Well, I'm about to retract my long standing and rather vocal opinion that the navi in the RDX is better than the average Garmin. My wife and I were visiting southern Vermont a few weeks ago, and we were in a rather congested shopping area, loaded with outlets. Just for kicks, I pulled up my RDX nav to see what shopping was around.......and to my surprise......absolutely nothing. My wife's Garmin Nuvi 660 on the other hand, was LOADED with POIs. So I'm starting to agree with several of you that the navi might not be all that. Incidentally, I also like the Garmin's text to speech capability - it speaks road names that my RDX navi won't.

The real point of this post is to ask those of you with newer or older navi disks to let me know how many POIs you see in your navi. I found a real easy way to find out. Simply select main menu --> places --> name. It looks like the total number of POIs in the system is listed in the upper right. I'm running 4.55, and it looks like I have 4.9M POIs - significantly fewer than my wife's Garmin. 4.62 says it includes updated maps and POIs - so I'd be curious to know how many. Any takers?

Unforunately if I want to upgrade, it looks like I'll have to wait at least until the next version since 4.62 isn't available to the public. I'm hoping they work out whatever bug they are dealing with because I'd hate to think I can never upgrade...

Thanks,
Mike

 

About 5.5 million.

I have had no issues with 4.62, BTW.

 

The POI database fo the 4.62 release is pathetic, especially when I compare it to my son's Magellan unit. For example, although we have three Starbucks within 5 miles, the POI won't find any of them. His unit finds them all. Heck it can't even locate the post office in our town. Today we were on an errand and wanted to find the nearest Petco - per the POI it was 5.3 miles away. But in fact, as my Treo discovered, there was one within 1.5 miles, and two others that were closer than 5.3 miles. I wouldn't waste my money upgrading to 4.62. Hopefully the version that will be released this fall will finally catch up with the state of the market.

 

Bummer. That's really depressing. While I find the unit outstanding for directions, we still use my wife's Nuvi for shopping destinations. It's a shame that Acura & Alpine don't feel the need to keep up, especially given that they already have our $3K. Heck, even the $185 upgrade fee is about the price of a NEW fairly decent handheld unit.

Given the explosion of handheld units since I bought my RDX 2 years ago, it will be interesting to see if Alpine either 1) lowers the upgrade price since their product continues to be clearly uncompetitive, or 2) feels the need to enhance the db to justify the cost. I expect neither will happen. Car companies seem to always be out of touch with the consumer electronics industry.

I did some more checking this weekend on a trip to Boston. Once again, the POI db pales in comparison to my wife's Nuvi. All my raving about this system to date has been based on directions, navigation, restaurants and hotels. It's only now that we've started using it for shopping - and it has really disappointed us.

Mike

 

I think Acura/Alpine are probably buying their database from Navtec (or one of the other major suppliers), so hopefully the next release will be much more complete. The only reason I can think for the current release being so far behind, is the long lead time that auto manufacturers require for parts etc. so that by the time 4.62 was released, it was already outdated by the quickly moving maket. While that probably will hold true for the next release as well, there has been such growth in this area over the last year, that even a somewhat outdated database should be a huge improvement.

 

If a long lead time is the reason those 3 Starbucks aren't listed as POIs, maybe next time they'll be listed but no longer be there!

 

Yes, that is true - Acura and most car manufacturers do get the map data from NavTec - as does Garmin. TomTom generally uses Teleatlas - which I find to be inferior in my neck of the woods. However, from what I can tell, this appears to be for road data. I used to think it was all one big package, but I'm doubting that now because I have owned and used SEVERAL different mapping packages and GPS units, and while the NavTec road data was clearly recognizable and comparable, the POI data was drastically different. I'm starting to think that either each company buys POI data from additional vendors, or they compile their own. So unfortunately, this leads me to believe that Acura is unlikely to get it right on the next update.

The other thing that worries me is this latest move to remove the male voice prompts. Apparently they did this to save space. If the DVD is THAT packed, then it could be another limiting factor when it comes to adding more POI data. I guess storing the firmware for all the latest vehicles for disk commonality is taking it's toll on space.

I'm going to remain pessimistic here so I don't end up all pissed off when nothing changes in the next release.

Mike

 

The last time I used Navi to direct me to a POI I ended up at an empty razed lot

 

That's why I keep my TomTom in my RDX all the time. It's never let me down. Wish I could say the same about the RDX's nav system. This is really the only disappointment I have with this vehicle, after a year and 15,000 miles.

Too bad Acura doesn't seem to listen.