Wednesday, January 08, 2014

New Garmin RV 760 GPS

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida (high 64, low 54)

We survived the arctic blast that has covered most of the country.   Yes, the cold made it down here to Florida and even the Florida Keys had some pretty chilly weather. I think our blogger friends Rick and Paulette were in the only place that actually had warm temperatures.

Despite the prediction of record lows, that didn’t happen, although it was plenty chilly.  I don’t think our overnight low the past two nights was below 35 or 36, but you would have thought we were expecting below zero temperatures because of all the fuss that was made before hand.  

We started to get caught up in all the pre-cold front hype, until we remembered just a few weeks ago we were up in the mountains and lived through a few nights where the temperature dropped to 17 degrees.   We’re tough, we can take a little cold weather!

Now, by the week-end there is a possibility that we will be having record temperatures again.  Record highs!   The prediction for the week-end is 82-83 degrees.   It will sure feel nice!  Remind me not to whine about the heat, will ya?

 

We have been Amazon’s best customer lately.   Yesterday we got a new ladder for the boat and a new GPS for the motorhome.  It’s sure fun getting deliveries, isn’t it?

Our old GPS for the motor home was the Garmin Dezl 560 truckers GPS.    We liked it a lot, but after seeing Pat and Ron’s Garmin RV 760 GPS, we decided to upgrade.  Here is the Amazon link.   Please note, this is the one for RV’s, and lifetime maps is included.   I believe they also make a 760 that is not made for RV’s.

Some of the features:


  • Large 7" high-resolution touchscreen display: 800 x 480 pixels; WVGA TFT color display with white backlight
  • Includes free lifetime map and traffic updates - Provides RV-specific services and vendors, repair shops, truck stops and a comprehensive list of nationwide repair and tow facilities (including those offering after-hours road service)
  • Specialized RV routing based on customizable restrictions including height, weight, width and length
  • Cautions and advisories include risk of grounding, lateral wind, narrow road, sharp curve, steep hill, tree overhand and state borders
  • Voice-activated navigation means RV 760LMT responds intelligently to your verbal commands. Just talk to it. Comparable with Garmin wireless back up camera
  •  

    The larger 7inch screen is nice in a motor home, since you’re not sitting as close to the dash as in a car.

    You can see how much larger it is compared to our old Garmin 560 Dezl.   The old Garmin actually looks larger in the photo than it does in real life.

     

    760 GARMIN GPS

    The feature that sold us on the upgrade was the fact that it’s supposed to guide you as to which lane you should be in.  In a large city, that’s a nice feature.   I’ll let you know how that works out when we test it out a little more. 

    As in our Dezl GPS, it allows you to put in the length, height and width of your rig.  Hopefully, that will keep us from any low bridges or non rv friendly roads.

    Pat and Ron love theirs.  Pat is the driver, and she says having this one took a lot of stress out of driving in big cities.   It has voice recognition, so you no longer have to program it with a keyboard.

    I’m not so sure I love the voice recognition on the new 760.  It doesn’t seem to work nearly as well as my  Droid phone.   We’ll have to see how it works out as we use it more. 

    One improvement Garmin made was their new “Garmin Express” link.   It registers the new product for you and then you can update the maps directly from there.   It works with all of your Garmin GPS’s.  I never downloaded the maps on the old unit, because it never would work for me.   I’m happy to say with Garmin Express I was able to download the new maps to both the new unit and the old one. Yay for me!

    It also allowed me to download all our favorite places onto the new GPS.  Yay again!   

    Here is the link for Garmin Express.  If you have an older Garmin, this will allow you to add it, and upgrade maps, or transfer your favorite locations to another GPS.  

     

    We’re off to the gym today, and hopefully we’ll be able to take another kayak trip when it warms up this week-end. 

    16 comments:

    1. Interesting. Let us know how you like it after using it for a while. Can you switch back and forth from RV to car mode?

      ReplyDelete
      Replies
      1. Yes Judy, you can. It's quite easy to go from car to RV mode. It might be nice option for you since it's large enough you could actually see it while driving.

        Delete
    2. I see that your old GPS shows elevation... does the new one? I like the lane change feature of the new one... will be looking forward to future posts about it all.

      ReplyDelete
      Replies
      1. I like the elevation feature too, and yes, the new one also can show elevation. You have your choice of several things it can show. Here in Florida we aren't interested much in elevation...since there isn't any. :)

        Delete
    3. We got the RV Rand McNally last year and really like it. t also tells you well ahead what lane to get in. Well maybe not what lane, but it does say "keep to the right or left" and your exit will be on the right or left. It is a bit unreliable about the "curves ahead. Sometimes saying there is one, or saying it is to the right when it is to the left. It also knows how tall we are and that we do not make u-turns.

      ReplyDelete
      Replies
      1. We haven't checked it out too much so I'm anxious to see how it does on the interstate about which lane to be in.

        Delete
    4. Thanks for the heads up on the new GPS. Paul threatens to buy a new one each time ours does something stupid. He has that one on his list to look at now.

      ReplyDelete
    5. Good information on the new GPS. Thanks. We dumped our GPS a long time ago in favor of a navigator using blown up google maps. The GPS would make far too many mistakes and sometimes took us around the block to get to a place we were sitting in front of. I'll be interested in how you like it as you use it.

      ReplyDelete
      Replies
      1. I know we will like it, because it's a Garmin and not too much different than the old one. However, we are GPS people and much prefer them to using maps.....even though they can make mistakes. We have out maps available and also my Droid is most helpful showing a Google Earth view of where we are, so I can see the place we're looking for from above. Helps to make sure the GPS is taking you the right way. If you didn't like your old GPS, I doubt you would like this one either.

        Delete
    6. I have to check it out. I have a Magellan that I cannot upgrade so it's life expectancy on my dashboard is quickly coming to an end.

      ReplyDelete
    7. Nice GPS!! I like the features of this one...might need to look into getting one in the near future!!

      ReplyDelete
    8. Sounds like a nice one. We have the Rand McNally also and sometimes it takes you the long way. I still have to refer to the atlas just to make sure. The sharp turn ahead command can get annoying on the curvy back roads...

      ReplyDelete
      Replies
      1. In an RV sometimes the long way is the best way! I believe we can turn off the sharp turn command. I would imagine it would get old in the mountains.

        Delete
    9. Talk about a widescreen GPS - you've got it!

      We switched to a smaller Garmin GPS last year and love it.

      ReplyDelete
    10. Thanks for the update on the GPS. We still don't even have and old one. Just Microsoft Streets and trips and the nice feature we use on our I-phone. Maybe someday...

      ReplyDelete
    11. we upgraded to a Garmin nuvi 2555 last year for our TOAD because the old Garmin did not have free map upgrades. Unfortunatley when I did my first map upgrade we got a warning that there was not enough memory in the new GPS to get the full US maps loaded. Had to opt to get the southeast US only. This kinda teed me off, why would anyone buy a GPS if you could not get the entire US maps? Has anyone run into this before with a Garmin? I went out and bought a 32gig micro sim card. Have not installed it yet in the new garmin but will do soon as we have a trip planned soon.

      ReplyDelete

    Please feel free to leave comments. We love to read them! To contact me directly you can send e-mail to rvtravels2@yahoo.com