Questions About Entune and Bing Operation

A recent thread about the Entune Bing service outage peaked my interest. My Garmin Nuvi 2555 quit on me while on our last trip, so I ended up relying almost entirely in the Prius nav. I was still able to use the Nuvi to find restaurants, gas stations, etc., and then use the Prius to get me there either by entering the address manually while stopped or using the voice commands. However, because routing in the Nuvi stopped working, I was not able to use the Nuvi to search for stuff "along my route", which is the feature I use most to find places to eat before we're actually hungry. FWIW, the Prius did surprisingly well and never failed to get me where I wanted to go. (More on that later in another thread)

Anyway, before I buy a new Nuvi or set up the Entune app, I thought I'd ask some questions about Entune and Bing. I did some searching and found several older threads complaining about Entune, but nothing that answers the questions I have. I also watched a video on how to use Bing, but it was limited. I understood that I can use Bing on my phone at home to search for a number of things. Once I finds things I want, I see that I can save them and then sync them once I get in the car. From what I gather, I can search for gas stations, restaurants, motels, etc., that aren't in the Prius database and save the addresses. I can then use the Prius to navigate me to them. What I didn't understand is how the navigation actually works and here are my questions:

Are the addresses saved in the same place as my other Stored addresses?
Or are they saved in a place unique to Entune or Bing?
Is the navigation done by the Prius or by Bing Maps or something?
If by Bing, wouldn't that use my data plan? That could get expensive on the trips we take.
If by the Prius, how does it work with new streets, etc., that aren't in the Prius map database?
I see Entune is included for 3 years, how much is it after that?
If we're already on our way and I want to find something, do I have to select Bing from the Apps screen or can I get to it using the Voice Command button on the steering wheel?
If from the screen, is there then a Voice Command icon to use or can my wife type in search terms?

From what I've seen so far playing with the Entune app, this still won't let me search "along my route", but at least it appears to give me complete addresses, unlike the Prius, so I can see which ones are ahead of us and not behind us. It looks like I'd still have to figure out which cities are along our route, but that's better than no address at all.

 

Thanks, those are the answers I expected, though I didn't know Entune was now free. I guess I'll test Bing on our trip next month to see how much data it uses for what I tend to do. If I buy a new Nuvi, I plan to wait until I see a sale anyway. I'm actually getting used to "talking" to my car, so it'll be a little fun playing with Bing voice search.