Which add on navigation brand is best?

[Vincent]

DON'T BUY THE TOYOTA NAVIGATION UNIT.

It's very expensive, lacking in interactive features and the few features it does have can't be used when the car is moving.

[Rotorhead]

I bought the Toyota nav with my Prius and find it to be adequate but nothing special. After a couple road trips I picked up a Garmin Nuvi 750. It rides right next to the Toyota unit in the Garmin bean bag mount. Can't say enough good things about this mounting method. I run the cable from my ScanGauge II under the bean bag so the ScanGauge sets on the dash right in front of my line of vision. Stays in place very well. If you want to keep it around $200, you can't beat the Garmin Nuvi 200. My wife has started calling me "Geek Boy." It cracks her up when I mount the Garmin and ScanGauge and strap on my Garmin Foretrex wrist GPS for a ride to the other side of town. Might be overkill for some people, but I love info-overload.

Mike

[rigormortis]

the oem toyota gps unit gives you a ton of voice activated commands, even for the radio and climate control system. depending on the inventory and the wait times you might not have a choice between option packages, like package #3 is what i got because nothing else was available.....

yah and the oem gps that is installed is an overpriced DENSO unit, so no wonder there
why they want thousands for it.. if they used anything but DENSO parts it probably would of slashed the price by several thousands of dollars

theres this big detailed toyota survey going around and in a couple years we might get a better navigation system, like something a lot cheaper that relies on subscriptions or something really expensive that does not require subscriptions

[PAPARYNO]

I bought both the TT720 and the NUVI 200W. I kept them side by side everywhere I went to compare. Many times the TT would have me in a field when the NUVI would be right on track. Also, the NUVI acquired satellites MUCH faster at start up and recalculated route faster when I'd purposely miss a turn. 200W is a very very well priced unit and has same routing computer as their more expensive units. I gave the 200W to my parents(easier to use by far) and returned the TT for a NUVI 760....Same basic unit as 200W but with Bluetooth, multiple routing(compared with 2 address limit on 200w) and few other bells and whistles. Nuvi was hands down winner with me and most of the GPS and TECH magazines I researched. On a side note, TT had a superior Bluetooth and Handsfree Speakphone. Much clearer but only in relation to cell phone. Love the Garmins. I also have NISSAN'S factory GPS systems in two of our other vehicles and they don't even compare with the Garmins.

[rigormortis]

yeah thats another thing about tom toms, as long as the road exists and its in the tom tom you can correct it, by renaming it, unblocking it, etc

but if the street does not exist in the tom tom and you do the tom tom map correction thing and report it to tom tom, it will just be ignored until a future map comes out and that is going to be $79-$99

[Jack66]

We have a slightly older TOM TOM One which was selling at around $225. It has been great for us and I mount it on the inner cupholder located at the center console. The TOM TOM gets a good signal, it doesn't leave the "steal me" marks on the windshield, and I plug it in to the center console power port. The cable pokes out of the console for about four inches. Also, it makes it easy to unstick it and quickly store it in the console.

[zenMachine]

This article might help:

TMC Traffic vs. MSN Direct on your GPS | GPS Lodge - GPSLodge.com

[Sheepdog]

thanks all. I think I may try a Nuvi 200W

[cwerdna]

Originally Posted by Flying White Dutchman

any TOMTOM navigation system
there the best

Tom Tom and Mio Digiwalker use TeleAtlas maps which unfortunately are inferior in the US to US based Navteq's. Therefore, for US use, I would NOT buy any TeleAtlas based unit.

For the US, ones that use Navteq are brands like Garmin, Magellan and Navigon along w/most built in car nav systems.

See I think I want a Garmin Nuvi 350, any other good alternatives? and Garmin vs. Magellan vs. TomTom: Which GPS Picks The Best Routes? (GPS Magazine) as to why.

If you join Tivocommunity, in order to read the threads below, you'll see that there are lots of complaints about TeleAtlas' map data.
TiVo Community
TiVo Community

I have the factory nav system in my Prius and a Garmin Nuvi 350 for use in my nav system-less 350Z .

[cwerdna]

Originally Posted by Vincent

DON'T BUY THE TOYOTA NAVIGATION UNIT.

It's very expensive, lacking in interactive features and the few features it does have can't be used when the car is moving.

I'll agree with it being very expensive now compared with PNDs. When I got my Prius, it was still expensive but PNDs weren't quite as good and cheap as they are now.

However, there are many pros and cons of the the Prius' nav system vs. say my Garmin Nuvi 350. See my post Prius DVD Nav vs other Nav System.