the others can find the address. Sometimes the Google routing isn't the best, but once I can find the location with the phone I plug it into the Garmin using Browse Map and calculate the routing. Whatever works best, even if its more than one tool.