For those of you w/ navi's, what are the pros/cons to Nissan's version? I am trying to compare to the TL's navi.
Thank you in advance.

 

It's probably better if you just go try them both for yourself and see how you like them. Drive down to each dealership and start messing around with the buttons during the test drive... at least you'll have a good first-hand impression of both systems.

I don't know who does Acura (I think it's supplied by Pioneer) but IIRC Zernin (http://www.zenrin.com) supplies the navigation stuff for Nissan/Infiniti. I don't think they're the same but they should be fairly close.

 

Love it! This is my first time owning a car with it, now I probably will never go without it. some of the pros are that it is factory integrated, it has a large color screen and it is fairly simple to use. I would say a con is (if comparing to the TL is that the TL has bluetooth and I do beleive touch screen. Altough I beleive touch screen can be a disadvantge as well (fingerprints etc..). Finally, I'm not sure but I was told that the TL is voice activated? In saying this, I personally think the max is still the better car for the money. Good Luck!

 

One of the guys at work also told me the TL is tied into traffic reports through XM and shows where heavy or congeted traffic is on the display so you can take alternate routes.

 

XM NavTraffic is actually standard only on the RL... I don't know if they retrofit the '04-05 TL for it because of the navigation unit -- it's probably unlikely without a hefty price.

The whole thing is based around the Pioneer AVIC-NC2, so I suppose you could just grab one and drop it in any car -- do some voodoo with the XM/GPS antennas, and it should work just the same.

I think they're offering some introductory thing for Acura where you can get XM & NavTraffic together for like $15 a month. The unit itself is like $2,500 though...

 

When I got mine I did a close comparison of the two. I actually think the TL's is a little nicer in terms of functionality (Touch Screen, voice activated, a few extra search capabilities), but the Nissan Bird Map is by far superior in my opinion. The nice 3d maps outweights the extra features the TL has, in my opinion. The one thing the TL offered that I wish the Maxima did, was the ability to control the nav while driving. It's been discussed here with pro's and con's in previous threads.

 

Accordng to the TL forums, the voice activation is none too reliable. Ditto for dialing the Bluetooth by voice. People there report it sometimes takes 3 or 4 tries to get it to understand what you're saying, and by then you could just key it in by touch.

One point about factory nav, though ... if you have more than one car, you can't take it with you. The same goes for traveling by plane and renting a car, or going in someone else's car. If you have a portable unit, you can take it with you and have nav in any car you're in.

That was a pretty big factor in my buying a Garmin portable unit, since we have 3 cars in the garage!

Mike

 

Just wondering, and maybe this belongs in a thread of its own, but is it possible to convert a nonNavi to a Navi?

 

Love the bird-view of the NAVI - it's by far better then the "plan" view offfered by most other systems. Guess I'm just a 3-Dimensional guy...

 

There have been threads about it... it's possible, but it depends on how deep your pockets are...

It's a much better idea to spend a couple of grand or thereabouts on a navigation-enabled HU from Alpine or the like.

 

Appreciate your responses.