no turns, no sale part 2

Some new information has come about concerning the new ultrawide models from Garmin.

I said prior that I might be mistaken and that on-map turns is actually there.

Good news: I was mistaken, and on-map turns is there.

Bad news: It was implemented in the worst possible way.

The new models I'm talking about are the Drive 7.1 and 8.8.

This is what happened:

From the introduction of the Drive/DriveSmart line in 2016 all the way to 2023, every Garmin screen had two ways of showing a turns list. While on a route, you either a) tapped the top text bar for a list of directions, or b) you tapped the bottom right and then selected Turns. Earlier Drive/DriveSmart models 5, 50, 51, 6, 60, 61, 70, 71 required you to add the Turns button to a pop-up layer from a configurable menu (you only had to do it once). Later models 52, 53, 55, 65, 66, 76, 86 had that layer changed to a separate menu with Turns always present as a selection. Regardless of how you got it, Turns was there.

The primary difference between the text bar way and the Turns way is that the text bar method was a full screen list of turns with no map. To see the map again, you had to tap a back button. With the Turns way, you had a turns list and the map at the same time, and the current street being driven on is still shown along with speedometer and additional configurable data field. Very convenient.

With the 7.1 and 8.8, that's changed. For the worse. Much worse.

There is only one way to get a list of turns now. Tap the text bar. Sounds convenient at first until you see what happens afterward.

When that list is up, 3/4 of the map is blocked, effectively making it useless. Also, the speedometer, speed limit, and current street being driven on is hidden. And the extra data field is gone too.

Now let's talk about the font size.

On the DriveSmart 76, the font in the text bar is large and legible. On the 7.1, the text bar font is now also the turns list font, and has been shrunken down almost to that of a Drive 52, a previous 5" screen model. Yes, that literally means Garmin reverted back to a font size for a 5" screen and slapped it on a 7" screen.

There is a "Large Navigation Text" setting, but the manual states:

Increases the navigation text size.

And that's it. Navigation text for what, specifically? Is that in reference to the turns list? That question goes unanswered.

But let's stay positive here and say it does make the turns list actually legible. That still doesn't bring back the speedometer, speed limit, and current street. It also doesn't change the fact the list blocks 3/4 of the map.

That's... bad.

Again, I'm better off just staying with what I have.