If my TomTom breaks down I can go get a new one for about $300 with new maps and updates for 12 months included and if I decide to get it fixed I can drive the car while the TomTom is being repaired.
well builtin navi is all about luxury/convenience, for next generation, Toyota is lowering the prices of integrated units (still way above cheap portable ones)... nevertheless, nobody really needs built in, nor they need portable ones either... You could live without both, it is an luxury feature.
As a practical point, a Nav system is cheaper than a divorce. One of the few times my wife and I get snippy with each other is navigating through a strange city. She doesn't like to drive through cities, and she isn't very fast with a map. She can do it, but she is usually five minutes behind wherever we are. Driving through Paris was a classic example. She missed the first street and never caught up. I drove from the center of Paris all the way to the highway on the south side with nothing more than the seat of my pants. It worked, but it was sub-optimal. A good Nav system can reduce marital strees. Tom
Or, for those with spouses with NO sense of direction, it saves the 5-10 "I'm lost" phone calls when they're trying to get TO or FROM their new location.
I've asked Erica what differences they are between the current one and the new one and she gave me the nav manual for the Venza. I can't say I've seen/read anything that's different so far. I know the last generation (Gen 5?) navigation brought the building outline feature (in major cities) as well as a higher resolution screen. I couldn't tell if the resolution was improved or not on the new Prius. The buttons did look like a step back (I'd thought they'll use colourful icons rather than big white buttons for GENERAL, VOICE, NAVI, PHONE etc etc).
One thing Gen6 will afford us is live traffic w/ the XM Radio subscription. Probably won't see that w/ the Garmin or Tom Tom.
Can't speak for Garmin but TomTom has had traffic for a while now. There are two ways to receive it - RDS-TMC antenna (one time purchase of the antenna) or via TomTom Traffic (Subscription). You also get TomTom Weather. Actually TomTom even had a TomTom Buddy feature where you can communicate and send one another addresses and POIs. e.g. you can message one another and if you decide to meet up for lunch, one person picks a place and can send the address to the other person. All the receiver has to do is "Navigate There" (whether it's a junction, a restaurant, someone's house or a park etc etc). In addition, it's good if you're travelling in groups (e.g. road trip). You can keep track of one another in case you lose sight of the car ahead. Just update the other person's position and you can see if they're on the same street or have turned to another street.
My two year old Garmin NUVI has the live traffic function , although I have never used it because of where I live. Question: Will the Toyota system allow me to program "way points" so I can be routed to my destination through several other places? For example if I want to drive from San Francisco to New York via Dallas and Miami will it allow me to enter that as one trip with two way points, or do I need to enter three separate destinations?
You'd plan the trip w/ sequential destinations in the present one, isn't this how you'd address for your use case?
Yes, but haven't tried to do it across search regions. I'll mess w/ it today, but mind you, mine's a GEN4. However, if Gen4 can, I don't see why Gen5/6 couldn't.
No. The factory nav on the 06 does NOT speak street names. As for your last statement, regarding Garmin, that's not true either. Previously, none of the Nuvi 200 series spoke street names. Only the 260 and 260W did and that was a later addition. It was previously relegated to the Nuvi ~350 and above. They've recently added a few more models in the 200 series which do. Cheaper Garmin units having that feature would be more accurate statement. (I own a Nuvi 350 for my Z which has no factory nav.) That said, the much larger LCD and split screen representation (right half showing the intersection and countdown to the turn w/graph) is much better on my Prius' nav system than my Nuvi 350. If you're curious for a comparison of the Nuvi 350 vs. 06 Prius factory nav, see my post at http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-m...dvd-nav-vs-other-nav-system-2.html#post675023.
TomTom can show the map and up to the 2 next turns in graphic form on the screen at one time. Better units than I have have text to speech as well. I use the map to see how close the corner is, it's been spot on 99.9% of the time.
Yes on all Toyota Navi systems you have the 5 'PRESETS' on the Destination Screen next to the 'HOME' icon. You can set those PRESETS for anthing you like in any order you like. Then to go to the next destination just press the next PRESET. I do it all the time for customers; e.g. UVA to Princeton to Cornell to Columbia to HOME
You can preload them, and chain them together, but you can't save the entire "route" for future use. Tom
Ahh ok, thanks Tom! Also note that TomToms will auto zoom at an intersection so you can see it better (esp. if it's not the normal 4-way junction)
The TomTom zoom depends on your speed, as you slow down the view zooms in. You might also notice that with the standard arrow position marker as your speed increases the arrow becomes more narrow and pointy. Not sure this works with downloaded markers like the family car or race car.
The european Prius does, at least for highway navigation, and in several different languages as well. When you travel through Europe, the GPS will announce instructions reading the names of the exits and/or cities. You can set your default language for directions (English, Spanish, German, French, Italian... I'm not sure if some other is available), but the GPS will pronounce the names of the signs, exits, cities, etc. in the language that is local to the region you're driving. By the way, mine is a 2005.
