890 gps

[sojo]

New to the trailering community, wondering if anyone uses the Garmin 890 gps. What do you like and hate about it. Thanks

 

[Jim]

New to the trailering community, wondering if anyone uses the Garmin 890 gps. What do you like and hate about it. Thanks

Welcome to RV Forums!

Everyone on this forum seems to love the Garmin 890. I'm not one of them, lol. I just kind of "like" mine. But I live in a small town, and apparently Garman hasn't kept their maps up in my area cuz my 890 can't find its way to the grocery store without taking a 30 mile detour.

But it does have a ton of awesome configurations that you can play with, and for the most part, once you get out of Franklin, NC, it seems to work pretty good. Everyone I know uses a minimum of 2, and sometimes 3 different devices anyway, and that helps the route honest and minimizes the detours.

 

[Rich W.]

Mine occasionally chooses a weird route, and when I choose a different direction, it takes quite a while for it to figure out some “recalculating” is in order, but overall I’m satisfied.

Its a good enough tool, lots of nice features, the screen is the right size (I dont have 1090 envy but I wouldn't want a smaller one either…), and since its an RV product you input your rig type and dimensions and it gives warnings about low overpasses, sharp turns, bridge weight limits, grades, etc.

I think you can get live traffic on it too if its connected to wifi somehow. I don’t bother with that and instead augment mine with google maps running at the same time on a dash mounted ipad so I can use both for what their worth and make my own decisions on where to go and what to do.

Here’s a pic from the last trip. Mount for the ipad is just a cheap universal amazon CD slot unit. This is an 11” ipad pro and I’m going to use an old ipad mini from now on, but this gives an idea of using both to navigate:

 

[JRW-NAW]

We prefer the 1090 becuase of the larger screen size.

Safe Travels.

 

[DKRITTER]

We have a 1090 which is the big brother to the 890 and I think it's the best system we have had.

A couple of things to note about RVs and GPS systems is first, do get one which is designed for RVing it will help you stay out of trouble. Several years ago google maps sent us down a residential street with a cul-de-sac, that was a lot of fun in a 5th wheel.

Never trust any GPS system always proof your route before you head out.