Recently Purchased (3 weeks ago) a Rand McNally 7710 for our new Coach and drove it home from Florida to Texas. These are my initial experiences.
What I like about it so far is... the 7 inch display. It is very easy to see. The tabs are also easy to see and read. The voice direction is clear, and the map colors are good. I did not experience the previous issues of super glare and not seeing it well. While a glare will hamper some visability, there is enough adjustment to help compensate which is acceptable. I also purchased the "glare hood" which helps. But if you mount it in the right position, it avoids some of this issue. I mount it on the upper left hand window pointing downward.
The mount is quite strong once engaged. But it has to be on glass. It doesn't stick to
the dash material. But once on the window, it doesn't move or fall off.
The voice (we chose the man's voice) is clear and precise and you can adjust the volume even for the "hard of hearing" (which I am not
We did have two issues....one minor in that the booklet that comes with it describes the unit with the buttons described in the wrong places. The customer service rep I called said they will fix that. I find this to be minor but also an oversight that shouldn't have occured.
The other problem and more frustrating is on our maiden trip from Florida the Charging cord you plug into the GPS then the Cigarrette lighter, broke almost immediately. The end of the plug that goes into the recepticle just broke off . So we had to charge the
GPS by AC to be able to use it. BTW , it will only hold a charge for about an hour and 20 minutes or so.
So when we hit the next Camping World we stopped to exchange the charging cord. They gave us another one without any issues. Now fast forward to yesterday. We flew to Calif for a week and rented a car. We packed the GPS with us. Used it when we got our rental car plugged in the charging cord to lighter recepticle and one hour later in LA traffic, our unit power went off. Well turns out the cord broke again in the same
exact place. Now I have read reviews of the 7710 and have not seen this as an issue, so I am not sure what to think, but for me its two for two.
Its Memorial day Weekend so when Tuesday comes around, I will call Rand McNally and have a discussion with someone other than a telephone rep. In my view this is a weak link that borders on Crap! Wouldn't it be nice if they made these kinds of cords as a universal type so one charging cord fits all mobile phones and other mobil devices such as GPS etc. THis would have at least provided us with a back up to be able to use our cell phone charging cords......
So I would say until they can replace this weak link.....buyer be ware. If they can't resolve this for me, we will get a refund. Its a shame because I like most of what it does.......
Ciao for now
)
Bob 2006 Monaco Camelot 40PDQ 
Linear Mode
