2004 w/Nav vs. 2006 w/o Nav + TomTom 910

I wanted to post my Nav system comparisons and comments in a separate post, and I will add images shortly.

I had a 2004 with Nav, sold the car, bought a 2006 w/o Nav and also bought a TomTom Go 910 GPS unit - here's the run down.

* it fits PERFECTLY on the cover for the CD storage area under the stereo when the cover is down, like a little shelf intentionally designed to hold the TomTom.

* you can enter stuff while driving, 'nuff said.

* has bluetooth, speakerphone, even reads text messages aloud to you as they come in

* has live traffic updates and automatic traffic re-routing,

* there's a 20gb hard drive for pictures and music (even comes with a cable to plug into your aux line if you don't have your own mp3 player, ipod control interface on the touch screen (if you have an ipod), even reads audio book formats

* you can take it with you anywhere - from car to car to boat to backpack no matter where you travel,

* you can hand it to someone in the passenger seat or rear seats to enter destinations or look up points of interest

* great fast reception (except the first time I took it out of the box, it took like an hour), locks in immediately upon startup (because it remembers where the satellites are when you turn it off) and even down on the new little 'shelf' it still receives 12 satellites so it does not have to be mounted to the windshield.

* it has a ton of entertaining voices in dozens of languages

* you can download updates and patches and new stuff easily

* there's literally a hundred great color schemes

* it reads street names out loud

* it has a qwerty, azerty, and abcd keyboard selection - yeah!!!

* it doesn't matter if something has a space, hyphen, or special character in the name of a street or poi, it is smart enough to figure out what you're looking for - hallelujah!!!

* entering destinations or poi's is actually fun, not frustrating like in the prius - I seriously wanted to punch my screen on the prius before, and my friends call me "ben ghandi" so that's saying a lot.

* it comes preloaded with maps of the US, all of Europe, Canada, Guam, and the Canary Islands - so you can just take it with you when you travel.

* there's even satellite imagery!

* resolution is amazing, it's a great picture viewer as well.

* the speaker is excellent.

* it has overhead AND 3-d birds-eye views

* it tells you the estimated time (as well as minutes to destination) of arrival AND you can schedule your trip to arrive at a specific time, crazy stuff folks.

* the PC interface is excellent too. I mean excellent - to the point that there's no installation CD - it just has the installation file on the unit - when you connect it to your computer, the computer says "found new hard drive" and it automatically runs the installation from the unit!

* did I say live traffic updates and automatic traffic re-routing? and it's a free service in the US until December.

* no zone switching necessary!!! For me, driving on most trips from Arizona requires a 'change of map zone' on the prius, not here!

* when you start typing something, it's instantly popping up on the TomTom - on the prius, start by typing Bank of America then you realize you needed to try out BofA or something silly, then hit enter, then try to find the darn location. Say I type in a business on the Prius, then it shows me some location 1273 miles away, then I have to go back, try to find the right name to use because one has an apostrophe, the other doesn't, the other has a hyphen, the other ends with something else. With the Tom Tom, matching results auto-populate (and the keyboard is qwerty), oh and the biggie - there's an option to search only for POIs within 3 miles, 5 miles, 10 miles, etc... it's pretty awesome when you don't want to know where all 2000 Bank Of America ATMs are located in the nation.

* I'm extremely happy with this product, and at $799 including shipping it's a lot cheaper than getting a system built-in.

* again, the fact that it fits perfectly on the CD storage cover when it's folded down is awesome - this couldn't have been a better decision for me.

* I'd rate this a solid 10 stars out of 10.... I'd rate the Prius Nav system 3 stars out of 10.

I'll get some images on here as soon as possible.