2008 Honda Accord EX: Navigate This!

Waste of money. Consumer electronics have a short life span before they are out of date. A 5 year old car is still quite modern but the nav system will look like an antique.
 
Buy the portable aftermarket systems and upgrade every couple years.

A few years ago, integrated car phones were all the rage in high-end cars. Now a lot of owners are stuck with analog-only technology no longer supported by the major cellular carriers. I suspect the factory navigation systems will face rapid obsolescence as well.

I prefer to have the factory installed navigation. I like the look much better than some big box sitting on the dash.
 
I hate to see a BMW or any other luxury car with a big box sitting on the dash close to the windshield. It just takes away from the car.
 
We don't keep cars long anyway so by the time the navigation is as some would call "obsolete", we would have already moved on the latest and greatest.

I can't understand why Honda made the Navi recessed in the new model. It was perfect before and really looked upscale and clean. The whole "tunnel vision" thing would bug the crap out of me.
 
Maybe the old one was a dust collector from all the static...
 
The next car I get is going to have a Nav system though, they are just so useful. Sure an aftermarket unit will be fine, cast a bit less and can be transported from car to car but I have heard far too many stories about peoples cars getting broken into so thieves can steal those Garmins, TomToms, whatever. Even if the unit is not sitting there, the holder, the cord the dash mount gives the impression that the unit is just in the glove box. At least an integrated unit can't be stolen without significant effort.

Waste of money? Depends on the system.
 
Will they disappear? I don't think so. Aftermarket radios are better and cheaper too, but you don't see new cars with radio-delete options any more and factory "premium audio" packages that aren't really premium seem to be doing pretty good business. If carmakers can force us to buy their stuff, they will.
 
Also, Honda probably recessed the screen to cut down on glare.

My 2007 BMW X5 integrates the RTTI (real time traffic) into the nav fantastically, it always reroutes me around traffic and shows it on the display.

"We don't keep cars long anyway so by the time the navigation is as some would call "obsolete", we would have already moved on the latest and greatest."
 
Speak for yourself....... although I do have to thank those like you.
 
I've been driving for 29 years and have owned a dozen vehicles. Only one was bought brand new. The rest were bought for 1/2 or less the price of new thanks to someone who traded early and paid my depreciation for me.

My guess is that we will view in-car nav as a quaint technology from the early 00s - sort of like car phones and their glass mounted antennas.
 
Soon we'll all be packing one device that's a nav, phone, MP3 player, pda and camera all in one. The iPhone is 3/4 of the way there.

Air conditioning was a newfangled thing once upon a time. Now, it's rare to see it on the options list. It's assumed you want it.
 
I personally don't want a navigation system. I've gotten along without it this long just fine.
 
Cars are never without some new gadget.

The major difference between car phones and nav systems is that the former requires a sustained relationship with a service provider while the latter is a one-time deal. And the service providers essentially fragmented (from AMPS to TDMA vs GSM vs CDMA vs iDEN) while a similar situation won't happen with nav systems. Like I said before, if carmakers can figure out how to foist stuff on you, they will.

You could buy 3-4 upscale aftermarket Nav systems for the price of one factory installed unit. Unless I'm getting super advanced features that come bundled with the Nav option (ie CTS), I'd save my money. Factory nav doesn't belong in cars less than $30k IMO.

I was disappointed when the nav option was too spendy on my current veh and we ended up doing without. I went aftermarket and put in a Pioneer AVIC-D3 nav head unit, b/c I wanted that "factory," in-dash look & feel.
 
Horrible move.
 
I ended up paying to have the Pioneer ripped out and put my factory stereo back in. I now have a beautiful, cheap Garmin that does twice the job for a fifth of the cost.
 
Expensive lesson: Learned!

A nav system that's a one time deal is the kind that keeps telling me there's a Shell station where a housing tract sits.

I agree with lime679. The factory navigation units look so much better than suction cups pressed on the windshield and dash. Plus they're usually more than just navigation systems. They often provide touchscreen for many more controls in the car. It acts as a very attractive and expressive way to interact with the car.

I think DVD navi's will become obsolete and Hard drive based ones will be the next major type. The DVD's are too expensive to replace and update, they charge you and arm and a leg

GPS is still in it's infancy. I suspect in a few years that the best (smartest!) portable and built-in units will be transparent.
 
I can envision in a few years a small portable hand-held GPS that can be docked into a car's dashboard, and will then use the large 7" (or larger) screen found built into the car's dash while docked. I see it being inserted into the dash much like you insert a CD. This GPS unit can then be ejected and moved from car to car as needed.
 
In fact I'll go one step further: I see this technology combining with cell phones too. Prediction: Apple will be the first to do so, and probably with BMW.
 
To me, that's the future.

Note how the bezel on each side of the screen is not only thicker toward the top, but that the screen is also closer to the left side than the right. Lousy installation or designed that way, it looks like crap. I can't imagine how much it would bother me if i'd actually spent two grand for it.

rHolland - you're predicting correctly. Audi showed a concept of this kind of device at the Tokyo Auto Show this year. It's no bigger than an iPhone and works in and out of the car.
 
Watch the video for the Audio Metroproject.

re factory installed nav systems just a waste of money these days?
 
Yes, Very overpriced. If they charged $400-500 for them, people would begin to view navi like AC. There's no logical reason for this ancient tech to still cost 2k when a whole navi systems are selling for less than $150.
 
And GPS is not in its infancy. Heck even in-car GPS dates back almost 20 years.

I like in dash navigation systems because they integrate very well with the dash (daaahhh). But I agree with those who say that in 5 years the car will still be looking modern but the nav screen will look like from the last century.
Nevertheless I bought a car with the nav option. It might depreciate faster but the difference will be small compared to the total retained value of the car.
Regarding the traffic-navigation integration is there a mavigation unit (in dash or portable) that has real "real-time" traffic? I am waiting the new cellphone signal density technology to calculate highway traffic as I regard the current technology insufficient to describe such a dynamic phenomenon as traffic. I think there are some post in the Altima blog where the drivers criticize the accuracy of the "real-time" traffic display.

"Speak for yourself....... although I do have to thank those like you."
 
Firstwagon you're more than welcome. You must pay to play. We have an S55 going out the door rather soon if you're interested. Well I wouldn't give this one to my worst enemy.

iDrive isn't the best but I love the integrated cockpit management concept. You can pry it and my factory nav from my cold, dead hands. I am also in the anti-suction-cup-tiny-washed-out-screen camp.
 
banhugh, so far the RTT on my car has been pretty decent here in the San Francisco Bay Area. It's still an evolving technology but I have been impressed with its ability to quickly update traffic information. As you alluded to, the speed of data flow from the traffic monitoring systems to the content provider (a Clear Channel radio station in my case, not XM/Sirius) is crucial to the accuracy on your screen.

".. can't understand why Honda made the Navi recessed in the new model. It was perfect before and really looked upscale and clean. The whole "tunnel vision" thing would bug the crap out of me."
  
Could not agree more. What's worse, you're stuck with that gigantic bat-cave in the middle of the dash whether you have the nav option or not. Not good.
  
Jaeger