boltjames

A few folks posted that they were near select dealerships in the country that are receiving production RL's that are being used for tests, comparo's, reviewers, etc.

Instead of snapping spy photos, someone pop open the trunk and tell us if the PC slot in the DVD-NAV drive has a piece of plastic in it. Better yet, steal it and run like hell to your TL and see if you can get the XM Realtime Traffic service

BJ

JT3

I'd bet that if you went to a dealer with your TL (once the RLs are released, of course), you could talk them into letting you try that... Assuming that there IS a card, of course. These would be "replacement" items for the RL that could be purchased, and I'm sure they'd LOVE to sell them to TL owners... but they'll need to know if it works or not. So, talk nicely to your dealer and see if they'll hook you up.

BTW... correct me if I'm wrong, but this would ONLY work, even in theory, if you lived in one of the cities for which XM is providing a realtime traffic and weather channel, right?

rets

BJ, good idea...


I was thinking the same thing at day 1.



Will move this to Cars & Bikes tonight.

J RIDE 81

JT3,
That's right, but I remember my dealer telling me it will be an option for the TLer's. Not far Fetched!!!

cM3go

I'm in chicago, it HAS to be one of the major metro cities that this is enabled in

frebay

while your at it, go into the new mdx and get the zagat card!

J RIDE 81

What's that?

DWP

Pardon my ignorance, but just out of curiousity, what are you talking about? I don't have a TL but I do have XM at home; there isn't any "authorization card" in my XM SkyFi receiver to make it work, unlike the case with my DirecTV receiver. Or are you referring to something else altogether?

frebay

Zagat is a food survey book, it gives ratings of all the restaurants in town. The new mdx will have an option on the navi, when u click on a restaurant, it will give you a brief review and a rating.

Here's an article i found:

In addition to the natural-sounding text-to-speech, the Honda Odyssey, the Acura RL and the Acura MDX now feature more than 700 commands and more than 1.7 million street and city names that are accessible by voice.

The system will also feature dining information from Zagat's Survey, which provides drivers and their passengers the ability to request the names of, and directions to, nearby restaurants and also listen to or view restaurant reviews.

http://www.globetechnology.com/servl...ry/Technology/

cM3go

^ it has the do with the TL navigation system and the XM radio built in, quit sitting around, go to the dealer and get a TL with Navi so you can join on in the fun too

J RIDE 81

I haven't heard that before. Thanks for the great info. Now my next question is will that be an available upgrade? I sure hope so.

frebay

my guess is that the traffice is a card, that we can upgrade, and the zagat guide is just a dvd disk upgrade. does anyone know if all the dvd data disks are the same for the tl, mdx, and rl? If so, you can just put in the dvd disc for the rl and the new info.

DWP

OK, let me try it another way:

1. What is the "PC slot in the DVD-NAV drive"? Is it like the PC card slot(s) typically found on a notebook computer? If so, what is it used for, if anything?

2. What might the "piece of plastic" in the "PC slot" be?

3. What does the "piece of plastic" in the "PC slot" have to do with XM Radio service in general or "XM Realtime Traffic service" in particular, if anything?

tlguy99

It is a PCMIA (IIRC) slot much like the one in the side of your laptop. It is used for future firmware upgrades to the NAV system (eg. Real time traffic updates). The "piece of plastic" is most likely a PCMIA card with the upgrade on it. The XM radio provides the real time traffic updates that would appear on the NAV screen once the firmware upgrade has been done.

DWP

Ah, all is made clear. Thank you.

Casper42

I'll be at my dealership tomorrow and then twice next week finalizing all my paperwork and stuff.
Assuming they have all this on the lot, I'd be totally down to try it.

1) EXACTLY where in the MDX is the Navi Computer anyway? I was looking at a NAVI on the showroom floor on Tuesday and it had the NAVI screen, but I couldnt find the computer.

2) Is the Navi Computer on the RL also in the trunk on the back right side?

PS: I'm a computer geek by trade, so if they have it I'll stick the PC Card into my laptop and see if its easily readable (FAT16/32).

Pot80h

Now if they'd only make it compatible with Vindigo, it would give you movie times too

(Vindigo is a downloadable program for PDA's that has restuarants, shopping, movies etc., for those who hadn't heard of it)

Jss1

First RL review I've seen. Note the $70k price is Canadian $$$. Sound deadening noise cancellation through the speakers is a new one on me.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...query=acura+rl

rets

Move to Cars.








5.5k

svtmike

You guys are dreaming, IMHO. Here's why the real-time traffic update feature is not on a card that can be plugged into the TL:

1) The TL Navi is in no way shape or form described as upgradeable to new features. If it were, you can bet Acura would advertise it.
2) There is no reason to make the real-time traffic feature removable. There is therefore no point in adding the expense of the PC card form factor and the reduced reliability of the connectors to any electronics associated with the feature.

In short, there is no apparent business reason to do it, so my bet is they didn't.

Mike

boltjames

Or.....

Acura knew that this breakthrough feature was going to be made available and decided to make it one of those cutting-edge introductions behind the new RL. Their partners at XM were unhappy that the vehicle that was going to sell 4x as many units as the other wouldn't have access to the service / and they wouldn't have access to the incremental revenue from the subscriber base. So, they cut a deal. The RL gets to launch the Realtime traffic as long as the TL (and other Honda/Acura products) get to have it within, say, a year of the RL's introduction.

All the photos I've seen of the RL's nav controls and screenshots are consistent with the Alpine we've got in our cars (as well as other Honda/Acura products).

So Alpine is asked to create an upgradeable DVD ROM that is suitable for the navigation system in 2004 as well as being ready for the rollout of XM Realtime in 2005.

Considering how long something like this technology would take to develop, it would be foolish to think that the TL would be launched with a ballyhoo'd XM radio service that wouldn't be able to take advantage of the new service. Be it the slot in the unit or another means, TL drivers will have the ability to have the XM Realtime sometime in the future. Bank on it.

Business reason? Like your Tivo and your cellphone, it's not about the hardware. It's about the subscription revenue.

BJ

TLGator

I think svtmike and BJ both make valid points. On the one hand, it does seem like a great business opportunity for Acura and XM to provide an upgrade path for current TL owners. On the other hand, I doubt the PC card slot has the capability of being that path. Even big businesses aren't always so clever in thinking these things through ahead of time.

My guess is that either the upgrade path will be somewhat pricier - more components needing to be replaced, such as the chips in the Navi DVD players - or even pricier than that, as in - trade in your '04 TL for the '06 model.