What’s the advantage of an in-dash navigation system over a portable unit? We’re looking at vehicles at the moment, and I don’t get why someone would pay $1,600 for one. Screen size? Is the antenna/satellite detection faster? More features? $1,600 worth of features?
We’re baffled, but that’s because we’ve always used portable systems. We like being able to program them before heading out—knowing which way to leave the hotel parking lot is very helpful, plus it lets us program it from the comfort of the room rather than in the car (which could be quite cold first thing on a winter’s morning). We also like the flexibility to upgrade as technology changes (e.g., from basic directions to street name pronunciations to lane guidance). If we have the vehicle for ten years, that’ll end up as mighty old technology in the dash compared to what will be available then. It’s also nice to be able to take it on flights with us and use in a rental car.
I can see a few hundred for the convenience, or even several hundred for the chichi-ness, but $1,600—especially when a good unit can run under $200, and that’s at today’s prices, not those in five or ten years?
…but before scoffing, I’ve never had one in a vehicle so I figured it would be wise to get other opinions. Any?
With in-dash, you don’t have to put it away every time you park the car for fear of theft. You don’t have some clunky thing in front of the windshield every time you drive. You don’t have power cords dangling all over the dashboard.
That said, I have the portable, for all the reasons you mentioned. In addition to using it in rental cars, I also swap it between my car and my motorcycle.
Are those $1600 for buying a GPS unit and putting it into place in a pre-designated spot on the dashboard, or are they the difference between “car with no GPS” and “car with GPS”? The last time I was looking for a car, I had the following requirements:
tiny car,
two airbags,
A/C.
The basic cost for Ford’s or Renault’s smallest cars was 9K€; for a Yaris hutchback, 11K€. But the Ford and Renault basic packages did not have double airbags or A/C, and because of the “upgrade packages” required in order to get those in, the price for what I wanted went up to 15K€ - the basic Yaris model had two airbags and A/C. Yep, I got a Yaris!
Some of those upgrade packages charge you 2K for what amounts to “color-matched bumpers instead of black, a golden line of paint along the side doors and a slightly-better music player”.
I’ve got a portable TomTom because at one point I figured I needed one my car didn’t have a built-in GPS (moving to Switzerland for a year, I figured I’d rather not have to ask for directions in German since my German sucks). If it had had one, I wouldn’t have bought the TomTom (or at least, I wouldn’t have bought it at the time, I might have gotten one later when I needed to use rentals for long periods). Do I consider “on-board GPS” a requirement? No, among other things… because I have that obsolete, not-upgradeable-any-more but still perfectly serviceable TomTom.
It can also be integrated with the stereo so it can do fancy things like mute the stereo while speaking directions. You can also get steering wheel controls for the GPS, although I am not sure what you actually do with those.
I just took a glance at Honda’s site and looked at what other upgrades you get on the Accord with the “Navi” package: a back-up camera…for $2200 more MSRP than the non-Navi model. No thanks.
We’re primarily looking at the Toyota Sienna–the $1,600 is the cost of the basic nav system. It does have a couple bells and whistles, but that’s the centerpiece.
Option packages in general can bite my shiny plastic ass, particularly when they want to wow me with absurdly overpriced floormats.
But I get the apparent monopoly and understand paying a premium for factory installed equipment. Sure. But the gross difference between in-dash and portable is, well, gross.
I can also understand if the lack of wires and non-clunkyness is worth the ~$1,400 difference between a good Garmin and an in-dash. I’m asking not so much from an how can anyone stand Andy Kauffman perspective so much as an I’ve never seen Andy K., is it worth it?
In dash systems often come with better postioning systems. That is, they don’t rely solely on GPS to get a position. They use sensors from the car’s wheels as well. So they are more accurate.
I have a Garmin Nuvi and a cord that makes it play through my stereo system. It pauses music/audio books for navigation directions, and has a bluetooth option for my cell phone. And I can take it with me in a rental car or on a hike. And I can upgrade it if it becomes obsolete, whereas I tend to drive cars into the ground.
I’m driving my mom’s car to her house in AZ (she bought it in NH with no sales tax) at the end of this week and even though it has in-dash navigation, I’m taking my Garmin. For the reasons mentioned above plus I just flat out don’t like the navigation system in the car. It isn’t as intuitive as mine and I’m not used to it.
I think the in-dash versions are a complete ripoff unless you are someone who needs to use your GPS on a daily basis. For most people a portable unit is adequate. Consider most of the driving most people do. It’s between your house and a selection of destinations that you drive to on a daily or weekly basis (work, store, school, etc.). Once in a while you might need to visit somewhere new, but in those cases I can drag it out of the glovebox and deal with the cord and stuff. So unless you’re going somewhere new for business everyday, it’s simply status.
I’ve never used an in-dash system so I may not have a complete picture, but given that many of the times I don’t know where I am I am in a rental car, so an in-dash system would be useless. Actually, at this point even a standalone portable GPS device makes no sense to me, since I get navigation that works well included on my Android phone. I certainly agree that the cable situation is less than ideal, but not $1000+ less than ideal!
I fucking love the portable ones. Why? You can change it to pedestrian mode, get out of the car, and walk/ride all over town! We did this in Toronto recently, and it was sweet.
When we bought a car a couple of months ago, the only reason I considered one was because of what Baracus said, some advanced car stereo control features were only possible if you got the full-screen navigation system. We ended up staying with the small portable GPS.
Another thing I passed on - we were going to get a DVD player mounted inside the car for the kids in the back, until I realized that for the price they were charging for the built-in DVD player I could buy two or maybe even three iPads!
The advantage of steering wheel control is that there are places (someone posted a thread about this in Canada) where it’s illegal to touch the dam thing while driving including sitting at a stop light. Consider it a premium for living in a Nanny State ™.
I would like an in dash unit for the coolness of it, particularly if it pops up but I’m cheap and $90 buys something I can pre-program in the house or hotel room. If I had one in the car I would still have one for traveling.
I just bought a smart phone (Droid) which comes with a gps navigation system, free of charge. It worked fine on a recent to trip around Warwick, RI, a place I had never been to. I imagine many other smart phones have the same, so if you’re going to be buying one in the near future, it may not make sense to get a portable GPS or the in-dash system.
I’m thinking of getting Navigon for my iPhone, and a car-specific mounting bracket. You can wire the power supply for the mounting bracket directly into the car’s DC supply, and use Bluetooth to connect to the stereo. This also plays phone calls through the stereo, and there’s a microphone that sits behind the steering wheel. Only downside: updating the stereo!
Edit: rental cars. Hmm. A bracket with a generic 12V plug and some sort of generic mounting would be called for here. Are Bluetooth stereos common in rentals these days?
In my foolish youth, I bought a 2007 Altima 3.5SE with literally every option available, including in-dash GPS. I wasn’t anticipating having to pay $200/yr to update the GPS maps (done via DVD on the plate behind the GPS). So now I drive a car with outdated maps. Indirectly, this actually caused me to get arrested (okay, a TON of parking tickets caused it - but I made an illegal turn with the guidance of the GPS).
I bought my parents a Garmin Nuvi. They can use it in either of their vehicles, it’s updated automagically.
There are advances to integrating the stereo/bluetoooth/etc, as noted above. But it’s not worth it in IMHO. I can’t wait to sell this f*cking car.