Our nav compared to M-B's. Ugh.
05-28-2007, 08:27 PM
#1
AcurAdmirer
Thread Starter
Our nav compared to M-B's. Ugh.
My buddy just bought a brand-new Mercedes GL450 (65 grand), and since this is his first car with Nav, he asked me to show him how to work it. What a dog it is.
First, the display is smaller than ours ... I'd guess it's about 6.5 or 7 inches compared our 8. Next, the map background color is grey. Not tan or yellow, like maps, but a sickly grey. Even in our fairly densely-built suburban area it showed few street names, no matter the zoom level. BTW, the zoom level is controlled by "soft keys" on the side of the screen that don't even appear until you press one of the buttons. Then you zoom in or out one click at a time. There is no traffic data like out NavTraffic.
Entry is via a little bitty plastic joystick with a head the size and shape of a golf tee, which you have to push sideways and up and down over a square grid of letters. It's easy to go past the letter you want and have to back up. And if you push the joystick in to accept a letter you'd better push straight in or it will think you want to go sideways or up and down. A real PITA to use, and time-consuming, too.
The unit isn't very intuitive ... I've owned Infiniti, Acura, Lexus and Garmin Nav's, and therefore have a pretty good feel for the logic they use. But the M-B logic is a little less logical, at least to me. It doesn't appear to have voice recognition - apparently that's an extra cost option (can you believe that? On a $65,000 vehicle.)
I have to say this - it is very quick to calculate routes. I'd say it is at least half again as fast as my RL's, at least on some addresses and POI's we routed to locally. It supposedly uses Navteq maps, but they must be specially made for M-B, since the Navteq'a I've used before were much more colorful and had more map detail than this one.
The bottom line is that the M-B Nav is pretty crummy, IMO, and not nearly as useful and engaging as other systems I've used. I suppose I'd still get it if I went with M-B, but I think I might end up hating it. We really, really have the best Nav in the business in our RL's, and you only have to play with something like this one to realize it.
.
.
First, the display is smaller than ours ... I'd guess it's about 6.5 or 7 inches compared our 8. Next, the map background color is grey. Not tan or yellow, like maps, but a sickly grey. Even in our fairly densely-built suburban area it showed few street names, no matter the zoom level. BTW, the zoom level is controlled by "soft keys" on the side of the screen that don't even appear until you press one of the buttons. Then you zoom in or out one click at a time. There is no traffic data like out NavTraffic.
Entry is via a little bitty plastic joystick with a head the size and shape of a golf tee, which you have to push sideways and up and down over a square grid of letters. It's easy to go past the letter you want and have to back up. And if you push the joystick in to accept a letter you'd better push straight in or it will think you want to go sideways or up and down. A real PITA to use, and time-consuming, too.
The unit isn't very intuitive ... I've owned Infiniti, Acura, Lexus and Garmin Nav's, and therefore have a pretty good feel for the logic they use. But the M-B logic is a little less logical, at least to me. It doesn't appear to have voice recognition - apparently that's an extra cost option (can you believe that? On a $65,000 vehicle.)
I have to say this - it is very quick to calculate routes. I'd say it is at least half again as fast as my RL's, at least on some addresses and POI's we routed to locally. It supposedly uses Navteq maps, but they must be specially made for M-B, since the Navteq'a I've used before were much more colorful and had more map detail than this one.
The bottom line is that the M-B Nav is pretty crummy, IMO, and not nearly as useful and engaging as other systems I've used. I suppose I'd still get it if I went with M-B, but I think I might end up hating it. We really, really have the best Nav in the business in our RL's, and you only have to play with something like this one to realize it.
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