hey, just wondering what every1 thinks of the new civic navi?
please leave details about how it compares to other navigation systems, thanks!

 

Well, funny you should ask! I just took delivery of one this morning (07-15-06). It's the sedan in Atomic Blue w/MT. I'm still working on the first tank of gas and have a LOT to learn about the Navi system. Fortunately, it seems to be fairly straight forward in it's basic operations. It walks you through inputting destination addresses pretty easily and the voice prompts are accurate. It did screw up a little when I needed to return to the dealer to get something I forgot to grab out of the car I traded in. I went through the menu to find the closest Honda dealer and it gave me a selection of several in the area. I picked my dealer and it calculated the routing in short order. I've had it calculate several routes since I've had it and I'm pretty inpressed with how fast it does this. Of course, I haven't given it anything that's really long or complicated yet. Anyway, It prompted me all the way to the dealer, no problems, but it didn't announce my arrival like it had with the other tries I'd made. The end result of that is when I left, it was still thinking that we were enroute and kept trying to re-route me back to the dealer until I finally figured out how to cancel the process.

As for comparisons to other GPS systems out there, I'm afraid I don't really have too much experience with them. The only other automotive GPS I've owned is one of the old Garmin StreetPilots. It's the original monochrome screen and it doesn't do anything but point to the destination. No autorouting or voice prompts. Speaking of voice, voice commands that is, that's a pretty cool feature. You can turn the radio on and off by voice, change channels (AM and FM), play the CD player and specify which track you want to listen to, as well as a whole host of GPS related commands that I've not even gotten close to learning yet. There's only been one time, so far, that the system didn't understand what I was asking for but that turned out to be because I wasn't using the command properly. Example, I asked it to "Play CD." It was confused by that and gave me a list of possible commands to choose from. Turns out I should have said, "CD Play." I properly repeated the command and the CD was playing within a couple of seconds. The system seems to do very will with voice recognition and it's help files have, so far at least, proven to be pretty intuitive. My compliments to the programming team! All in all, not too bad so far and I'm looking foward to learning to use the system. The first long trip will be very intersting!

Drive Safe,
Steve R.

 

THe only GPS system i've owned/used is one that hooks up with my laptop. Its kinda ghetto but it works. As far as in dash units, i wouldn't get a factory Honda Nav system. I would look into an aftermarket system by Pioneer, Kenwood, etc. I would go with a brand name. The aftermarket units have a lot more features than the Honda unit. On an aftermarket unit you can watch DVDs, hook up your PS2, hook up headrest monitors, get a TV tuner, etc. As far as i know the Honda unit does not have those features. I'm not sure how much the nav costs extra, but i'm pretty sure an aftermarket unit installed is cheaper. Look around on the internet, you can get a double din unit where the monitor is in the dash. There are also single din units where the monitor flips out. Since the civic comes with a double din, i'm pretty sure a double din will fit and you can get the look of stock nav.

 

A of D is probably right. The aftermarket units match and, more often than not, surpass the capabilities of a factory installed GPS and they do it for less money on average. I know that the Nav option on the Odyssey adds $2000 to the cost of the van and if you get it, you're also buying the entertainment system too. You can get the DVD without the Nav, as of this year I think, but not the other way around and that's something that's always erked me. I don't have kids so a rear entertainment system is pretty much useless to me but I wouldn't mind getting the Nav system. Oh well.......

In the case of the Civic, I assume because it's a lower end vehicle to begin with, the Nav option "only" (yeah right!) adds about $1000 to the cost of the car. The upper end after market GPS untils will cost you very close to that, if not a little more depending on who you get it from and whether or not you install it yourself or pay someone else to do it. What I like about the factory unit is that it's integrated in the car and doesn't "look" added on like the aftermarket units will. It's all a matter of what you really want or need from the system.

Personally, this was just a gadget I've been curious about for a long time but wasn't willing to pay the premium when I bought my Odyssey. The Civic wasn't as expensive to begin with so the splurge didn't hurt as much in this case.

FWIW!

Drive Safe,
Steve R.