Rand McNally 7720 RV GPS

chris199 · 12-28-2012, 04:37 PM

Found it under the tree this year! Used it for a trip from Chattanooga to Nashville to the Philly burbs. I found it fairly easy to setup but you need to remember where the setup options are. There are a lot of features! Love it so far!

Set it up for my rig's length, height, weight, max amt of propane, etc. Setup custom Points of Interest from the RM website......cracker barrels, flying j's/pilot stops, diners driveins and dive locations. Also updated construction locations and received warnings. BTW.....you can configure how much notice you want on construction, speed limit changes, etc. Warns of steep grades up and down and sharp curves. All of these features works well. Has a speed warning option. I set it for 6 mph over speed limit and kind of like the warning. I don't need to speed more than 6 mph over the limit.

Display is large...not too big. No glare issues at all. Has option to switch to night display...works well. Night display is excellent.

I love the Points of Interest button on the display. Gives you what's coming up and you can filter based on food, fuel, etc. Excellent!

I used the hotspot option of my smartphone to keep the gps on the Internet and used the weather option. Tells you weather forecast for where you are and option to also see for your destination.

Im tempted to get the Traffic System radio for it but Im skeptical it will work well outside of metro areas.

One last test to complete.....approach a low clearance bridge and see what happens....

You can also tell it you are travelling w/out the RV and the RV features are shut down. Works like a normal gps at that point. I just leave it in RV MODE 100% of the time.

Oh....and a really nice feature....ranks high in the cool feature category....there is a dashboard display option....tells you a ton of info on one screen. Speed, sunrise, sunset times, distance to next manuever, % complete or current leg of trip, miles to go to complete leg, weather, arrival time, total hrs of trip, hrs driving, hours stopped, avg speed, avg moving speed, max speed, avg uphill speed, avg downhill speed, elevation. Love that display!

NoCellService · 12-28-2012, 04:53 PM

I am glad to hear you like the GPS. Santa is delivering one to me a little late this year (I think next Monday), but I am excited to run it thorugh the paces.

I have tried the traffic feature (Los Angles and San Francisco) on other models, like the Garmin and I found that it was not very accurate or it was time delayed.

I understand there is a place to connect a backup camera to the display, have you had the chance to try this? I was wondering how the picture looks compared to other displays.

chris199 · 12-28-2012, 05:10 PM

Have not tried the backup camera option. Sounds like I should pick up the camera so I can get back to you on that......

Also got some Motorola walkie talkies for Christmas so when we don't have cell service my DW and I can still get frustrated by her inability to give me good backup directions. LOL!

Might just give the camera a shot but not sure Ill spend the bucks. I use an extension mirror for aligning to Hensley. I get close, move the stinger from the truck to the trailer, align the stinger to the truck, then relocate stinger back to the truck. Before I got this process down, the hookup could take 5 min to 1 hour. Aligning the stinger is the secret. Now its 5 min pretty consistently. Backup, link up, and all is good. Works well. Not sure I really need the camera.......

NoCellService · 12-28-2012, 05:49 PM

I have no idea what you mean regarding the DW directions.

Actually this is one of the reasons I was thinking of the camera. I was toying with the idea of sticking a camera on my RV and trying to come up with marks on the picture which will give me an idea how far way I need an object in order to still lower my back door. Also a nice to have when I have to put the RV in storage by myself.

joestaz · 12-31-2012, 06:15 AM

Glad you like your Rand McNally. Thought about getting one but was told to wait until Woodalls and Trail Life merged which they have. I know that the old 7710 was set up with Woodalls campgrounds, do they also have Good Sam and KOA campgrounds.

Thanks

Brantlaker · 12-31-2012, 01:22 PM

Santa left one for me. I set it up for my fw and left for a trip trying it against the factory one in my DW's Lincoln. It routed me around a 12ft bridge as it should and worked just as good as DW's mileage on route was 1 mile different the 7720 was higher. POI was hard to navigate you have to be within 10-15 miles to find gas, food and lodging. the maps are clear and can be set to distance 1 2 3 miles to go for tolls, turns, sharp turns and windy roads. All in all It was several steps up from my 1 year old Garmin.

hoffbrew · 02-02-2013, 09:49 AM

How is everyone with this GPS now? Is there another model perfered now?

Htfiremedic · 02-02-2013, 02:13 PM

Mine crashed. It was replaced, no questions asked. Took a week or so. New one is fine.

Brantlaker · 02-03-2013, 05:30 AM

I just made a 2,000 mile trip from Brant Lake,NY to Venice,Fl. with one it worked fine. It is a bit overwhelming at times as it has so much info that you can use. I have the habit of changing the rout as I drive to the way I want to go and it picked up on it very fast. The first part of the trip I was not towing the FW and it tried to direct me away from Tunnels and low Bridges. the screen is big and picks up glare. Most of the last updates are good (updated on 1/23 before I left) most new changes were in but still had the old exits and old roads. overall i thinks it worked well I used it 3 times with the FW and once without. I only wish you could plot a course on a computer and transfer it to the GPS that way you would get the big picture of your trip.

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