The 2004 - 2009 non-touring Prius is nothing special on tight, twisty backroads, not confidence inspiring at a pace that many locals will drive (while tailgating you). But, the car does fine on the freeway, city streets, and open curves. It just doesn't feel assured on tight backroads. The thing I dislike the very most is the marginal front seat legroom, while allowing quite a bit of rear legroom. I have pretty long legs and would have saved myself lots of headache buying something else. Many people fit ok in the 09- Prius. It's nothing really exciting to drive on curves, but it's a good, safe car for sure.
Test drove the Honda and didn't like it at all. The back seat was extremely uncomfortable to myself and to my husband (when we switched off driving). We weren't originally looking for a hybrid necessarily, but ended up testing out a few of them. Huge surprise when we got in the Prius as it wasn't even on our radar because we thought it was small (it looks small, but is very roomy and comfortable). The handling seemed better to us then the Honda was and the switch between the electric and fuel engines was a lot smoother with the Prius (2007) then with the Honda.
