Is The NAV System Worth $1800???

Didn't have garmin but do like the big screen as well. Don't think it cost 1,800 more for me since it was part of a package and I was fortunate to buy my car when rebate was offered, price below invoice and got 2 years maintenance to boot... so pretty happy.

 

If they're mesmerized by that, you should have got them an Android phone. These come with Google Navigation, a sort of port of Google Maps to the phone, with all the power of Google Maps searches and mapping. Instead of comparing where you are on a map, you can compare where you are with a satellite photo of where you are (updated as you move). This is one of the available modes (called layers) in Google Nav, similar to the "Show on Map" POI overlays in the Toyota nav. When you arrive at your destination, it even brings up the street view picture (if available). The Toyota map seems downright primitive in comparison.

That said, I did buy Nav (and Solar Roof), even though half the stuff in the package was overpriced stuff I didn't really want. The Nav wasn't one of my priorities, due to what my phone already does. I thought I'd like the solar vent to prevent the car from becoming an oven inside, and the sunroof.

Besides the Nav, which I do think is 2nd rate in many ways, it does bundle in the backup camera, and better implementations of bluetooth (with nice on-screen touch screen phone directory, mute button, support for passcodes after phone numbers, etc; I'm not sure how many of these are also available on the base radio, I think not all) and better audio control through the touchscreen, iPod support, etc., also things I thought I'd like.

I've had a long error-prone learning curve with the Nav, beginning with it being delivered set to the wrong region of the country, being set to avoid toll roads (when I wanted to travel on one, and wondered why it kept trying to route me every which way except where I knew I wanted to go). It also gave me really bad directions when I tried to use the multiple destination feature. After arriving at my 2nd of 3 destinations, I decided to use it to locate a gas station, and entered this as my next destination. It took me there, then I continued in the direction of my 3rd destination and at first it seemed to be guiding me to the 3rd destiation. After some miles, it directed me to make a right turn, then after a block, directed me to make a right turn again. I seemed to be heading north, when I knew I needed to go south. All I could get out of it was it was directing me to "my destination", which appeared to be the 2nd of my original 3 (the one before the gas station), the one I was already parked at when I entered the new gas station destination. I pulled to the side of the road (one of the few times I was truly depending on the Nav, because I wasn't familiar with my route), couldn't figure out how to correct this quickly (or even confirm which destination it was guiding me to), so pulled out my trusty phone and used that to get correct guidance.

Some things about the Toyota Nav seem un-obvious (though maybe with practice it'll get better). So far, it seems like I've had as many misadventures with it as successes (I'm still under 2000 miles on the car, so haven't needed it that many times yet). Some things are nice, like the split screen and lane configuration diagram in freeway mode. Others, like entering destinations are frustratingly slow and cumbersome (it can get hung up and confused by spelling or abbreviations in street names, like Avenue vs. Ave, North vs. N, etc., too many times I have to try entering a name more than once with different spellings like "main street", "north main street", or "n main street" before it finds it, though as I review the manual, maybe I'd be better off leaving out "north", "ave", etc.). The POI list seems to be missing some destinations I'd be interested in (compared to the power of Google via my phone, which seems to be able to find anything), and it didn't know about one tiny crossroads "town" at all (though to be fair, Google Maps doesn't know about this "town" either, but instead recognizes the name as matching the name of a road that passes through there, and offers to take me to that - which is actually correct). One other dumb idiosyncrasy is the navigation disclaimer screen (the warning that pops up when you enter nav, warning you to obey all traffic laws and keep your eyes on the road etc)... If you use the voice prompts, starting with another screen like audio displayed, you can enter the voice command "go home". This switches the screen to the map view, with that disclaimer screen, and the voice says "home is not available at this time" (apparently because the disclaimer is still on-screen). I thien have to start over and repeat the voice command (unless I've manually cleared that disclaimer and got to the map view via the touch screen first). Another thing that could be better is preset destinations. You can enter 6 presets of places you visit frequently, and you can name them, but when I've tried to get them with the voice prompts, they're only known as "destination 1" through "destination 6". Unless you remember which one is which, this is not very helpful.

The Toyota nav actually does work well once you get past knowing all these quirks (the menus seem overly complicated, so it takes quite a while to get comfortable and know how to work everything), and gives good guidance and can find about anything by address and many things like restaurants, gas stations, etc. that are in its POI list, but due to DVD capacity limits it doesn't know every business and is only as up to date as the DVD. I think I'm finally getting proficient now. Its freeway mode is nice, with a 2nd map showing which lanes lead to your destination, and what services are available at the exit (and other split screen dual view modes). I'm a bit spoiled though I think by Google Navigation, which understands voice commands quite well (more flexible than the Toyota nav which wants things spoken just so, prompting successively for street name, number, town with a separate "speak after the beep" for each). Google often figures out what you meant even if you spell something wrong (the Toyota nav sometimes figures out abbreviations too, but not always). Google can find even unusual businesses as destinations (other than gas stations, restaurants, parks, etc. in the Toyota POI list) - I've used Google nav to find specialty stores (not in any of the Toyota POI categories; for example a professional office) just by speaking the name of the business. Toyota's map is reasonably well detailed and shows parks as green areas, etc., but it's just a flat view with manual zoom. Google Nav has a flat map view, and a nice 3D perspective view that automatically zooms in when you slow down, and zooms out when you speed up (very helpful for details of turns, and a wider view of what's further ahead when traveling faster without having to manually change the zoom). It doesn't have the nice split screen 2-map view Toyota has, but my phone's screen is too small for that.

One other thing to be aware of with the Nav... some of the touchscreen functions are disabled while driving, to keep you from being distracted (simple functions are available, but typing in addresses, or using the phone dialpad are disabled, you can only choose from your speed dial presets or destination presets via the touchscreen while moving). You can overcome some of this with the voice system, which recognizes voices reasonably well, and lets you speak addresses and phone numbers, but it can take a while to talk your way through the voice menus. Searching for POIs by voice can be done but is more limited (generally to the 3 nearest of a category nearest your present location). Another thing... the screen resolution is rather low. This means some of the POI icons you can show on the screen look fuzzy and hard to identify (this includes stores, restaurants, gas stations, etc. by company logo).

I now (since buing the car; I had the phone nav first) normally use the built-in Toyota Nav, due to the convenience of its being built-in. But my phone remains my more reliable backup when the built-in Nav doesn't recognize my destination, and might become more so as the maps on the built-in nav get out of date. The phone is always up to date (as up to date as Google's data is).

Further comments:

After writing this, I spent some more time reading the manual (again), and more time in the car playing with the Nav. It seems I'm still not an expert on how to use this thing, and many of my problems are due to not knowing well enough how to use it. Some things are better than I previously thought, for example there are more POIs in the system than I realized. It all depends on how you search for them. I still think the menus are too complex to find this stuff easily, and some of the wording and icons aren't obvious, and some things on-screen look like buttons but aren't (touching them scrolls the map instead as if you touched the map itself). Searching POIs by category, which it seems would be helpful, sometimes isn't, it's too easy to get lost in a maze of buttons and scroll lists. If you also need to specify what the destination is near this just adds even more steps. If you search by category, you can miss that there are businesses known that don't obviously fall any of the categories displayed. If you don't know anything except you want a restaurant, you may be better off selecting the restaurant category. But if you want a specific business, it's usually better to ignore the POI categories, and search by name. This is much quicker many times since there's less levels of menus to wade through. Initially I was only trying category searches. By using search by name, I've found some of the professional offices and specialty businesses I thought weren't in the system actually are. And I also found it may be better to search by city than search by address, even if you're looking for a specific address. Search by city really means you specify the city name first, followed by street name, then house number. Search by address means you specify the house number first, street name next, and city last. Starting by city avoids the problem I've hit where the house number I'm looking for isn't in the database, even when the street is. If I search by address, and input a non-existent number, when I next input the street name it tells me there's no house by that number on that street, or the street isn't in the town I want, and that's the end of the search, I have to start over. It took me a while to figure out that search by city often is a better way to find an address than search by address (who would have thought). Too many things like this aren't obvious unless you play with the system a lot (even the manual isn't very helpful on some of these finer points). The voice prompts are also trial and error to learn, for example I found "show hotels" shows hotel icons on the map, even though this command isn't documented, and there's other voice commands available only if you know about them and remember them because the prompts only give you some of the available choices.

Overall, the Nav gets better with practice. It takes time and practice exploring the menus and reading the manual to learn how to use it well.

 

In a word, NO. There are much better/faster/cheaper/faster portable systems. Even add in HU's are better. Remember, after being ripped off for the original system, plan on paying $200 for each DVD upgrade. I have the NAV (ATP not available without it) and hate it.

 

I did not originally think the Nav was worth the money but when I found the car that I wanted with everything except it had the Nav, I bit the bullet and took the Nav.

Now that I have the Nav, I really like it for the following reasons:

• Integrated in the dash so no external devices to interest thieves.
• GPS is very functional once you learn how to set it up to fit your driving style
• The Bluetooth hands-free phone system
• The backup camera
• The multiple audio sources, especially the SAT radio and USB
• The Voice Commands once you learn the quirks of the system
• The functions of the steering wheel buttons

 

Plus directional information projected via the head-up display — that's what finally swung it for me.

 

Don't forget:

- USB connectivity for Ipods

- BT Audio streaming

- Phonebook transfer and speed dial capability

I agree with you. Aftermarket headunits or NAVI units have their own sets of issues/fails too...nothing is perfect. Just search this subforum to see the multiple issues with aftermarket headunits/navis.

 

call Toyota to complain

Unfortunately, the HUD isn't available in the US.

For everyone who has a complaint (me included) about the $200 map update price (even though it's not Toyota nor Prius specific), call Toyota to complain and have it logged in their database. I did. I also cited specific examples as to why $200 is uncompetitive (e.g. Garmin Nuvi 1200 PNDs cost $70 at http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-1200-3-5-Inch-Portable-Navigator/dp/B001U0O7QW, one time North America map updates for it are $80 , lifetime NA map updates are $90).

IIRC, Doug Coleman (posting at Prius Team) has encouraged people to call and get issues logged in their database. I think http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-h...e-app-ready-sync-fighter-ces.html#post1239131 and http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-h...ll-little-more-information-4.html#post1061546 are posts to that effect and the reasoning behind it.

Also, I think if people vote w/their wallet and NOT buy nav equipped Priuses, dealers and Toyota might notice them languishing on the lot... However, it is unfortunate that nav ends up being bundled w/the solar roof and ATP so you've got no choice but to take it, if you want either of those.

 

Between the USB connectivity and the Bluetooth audio streaming, I've got two personal sound sources good to go in my Prius: the iPhone 3G I re-purposed as a 16GB jukebox for the car, and the iPhone 4 sitting in my pocket. I leave the iPhone 4's iPod app set up to play All Songs with Shuffle play selected (BT Audio streaming supports Play, Pause, Next Track and Previous Track, but not selecting playlists), and of course I can select playlists on the iPhone 3G via the Nav system's display screen.