Anyone tried this GPS yet? 7" screen looks nice. Played around with it in the store and I wasn't able to modify the route. That's a deal breaker.

About the only products that you can use to customize the routes to match your company-supplied legal truck routes are Streets & Trips and Street Atlas, and of the two of them, I much prefer Streets & Trips because the maps are far better and the product is much more intuitive and easier and faster to use.

You're kidding.

I've been using S&T since 2007 and if I can't find a GPS that allows me to plan my route like Streets, I will buy one of those little net books and put Streets on it. It's the same price more or less.

Since I use my laptop for many other things besides just for trip planning and navigation, and I will always have a laptop in my truck no matter what, Streets & Trips for me is a much cheaper and better solution in my opinion. The only thing I was missing with Streets & Trips was being able to search and route to truck specific POIs until my wife found and bought for me the Truck Stops Plus template last year for Christmas. Thus, since she discovered the Truck Stops Plus for me I couldn’t be more fat and happier.

I was at the terminal the other day doing a 34-hour restart and I talked to several drivers that bought the new Rand McNally GPS. Anyway, they are telling me you also have to have a laptop to download all the updates. In addition, some of them told me that they already have been routed down restricted route roads and roads with low clearances and on roads that are legal for trucks, a lot of the time they are being told that they are on roads not legal for trucks and told to make a u-turn. They also said that when you search for small towns, a lot of them aren’t in the Rand McNally, but when you look it up on google or in Streets & Trips they can easily find it.

One of them told me that he searched for a truck stop while sitting at a truck stop just to play with it and the GPS came back with no truck stops in the area. Yet, he said besides the truck stop he was parked at there was a truck stop right across the street and two more on the other side of the Interstate.

Another one told me that his finds truck stops ok, but a lot of time when it routes to a truck stop, the GPS sends him about two or three exits further down, only to turn him around and then send him back to the correct exit. This guy also said that he’s found a lot of truck stops where the GPS told him to turn right, but when he got there he could see it on the left. He also said that most of them were off by a few hundred yards as well.

With the exception of the guys that had just recently bought theirs, they seemed for the most part to all be pretty disappointed and said that if the bugs aren’t fixed soon that they planned to return it to get their money back. In fact, a couple of the guys had already returned theirs and got their money back.

Truck Stops Plus template huh? I'll have to search for that.

I agree 100% with you on S&T and the other options out there but I was searching for a GPS as a gift and I'm not sure he's computer literate enough for a laptop so I thought the stand alone units may have improved in the 3 yrs since I looked at them.

What version are you using?
Are you using the "S&T Keys" add on?

Has anyone tried the new Cobra 7700 or the new truck version of Garmin 465t?

I’m using Streets & Trips 2010 together with the Truck Stops Plus 2010 template. I downloaded Streets & Trips 2010 from Microsoft’s website and used it for the 60 day free trial, and when the 60 day free trial expired, I bought the 2010 version at Sam’s for $28.00.

However, I’m not using S & T keys with it yet because as for as I know it hasn’t been made available yet. I had gotten S & T keys for the 2009 version of Streets & Trips from one of my buddies and liked using it a lot. I hope they come out with a 2010 version.

Earlier this year, my brother in law bought the 465T even though I had been trying to convince him to use a laptop instead, but because he had never used a computer before he was afraid of them. Anyway, he ended up returning the 465T and got his money back and then decided to buy a laptop instead. Now he is a Facebook fanatic and wondered how he did without a computer for all those years. He also now uses Streets &Trips with the Truck Stops Plus also and loves it.

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That's interesting. I tried them both and found Street Atlas to be easier and more intuitive and I have used it for 6 years, now. If Streets and Trips is using the same maps as Bing, I'd say it has better maps.

As for accuracy . . I'm generally very satisfied but it's not unusual to find discrepancies between any 2 or more route sources. I've had situations where Delorme didn't agree with the (whatever it is) company subscription, where Bing didn't agree with Google and so on and so forth. I only get into trouble when I input point A and point B and then hit the road without double checking. I've only been on a CT parkway once and that was probably the only stretch I could get on and get off without encountering a low bridge or a cop. The company subscription recently put me on a low clearance and a low bridge weight on back to back loads in PA. Fortunately, PA has a lot of experience with these matters and they post them pretty well . . but you have to be paying attention.

In order of priority, I'd say triple check NY, PA and New England; double check the rest of the east and give everything else at least the once over . . . I had one last night (El Monte, CA) where DeLorme had my left turn 4/10ths of a mile beyond the correct turn and I caught it only because the light turned red. As for truck stops, hotels and restaurants, use the fly over or bird's eye functions. It can confirm a location and even the correct entrance. Get a laptop and an aircard and you can find or check those from just about anywhere because you're not going to get that with a stand alone GPS.

Beyond that, I can't imagine downsizing from my 15 or 17" inch screens . . 7 might work but I don't "see" the value in a matchbook sized screen.

If you can use Windows, Word, Excel, Outlook, and other familiar Microsoft programs, then you can use Streets & Trips right out of the box with no problems at all. Indeed, I never read the instructions and today I would consider myself a power user. It just can't get any easier or more intuitive.

Whereas with Street Atlas there was no rhyme or reason to it and it was like an old DOS program with a gui shell added to it. It is and was much harder to learn. Not to mention that the maps compared to the Streets & Trips' Navteq supplied maps suck and can't even come close to competing.

In addition, you can plan a trip, zoom in and out, get bing maps, and do so many more things much, much faster than you can do the same thing in Street Atlas. As a matter of fact, there isn't any software or hardware available anywhere that does a better or faster overall job of trip planning.

Nevertheless, I do agree with you that a laptop is the way to go for many reasons that people won't ever realize until they use a laptop themselves.

In any event, Streets & Trips alone is a superior product to Street Atlas. However, Streets & Trips combined with the Truck Stops Plus template, which adds more than 10,000 pinpoint accurate truck specific POIs is unbelievably nice, and as for as I'm concerned by far is the best overall solution for truck drivers bar none.

Oh yeah...I've been using Streets & Trips on a daily basis since 2006 and in all those years I simply synchronized my company supplied truck routes in Streets & Trips. However, unlike you I've never been routed down a restricted route, a route with a low clearance, or low weight bridge.

Now my final directions to the shipper or consignee are a different story altogether since they come directly from other truck drivers. Thus, I always check those final directions if available before I ever drive them to ensure that they are legal for 18 wheelers as I have found a lot of those directions to not only be off, but also to be on restricted route roads or roads with low clearances.

It's also one of the reasons I have been using a Verizon aircard since 2006 as well.