Rand McNally's First Outdoor Handheld GPS Now Available

SKOKIE, Ill., June 6, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Rand McNally today began shipping its first handheld/bike mounted outdoor GPS device for hiking, biking, geocaching and more. Leveraging its experience and content in the outdoor marketplace, Rand McNally's Foris™ 850 comes loaded with millions of miles of high-quality street and trail maps, a sturdy bike mount, and an easy-to-use interface with on-device help.   

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130606/CG26982)

Announced at the Outdoor Retailer show, Winter Market, the Foris™ 850 has been in beta testing and reviews by outdoor enthusiasts since January. Received favorably, the Foris™ 850 is the result of collaboration between Rand McNally and Falk Outdoor Navigation, a business unit of United Navigation Limited. 

"The Foris is designed to provide a 'trail ready' experience out of the box with everything included to get outside and go," explained Dave Marsh, Vice President of Research and Development, Rand McNally. "Consumers have come to expect turn-by-turn voice guidance on GPS and in-car units, and we've brought that feature uniquely to the outdoor market with guidance on trails as well as roads."

"Other industry firsts include Loop Me, a feature that creates a looped trail with the same starting and ending point, based on the user's preferred time or distance for the hike or ride, and TrackNav, which creates navigable routes from 'breadcrumb' trails," Marsh explained.

Other key features of the Foris™ device are:

• Multiple U.S. map databases on device, including Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, U.S National Park Service trails, National Forestry hiking trails and multi-purpose trails, U.S. National Wildlife Refuge trails, and the national hydrographic dataset, among others. The trail maps are pre-loaded as vector trails, rather than raster images, allowing for navigation and routing vs. just viewing
• Millions of points of interest relevant to the Outdoor market, such as trailheads, high points, bike shops, recreation areas, and campgrounds
• Spoken and visual turn-by-turn directions, even on trails
• Route Compare feature that compares three alternative routes, along with their elevation profiles
• Paperless geocaching through direct integration with geocaching.com; all descriptions, hints,  logs, difficulty and terrain level on device
• Storage capacity for a category-leading 7,000 waypoints
• Barometric altimeter that shows accurate elevation levels on the map, or along current trail as well as how far to the top of a mountain or other location
• Trailhead companion software for desktop computers allows geocaches, hikes and rides to be stored, viewed, and  transferred to and from the Foris™
• Glove friendly 3" touch screen (240 x 400 pixels)  is sensitive enough to be used with biking gloves on
• All you need in the box including bike mount, batteries, an anti-glare screen protector, 8 GB internal memory

The Foris™ 850 has a suggested retail price of $399.99* and is anticipated to be the first in a line of outdoor market products from Rand McNally.

The Foris™ 850 will be available exclusively at amazon.com beginning June 7 and at other retailers as of June 21, 2013.

*Price is U.S. dollars, applicable tax not included

About Rand McNally – Rand McNally is the most trusted source for maps, directions, and travel content. Products and services include: Road travel review site  bestoftheroad.com; America's #1 Road Atlas;  RVND™ GPS for RVers; IntelliRoute® truck routing software and navigation devices; TPC 7600 and TND™ 760 mobile fleet management solutions for the transportation industry; and leading geography-based educational resources for the classroom. randmcnally.com

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