Test drivin' a Prius this week

On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 13:39:00 -0700, "John DeGrazia" put together some random words that came up with:

Another comment about Navs designed for automotive use. This is true for the Kenwood, the Toyota Nav, and the Nav that I have in my Murano.

These Navs not only have the GPS receiver, but they use gyros to detect heading, and the speed pulse from the car to help clock milage. The three systems cross-check each other, and if you get in an area that you can't get good gps coverage (such as a tunnel), the gyro and speed pulse keeps the Nav on track.

The other thing about hand-held Navs is that I don't know if they are designed for the conditions that you find in the interior of a car. I know that in the summer here (Miami), the interior of a car can get upwards of 140 degrees. My Nav screen gets hot to the touch. When I lived in Minnesota, the interior of the car could vary from -20F in the night and morning to 50F in the early afternoon if the car sat in a sunny spot. The in-car Navs are designed to take these kind of temperature extremes, as well as noisy electrical power and a significant vibration. Are inexpensive hand-held units designed for these conditions? I don't know, but it's important to know this for reliability reasons.

I really like the dual displays, and wish my Murano had dual displays (one car, one Nav) rather than the integrated display it currently has.

Also, and the Kenwood Nav, if the Nav unit dies outside warranty, I can just put another Kenwood Nav in the car without spending big $ for an OEM replacement unit.

Steve in Miami '04 Seaside #7

Reply to
Steve
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Can you take your gps out of the car to go geocaching? My handheld unit has withstood a dip in a stream, numerous rigorous rides attached to my motorcycle, it can easily move from my car to my wife's, it can be taken out of the car for walks. I could go on and on. For me it was a very easy decision to make. For less than $300.00 I have all of the capabilities of the in dash nav system plus so many more for considerably less money. This was as easy as deciding who should be our next President.

Alan

Reply to
Dirty Old Man

All the capabilities? It can give you routing to almost any address, freeway entrance or exit, or business in the continental United States, including inputting the phone number of a business and getting the routing? It can give you the phone number of almost every business in the continental US? It lets you specify that you want to keep off toll roads, or that you have a detour on your route? It has a legible 8" monitor? You can zoom the map display?

Well, yeah, that part was easy.

Reply to
Michelle Steiner

You have not mentioned anything that I can't do.

If I want that I can either connect my gps to my palm or to my laptop.

Granted it isn't the most c>>

Reply to
Dirty Old Man

Excuse my response. I am not attempting to be confrontational. I just want to clearly identify that the low cost hand held units are durable. (as stated in my earlier response). The large screen, the routing and rerouting, the hard mounted batteries, and the voice recognition are all features that you can't (or wouldn't want) get on a hand held GPS.

Yes the automotive ones are expensive. Yes you can't easily interchange them in different cars. Yes they probably aren't capable of working after immersion in your favorite trout stream.

But. You will be more able to pay closer attention to the road and it's changing conditions. In addition to benefiting from multiple innovative features if you used a GPS designed for use in an automobile.

Again. This is just my opinion, and "Your Mileage May Vary"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Life is too short to post at the bottom! John (remove .remove to reply) DeGrazia

Reply to
John J. DeGrazia

I agree with everything you have said. I certainly would have preferred my Prius to have the nav. I did NOT have to wait for my car, because I took the one they had on their lot. Walked in on a Friday night drove my car home on Saturday morning. If I wanted to pick my options or color I would still be waiting! My only point was that one can live very happily without the oem nav unit.(and save quite a bit of money I might add) Alan

BTW, when I connect my Magellan to my Dell laptop I have a 15" full color screen with voice recognition and voice response. I use Microsoft Streets & Trips. We use this setup when we go geocaching!

Reply to
Dirty Old Man

Geocaching sounds like fun! I have always wanted to do it. But I never seem to have the time.

I connect my Legend to my Dell laptop to "WARDRIVE" around town. I don't have voice recognition, and I rely on another driver or a competent computer operator in the passenger seat. I use the Garman Mapsource software, and Netstumbler 4.0 for detecting 802.11 hotspots.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Life is too short to post at the bottom! John (remove .remove to reply) DeGrazia

Reply to
John J. DeGrazia

Yes, Aaron, around here (Iowa) they are going at window sticker - same in Colorado where we bought ours last July.

As a matter of fact, a salesman told me today (while I was waiting for my 5000 mile lube, oil, filter) that he sold one last month at $900 under window sticker but added that it was to a very good and regular customer. This was a salesman at an Iowa dealership.

You should NOT have to pay above MSRP!

Larry Morphew '55 Studebaker Commander '04 Toyota Prius

Reply to
Larry Morphew

And for those of us who don't own a Palm or laptop?

Depends on how much convenience is worth to you, and not having to have extra equipment in the car.

But the Prius's GPS is closer to $1900 than to $2500.

Reply to
Michelle Steiner

I was in no hurry; I could afford to wait. So, I waited about three months. Got my tied for second choice of color, too.

Reply to
Michelle Steiner

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