14 DAY TRIAL // After taking a look yesterday at TomTom's latest offering for professional drivers, it's now about time to check out two new products of this type, namely the IntelliRoute TND 510 and 710 from Rand McNally, designed specifically to meet the needs of truck drivers.
Given the fact that they must cater to the needs of truckers and professional drivers that spend a lot of time on the roads, the 5-inch IntelliRoute TND 510 and the 7-inch IntelliRoute TND 710 navigators pack certain specific features that one wouldn't normally encounter in the case of standard products of this type.
For example, beside featuring a slimmer profile, the new PNDs also offer such enhancements as a Virtual Dashboard providing key driving-related metrics, a traffic predictor, enabling truckers to opt for the roads that, traditionally, have less traffic, as well as as the necessary support for receiving real-time traffic information.
Other very useful features provided by the IntelliRoute navigators include the Enhanced Quick Planner feature, plus Multi-Stop Entire Route Preview and Enhanced Voice Warnings, both of which have been specifically designed in order to make life easier for truckers on very long journeys.
Plus, the new IntelliRoute TND units also come packed with louder speakers, that will certainly come in handy within noisy truck cabins, as well as an oversized suction cup, plus a longer than normal power cable, also particular useful in tall truck cabins.
Also available with the new TND units are the Trucker Business Tools, meant to help self-employed truckers maximize their profits.
Now, moving on to the topic of pricing and availability, we'll have to mention that the IntelliRoute TND line of GPS products is available in stores as we speak, pricing being set at around $349 for the 510 and $449 for the 710, which are fairly OK, given the advanced features they have in store.