Fleet 670 - initial impressions

There was a recent thread here opened on the Garmin Fleet 670 device based upon some offerings of them on eBay. Well, I started checking eBay and found one recently being offered as an auction with a very low starting bid. I bid a dollar or two above the starting price and won the auction as the only bidder. I now own and have a fleet 670 and thought I'd share my findings with you. Feel free to ask questions as it may help me find more features of this unusual device.

First off, this is a commercial trucker device and for ordinary folks like us, would be difficult to buy new. I got mine at a steal of a price used and it came with lots of extra hardware and an installed trucker app which confirms to me that this was used in commercial trucking before being taken out and sold on eBay.

My very preliminary findings:

Facts worth knowing

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/168656

This is a 6.1" diagonal screen GPS with a powered mount intended for commercial truckers.

The fleet 670 can be configured for a truck or automobile. I'll have to explore this more as I've tried it in automobile mode but have just set up my Subaru Crosstrek as a Truck with dimensions, weights, etc. and will have to see how the fleet 670 behaves in truck mode.

Map/software/backups/voices/CustomPOIs/etc. behave just like automotive GPS devices and use Garmin Express and POI Loader computer programs.

It is a newer model meaning that the expected School Zone alerts exist and can use FM and HD traffic receivers but it does not offer all the various alerts (railroads/curves/etc.) that the high end new automotive devices offer and can not use a smartphone app for traffic/weather/etc.

It uses TTS3 voices so all the optional voices (note to female Aussie voice lovers ) can be installed.

It comes installed with image and video viewers, ability to add apps, has many internal file folders like Android, etc., that will require more exploration on my part. Some of these are Miracast which apparently allows the display to be sent to a TV or large monitor and of course, has both wifi and Bluetooth and can be paired with a cell phone for phone calls (and texts?) and can be set up for email.

With additional installed apps and hardware, it can probably do things like keep mandatory records that commerical drivers need to log, can probably send a cell output for live tracking by a home base, and can be tied into a truck's odometer/speedometer/fuel usage and so much more stuff.

Features on the fleet 670 that I wish were offered on automotive devices

The powered mag mount is quite robust, probably with a stronger magnet than other automotive mounts and may be a bit more dust/moisture resistant than other powered mounts.

The internal speaker is the best and loudest I've ever heard, even better than the nuvi 3597's additional mount speaker.

The device has 13.5GB of storage so map updates will likely never need a SD card.

Without additional hardware, the fleet 670 seems to have a much more sensitive GPS receiver so more satellites can be found in weak signal areas like in a home. My eBay purchase came with another device that appears to include an external link and an antenna that serves both as an external GPS and cell antenna, plus cable and connectors that likely can be tied into the truck's electronic monitoring wiring.

I learned years ago with MapSource that the Garmin maps for North America include Mile Markers and always wondered why they were there. Well, the display of the fleet 670 can be configured to display highway MileMarker numbers, compass direction and much more.

I suppose some of these features exist on the RV and dezl models but this is my first unit that offers them.