Wade,
Programming is with 4 function keys and a 4 quad arrow key. You begin with an alpha/numberic display and have to arrow/select begining with either a street address or town name. It tries to be smart by narrowing the selection of letters/numbers, but it flat out DOES NOT work if the address is a state or county road number. That is fine here in the east where everything has a name (sometimes even two or three
) but out west becomes kind of a big limitation outside of the city.
Has 5 or 6 CDs for total US coverage and new/updates are $200 per CD. I've bought 3 (needed so my wife could drive from Wash DC to Indiana) but the level of detail is inconsistent. I live in the country and the map for my area shows the farmer's driveway across the street from my house, but in Indiana (near Wabash) wouldn't show anything under a state road level unless you were in a major city. Go figure - 3 CDs to get to Indy, and only 3 more to hit the left coast. Guess that is why there is more detail at home huh? Also kinda PITA to stop along the road to drop a new CD into the trunk-mounted nav player when you reach the end of the world according to the last CD. First time it happened guess my wife had momentary heart failure when the screen went blank, but dropping a new CD in brought it and her back to life.
Because of the power consumption and the time it takes to program you have to have the engine running for it to work! Makes for some long idling sessions before a trip.
Don't know where the database for these things is built from. Can't believe there is more than one or two for all the various apps (microsoft streets and trips, yahoo maps, gps systems, etc. ).
Really seen some interesting things while nav'ing. About 3 weeks ago rode with my wife to ft. lee virginia. Programmed the nav in case she needed to make the trip alone. South of DC are some bi-directional express lanes on I 95 that come into the city in the morning and reverse flow in the afternoon. We were driving in them and it sent the nav sytsem buggy - kept saying to take every exit - guess it didn't know about the lanes. When we got within 10 miles of ft lee (driving on I 295 south around Richmond) it kept showing the car about 100 feet off the roadway and would attempt to correct itself every so often. My guess is the database for that quadrant is off by a second or two.
Another interesting anomaly - in Frederick MD there is a stretch of road that is technically US 40E , US 15S, and I 270S all at once. The nav system calls it route 40E but none of the major road signs posted around the interchange where they all split up list it as route 40 anymore because it is electrically I 70E. Another stale DB entry?
My experience with the thing is that if you really need it, it will fail on you or confuse you, thus it is not really ready for 'lifeline' status. My wife took the option so she would be more confident driving when away from known territory. It does not fulfill that goal.
Otherwise it is kinda cool doing a 'look-ahead' to see how far the next milestone is when on the road.
Your thoughts - is the jag system that bad and is yours ready to be more than a toy?
Neil
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