Rand McNally Intelliroute TND 500 5-Inch Portable Truck GPS Navigator
| Overall rating: |
|
The Intelliroute TND 500 from Rand McNally is navigation you can trust. From the industry leader in truck routing, the makers of America’s number one trucker’s atlas with routing used by the largest carriers and shippers in the U.S. Features include Rand McNally proprietary road data with 35% more truck route information than the closet competitor, includes local regulations not founds on signs, includes information from the Truckers Friend National Truck Stop Directory, combine up to 10 stops for the most efficient route, create detours, avoid road segments, receive warnings for upcoming hazards, rate truck stops, and alert Rand McNally of a road change. Includes trucker business tools that help reduce manual work including mileage breakdowns, commercial-grade address book, quick planner, smart time feature to ensure on-time arrivals, Rand McNally Motor Carriers Road Atlas, and timers and logs. Other features include truck-specific routing, construction updates, enhanced text-to-speech direction, big screen with large icons, enhanced speakers, and car mode for use in a standard passenger vehicle. Specs include 5 inch screen, 4GB memory, 480×272 resolution, Sirfstar III antenna, maps of US and Canada. Package contents include intelliroute TND 500 GPS device, windshield mount, truck charger with extended length cable, home charger, and USB cable.
Features
- Truck GPS from the leaders in truck routing
- 5 inch screen with big icons for easy viewing
- Enhanced text-to-speech and driver configurable warnings
- Trucker business tools to help reduce manual work
- Can also be used in standard passenger vehicles at the touch of a button
- Dimensions (W x H x L): 5 x 5 x 8 inches
- Weight: 2 pounds
Well Done!
I have finally gotten home to pick up my new R McN TND 500. It works very well, and though R McN made it, my supplier, The Gadget Pros, has bent over backwards with all my questions and comments. The Gadget Pros deserves a big part of my satisfaction. There are a couple very minor items, and one or both might become apparent to me as I continue to use and become more familiar with it.
Very dissapointed! You still want it?… Take mine!
Im a Truck driver and the TND is Not Trucker Approved! I’ve been using the Garmin 760 GPS for years. Then I decided to Step-up to the Rand McNally TND 500. That was the worst decision possible! Ok, I’m gonna be fair so I’ll start with the best qualities of the TND…The Suction-cup mount is superior to my garmin’s and the screen is a half inch bigger and it automatically keeps up with the miles I drive in each state. ok, that’s it! It goes down-hill from there!
So much is wrong I dont know where to begin! 1st the crappy maps is nowhere near the precision of my Garmin. On the TND you can’t tell when you are approaching a curve until you’re already in it. This is important as the Garmin maps shows you the curve in advance scaled perfectly so you can decide if you need to adjust your speed. Next the zoom function on the TND is Horrible. Unlike My Garmin, the TND does not have a scale-bar to help you guage actual distances on a map. If you do find a zoom level that you are comfortable with, it will only stay zoomed for about 15 seconds and then revert back th the factory set level.
The TND maps does not show state boarders, the state hwys and residential roads are the same color, there is no route function, adding way points is a hassle, you cannot slide the maps with your fingertip, there is no cursa. Instead, the TND has cross-hairs that you can’t move. Yeah, the TND is louder but without quality. It actually sounds better turned down. My Garmin’s voice sounds sexy and pleasent to the ear. The TND sounds like a robot built in the 1980’s. The TND is very slow to calculate routes compared to my 760.
Bottom line…Rand McNally, my best advise…go buy a Garmin…Make it better and call it a Rand McNally GPS. Because your maps software need to be equal to or better than Garmins “Right now it’s not even close” or the only people will buy this product are people who are misinformed and dont know any better “myself included”. That is why my 7 day old TND is for sale for whaterer I can get and I have gone back to my Garmin 760.
It works
I just finished cdl school and since i’m going over the road i wanted to buy rand mcnally since we used their maps for our training so this gps like some other truck gps i’ve seen you can set it up the truck information like height,lenght,weight,etc, as soon as i bought this gps i wanted to test it, so what i did was I set it up as if i was driving a 13′6 truck, 53′ lenght and 80,000 lbs, etc but I wasn’t driving the truck, i was in my car, so i intentionally took wrong turn (not the route the gps was suggesting) where i knew there were low bridge and as soon as the gps re-calculate the turn i took, I got a warning beep and a message saying vertical clearance so it worked in the 2 different bridges i tested it, i like the extras it has like you can find any truck stop or rest area within your route or near where you are now and also i like that it can tell you the miles from point a to point b instantly
Dislike: it also have a couple of things i don’t like one of them is that gps is supposed to warn you or suggest a detour where there are major road construction, so i also wanted to test the gps to an address passing a route where I knew big trucks are not allow and this gps didn’t warn me, actually It kept directing me to go that way, that was pawtucket bridge in rodhe island which has been under construction for a couple of years now and there is a $3,000 fine if you drive the truck i specified above if you cross it, so if i was driving a ridge i could get a fine but I sent a message to rand mcnally and i think they made the correction, and the other thing i don’t like is that in the manual it shows in the different software features that i couldn’t see in the unit itself like set up language for sounds and warning but that’s minor things
Conclusion: i guess my suggestion is BUY the gps but you still need to keep an eye on road signs as you are supposed to and use this gps for truck route, mile or log and hopefully this gps will save you a ticket or a headache for anything you missed or getting stuck in a bridge, one ticket this gps will save you, will basically pay for itself and if you buy it and you see any road contruction or detour that will last for several months send a message to them so it can be update if you decide to buy it make sure you hook it up to a computer and check for update, i got 2 update in 3 in less than weeks i own it
Save your money!
Unit was unresponsive after following the set up instructions, wouldn’t read its memory card & wouldn’t upload start up programs to my laptop.
It was a waste of my time.
Best trucker Gps so far,
Ok I will try to be brief. First you must run the update or you will be annoyed with it. It has some major flaws right out of the box but they are fixed with the first update. It tracks all of your miles in every state that you drive in and then you can have them displayed by date for fuel taxes that’s why I bought it, and so far that has worked correctly. The gps works well but the maps get a little shaky in smaller towns and it will direct you down some tight roads. some times I have found it takes me past the easy on/off entrance to a plant and then has me making tight turns and driving on roads through town only to find there was a huge road that went straight to the entrance. But again I think RandMc will fix these issues in later updates. I have been really glad that i had the GPs unit a bunch of times it got me out of some crazy situations and I generally trust the unit now so I do recomend it, maybe wait a while for a price drop though if you already have a gps.