Hi guys!

I wanted to get the navigation system for the 8, but thought that $2000 is a way too much to pay (I could build a 3 gig P4 gaming rig for much less than that!). Instead, I'm thinking of getting an aftermarket , portable nav system and just wondering if any of you have had experience with either of these two models:

Garmin StreetPilot III:
StreetPilot III (http://www.garmin.com/products/spIII/)

Navman iCN630:
iCN630 (http://www.navmanusa.com/land/icn630/index.html)

I like the Navman over the Garmin b/c it's newer & can be attached to your windshield & dash (I think it's perfect position would be directly under the rearview mirror). Also, it can be found online for under $800.

Opinions?

I believe a tray option exists for the center dash to allow mounting of a third party LCD panel or navigation system:

source (http://www4.airnet.ne.jp/rx-s/)

About two weeks ago I purchased the Garmin StreetPilot III from eCost.com for $735. There is also a $100 rebate from Garmin. I decided to by a portable unit rather than the builtin Nav unit so that my wife and I could use it in our cars as needed. It is not something I would need in my car all the time.

I looked at both the Navman and Garmin products. Here are some of my pros/cons (from memory):

Navman: Pros
- small size
- built in speaker
- Has WAAS support (supposedly improved accuracy)
- The screen supports 1000's of colors but who cares on a map?

Navman: Cons:
- More expensive than the Garmin
- Harder to find, I never saw one "in-the-flesh"
- I'm not sure if you can attach an external antenna
- Has some built in memory but does not come with any removable memory

Garmin Pros:
- Widely available
- In my use, it has worked great for me. I love the voice directions. They are clear and informative.
- Comes with all accessories. The bean-bag stand works very well.
- The maps are very clear and easy to read while driving.

Garmin Cons:
- The speaker is not built in to the unit. It is part of the power cable. That is a little klunky.
- The City Navigator CD ROM of streets is a little out of date. I wish Garmin would update more often.
- The main unit is a little clunky and heavy, but it is well built.


By the way the most recent issue of Consumer Reports looks at automotive navigation systems. The StreetPilot was top rated, but the Navman was not mentioned since it is so new.

When you are considering going the handheld aftermarket route instead of factory integrated, you have to consider the following (some might be tolerable, they are merely considerations):

-A portable sticking out in the car will be a much easier target for a thief, so you have to constantly put the portable away if you want protection (inconvenient, and people tend not to do that).

-In most cases, a portable is not mounted as securely, and can become airborne in an accident.

-In most cases, the screen on the portable will be smaller, therefore harder to read, especially when you are driving, and the less time you spend focusing on the nav the better.

-DVD-ROM based in-dash systems are going to have more features than portable CD-ROM based systems.

-At the same time, due to battery consumption considerations, portable units will normally not have as much processing power (so they will either be slower, and/or have less features).

-In most cases, portable systems will not be 3d, as is the factory model.

-99.9% of the time, the controls of the factory nav will be easier to access and operate while driving than a portable unit, especially if the steering wheel based controls in the RX8 control some aspects of the factory NAV (such as volume).

-Portable units mounted in places like the windshield or front of the dash will block vision, get hot in the sun, and will be harder to read in the sunlight. Factory units are located in optimum locations for that.

-Battery consumption and/or cig lighter wires are less convenient than an indash configuration.

That's not to say that a portable unit is crap, and won't meet some people's needs. But you're going to have a hard time getting a portable system that is cheaper, yet has all of the features and conveniences of the built-in unit. The reason why it is $2k, is because they decided on a higher end unit, and because it's integrated into the car.

---jps

Thx to everyone for their input! Much appreciated!!! :)

Some points:
1 - if I did get a portable, I'd take it with me and not leave it in the car. The Navman has a bigger screen and yet smaller than the Garmin (also, the Navman has voice as well)
2 - I think the Garmin look way more durable
3 - I like the look of that dash tray!
4 - The Navman comes with the same if not more accessories as the Garmin and it also includes a windshield sucker mount.
5 - The Garmin can be battery powered, while the Navman is onlypowered by the cig lighter. Not sure if I like the idea of a power cable hanging down all the time.
6 - I now understand the differences between the DVD vs the CD-ROM/portable versions. Basically, I guess it breaks down to this: DVD - more expensive but has way more features; Portable - less expensive, less features but (as the name suggests) portable

More questions:
1 - Do you think that the Mazda Nav system can be installed by the dealer later? I figure that if this was possible, it cost a hella lot b/c they'd have to tear your car apart to install it. (Note: it's not listed in the new dealer's RX-8 accessory pamphlet)
2 - Doesn't the Garmin's beanbag move or shift when you turn?

Someone previously posted that the factory NAV cannot be added at a latter time. As to the Garmin beanbag moving during driving, I can speak from personal experience that it does not, at least under normal driving conditions.

While the screen size is smaller than the factory system I find the Garmin system easy to read and it does not block your vision while driving.

- The Garmin beanbag mount is very stable. I've never had it move. However, it is certainly not as safe as an indash system. It will be a projectile (probably through the windshield) in a head on collision. Garmin also provides a stick-on mount too.

- Does anyone know what features the Mazda Nav has that are not in a portable system? What "way more features" does it have?

- As I alluded too previously, a huge advantage over the Mazda Nav is I can pick it up an put it in my wife's minivan for use on those long trips. We don't need to buy two built in systems. It's not like I use the navigation system everyday nor is it likely that both of us would need navigation assistance on the same day.

- The Garmin does not block my view. It is fairly short, but of course it depends on your seating position and the location on the dash you place it. Both mounts provide side-to-side and tilt adjustments. I have never had trouble viewing the screen in daylight.

If I understand correctly, the main selling points of the DVD nav are:
1 - DVD-rom data storage. No need to transfer maps from your PC to the nav system.
2 - Factory installed. Controls, LCD screen and internal antenna mounts.
3 - Larger screen
4 - Possible 3-D navigation software. I saw that Japanese commercial for the Mazda 3-D nav, but not sure this will be included in the US.

What do you mean by 3-D Navigation? The Garmin has a status screen which shows which satellites are currently being received and their lock-on status. At the top of the display it sometimes says 2D navigation, but if four or more satellites are locked on, they it says 3D Navigation. I presume that is what you mean?

There was a reference in another thread that the Japan Nav system for the 8's gave a 3d map perspective (buildings and such) when you zoomed in. Others questioned this feature for our model because of the amount of information it would have to hold given the countries difference in size & amount of cities.. etc..

Look as JSG comments about 3d-Nav on Japanese models.
http://www.rx8forum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4484&highlight=JSG

Originally posted by OmegaBob
1 - Do you think that the Mazda Nav system can be installed by the dealer later? I figure that if this was possible, it cost a hella lot b/c they'd have to tear your car apart to install it. (Note: it's not listed in the new dealer's RX-8 accessory pamphlet) We'll have to see the cars before we can make that decision. Since this car is being built with NAV, you will be able to put it in afterwards. Whether it's feasible or not depends on:

-How much the replacement parts will cost, especially the electronics. Sometimes, replacement factory radios are beaucoup expensive, and they get more and more so when the models change.

-How many items need to be replaced. For example, to put a factory cruise control on my parents new Focus wagon (they were told that the manual wagons don't come with cruise from the factory... I don't know why), you need to replace items like the steering wheel. For the nav in the RX8, it might be as extreme as having to completely replace the dashboard for the nav monitor, and it might be as extreme as having to replace the console to accomodate the nav controls, in addition to the nav hardware itself.

And even if just getting the parts to put it in is reasonable, some dealerships might not want to do that type of "custom" thing. Again, my parents ran into that with adding cruise control on the Focus, even though there is a kit available from Ford for just that.

So, unfortunately for the pre-order folks, there's no way to really tell how difficult it would be to put the factory nav in after the fact. Especially since the dealerships haven't even gotten their basic training on the car yet.

---jps

Wow! Good points!

From what I've just seen on Mazda web site, the Nav system's three antennas are placed in the roof. I think that would involve too much work (and cost) to justify nav as being a dealer installed option.

Oh well, back to the original two....

One more thing, nav is on the bottom of my list of accessories to get. Here's my list in order of (future) purchase:
1 - Spare tire kit
2 - MiniDisc player
3 - Spoiler
4 - Winter tires & rims
5 - Splash guards
6 - Aluminum door sills
7 - Aluminum air vent bezels
8 - Nav system

no, what that means is that because of the number of satelites, it is able to record movement in 3 dimensions.
This gets kind of wierd because the surface of the earth is 2D, not 3D like the earth itself. With the third dimension it is probably measuring hieght/depth (like going up a hill) which would change the distance traveled in 2D (ie, instead of being at house 20 going up a hill, youd be a 25, though your only at house 20, you get that extra distance from moving upwards, measuring in 3d would null this, though i dont think it would be even measured in a 2d scan....) or SOMETHIGN, dont really know what it means, but that is probably it.
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A 3D NAV system can display your distance above sea level where a 2D cannot. You need three satellites to lock in you coordinates but you need to lock on to four satellites to calculate your distance above sea level. I presently have a Garmin StreetPilot III mobile navigation system, which is 3D.

there is a cheaper (OK more ghetto) way of doing it if you have a PDA or laptop.

If you go to http://www.destinator1.com/ you can buy a GPS receiver and navigation maps for around $300.

Good - The GPS receiver is pretty good quality (12 channel) and the maps are in a 3D view so its easy to use. Also, its completely portable and can be changed from car to car or even taken along hiking/biking/hunting. Oh yea, and its pretty cheap!

Bad - Well, you have to rig up a way of mounting it. The screen will only be the size of your PDA (or laptop). Also, probably hard to use while driving (although it does thankfully recalculate routes automatically if you make a wrong turn) so its best used with a navigator in the passenger seat.

I think the earlier 3D comment meant the display gives a 3D perspective. Rather than looking top-down from a "Gods-eye" view (like on a paper map), you're get more of a birds-eye view, looking somewhat down and ahead, giving a 3D dimension to what is shown on the screen. You will find this in many other auto nav products. I have read that the Japanese version of the RX-8 has the 3D view while the US version is 2D.

The comment about 4 or more satellites means that if 4 satellites are within line-of-sight the Nav system can actually compute your position in 3D (lat/long/altitude.) I doubt that any consumer road nav system takes advantage of this capability; they "assume" the world is flat. The algorithms to do 2D are much cheaper and take less processing (CPU) power than a true 3D algorithm that would be used for aircraft or military applications.

Now, as to why built-in is better than handheld/portable solutions:

(1) Portable cannot load all maps at once. So, you have to know in general where you will be going to ensure you load the right maps before you leave home. To me, this is a big enough inconvenience that I would rarely, if ever, do so. The DVD-based system has the whole US database with you at all times.

(2) Unless you patch the handheld into the car's sound system, your audio is going to be very weak. Built-in Nav audio comes through your speakers and mutes the entertainment audio when the Nav speaks to you.

(3) The car will have 2-3 GPS antennae build into the roof; the Garmin has only the one antenna. Multi-antenna provides an order-of-magnitude improvement in the accuracy of the Nav. Instead of maybe 30-50 meters of accuracy, you will be within 3-5 meters. When driving frontage roads, etc. this will place you correctly on the right road; the Garmin might assume you are on the adjacent highway thereby giving wrong driving directions.

(4) The built-in system uses not only GPS to discern position, direcion and speed but also has gyroscopic sensors to augment the GPS. In tunnels or around hi-rises, the gyro takes over entirely and can very accurately continue to plot your position even in complete absense of GPS for several minutes. Handhelds can not do that; they need GPS continually. I would guess with a handheld, when you lose GPS (like in a tunnel), when you emerge it will have to re-establish comms with the satellite and take many seconds/minutes to re-compute your position and direction. Certainly enough "blackout" time for you to miss your turn. Use of gyro alleviates this problem entirely.

With a gyro, the nav system knows instantly when the car turns or accelerates; you will see it onscreen while you are in the turn. With only GPS, the sensor will have to detect and compute you are turning/accelerating which will only happen after the fact. How much after the fact is a function of CPU computing power and signal strength from the satellite (and how much computing power does a handheld have when the same CPU is also controlling display, recalculating routes, talking, and calculating vehicular motion?) Not that much!

I have hands-on experience with built-in nav (my wife's BMW); but none with handheld systems, so all my comments about handheld are theoretically-based. However, I do work with military nav systems so I have subject-matter knowledge. I would be very interested to hear from someone who has actually used a handheld -- or better yet, compared handheld to built-in systems -- to see how close to the mark I hit on these points.

very well said
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A sextant....a compass....

Just kidding, actually, there ARE aftermarket in-dash/hideaway DVD Navigation systems with gyros, vehicle speed sensors, and reverse sensors. Here are a couple (http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S-eZwtomMD48r/ProdGroup.asp?c=3&s=0&g=79600&cc=01&avf=N) from Alpine and Kenwood. The Alpine will work without an external LCD, but I'm sure it would be a pain in the rear. The Kenwood requires an LCD, and a touch screen model is available from them. The bad news is the price. $2200 for just the Navi-computer and external antenna, and $1100 for the 8" LCD, which also has a reveiver unit that must be stowed. So, you're talking about $3300 for a system where you have to hide 2 boxes, plus figure out a clever LCD-mount. Both of these units also have a ICE mute feature. The Alpine can be mounted up to 30 degrees from horizontal, whereas the Kenwood must be absoultely horizontal (limits your hiding places). Also, the Alpine LCD is widescreen, less expensive than the Kenwood, and doesn't use an external interface box. Hmm...let me compare the prices:

Kenwood_______________________________ Alpine
Kenwood KNA-DV2100...........$2200 _______ NVE-N852A........$1700
Kenwood eXcelon LZ-800W....$1100 _______ TME-M760 LCD..$650
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kenwood system: $3300 _________________ Alpine system: $2350

Interesting....but the factory NAV is still the best value.

You are absolutely correct. If you look back to the original question, what they are really asking about is "aftermarket, handheld" nav systems. Thus, my post compares built-in systems vs handheld. My comments about built-ins are not unique to Mazda systems, but generically any good built-in will include the gyro, sound system integration, etc where a handheld system won't. Your comment that Mazda's built-in is a better value than after-market built-in's is well taken. I hadn't done the cost analysis but it's good to hear. Also, buying it factory-installed avoids all the aggravation of figuring out where to put the antennae, DVD player, run wires, etc. The big advantage I can see to an after-market built-in is that you can get it with movie capability, MP3 capability and expandable to all kinds of cool stuff. If you could do this and make it look right in the RX-8 it would be way cool.

Originally posted by 8_wannabe
You are absolutely correct. If you look back to the original question, what they are really asking about is "aftermarket, handheld" nav systems. Thus, my post compares built-in systems vs handheld.

Hey, sorry if hijacked the thread a bit. I just remembered that there had been a number of threads discussing aftermarket NAV, and decided to add something to the general topic. Yeah, there's definitely something to be said for portable units - a little easier on the wallet, too.

Hey guys!

Thx for all that info! WOW!

Unfortunately, since I already placed my order, the Mazda nav is not an option for me (though again, all the nav info was great!)

I'll probably go with either the Navman or the new Garmin iQue 3600 (found out about the iQue on one of the other threads).

iQue 3600 (http://www.garmin.com/products/iQue3600/)

I'm going for the NAVMAN attachment for my iPaq. It may not be as good a NAV unit (speculation on my part) as the dedicated units, but it is much more versatile.

Navman iPaq (http://www.navmanusa.com/land/gps3450/index.html)

...and less expensive.

theres also the Pioneer nav systm, but that is also an install
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OK. Here's a new question for everyone:

Does the map display on the various nav systems (Mazda's, other DVD based or portables) rotate relative to your position?

What I mean is does the map always point towards the top of the screen (so your car always points up on the map) or is the map static and always points north?

All the built-in systems I've seen are user-selectable: Car always pointing up or North always pointing up. Don't know about handhelds, but I'd suspect they are selectable too.

Originally posted by OmegaBob
Does the map display on the various nav systems (Mazda's, other DVD based or portables) rotate relative to your position?

What I mean is does the map always point towards the top of the screen (so your car always points up on the map) or is the map static and always points north?
It is selectable on the Garmin Streetpilot III. My wife loves this because she always had to do this with paper maps. :p

Kewl! Thx guys!

I've had the experince of having a "Handheld GPS System" PDA or Handheld, and one that was installed in a car.
The handheld unit is nice that you can take it out of your car and use it for other things. Geocaching (http://www.geocaching.com/) You will find that you don't use it in your car as much as an install system. Why?

Well the screen is usally pretty small, and you'll actually have to stop the car to look at it in most cases. Or if you ever have to input information. Unless you have a passnger with you. If you don't then your going to need a stand, or somthing to mount it to your windshield so you can see it.

You might have wires going all over the place. One for the power, and another for the Antenna if it's not a wireless "Bluetooth" GPS. If it's a stand alone unit that might not be as bad. But then you have the battery / cigeratte lighter cord issue. And you have to make sure it has line of sight for the Satellites. Meaning that it has to be up on your dash or windshield to be effective.

It usally doesn't have voice, and if it does it's usally not loud enough to hear it in the car coming from a tiny speaker. You could get one of those FM transmitters, or a Cassette adaptor to play on your speakers. But the FM transmitter/Cassette adaptor is not going to allow you to listen to your music while driving. Also the cassette adaptor is another cord being strung around. "Can you tell I've done this before?"

My experince has been this, if you get an Handheld GPS system, that's exactly what it becomes sitting on your desk/table. You may use it for a month, and use it for those long road trips. But after awhile it's just a hassle setting it up, and taking it down inside your car. Or having to put new batteries in it, because you left it on and they went dead.

If it's built into your car, it's always there, ready to go. Especially if you need it just to find the address of a meeting, party, hotel or resturant. True you probably won't use it everyday, but it certianly handy when it right there ready to go.

You'll never regret getting the installed NAV system. It's just hard paying for it.

Awesome comments, MaRX8. Thanks. You're the only one I've seen so far that has used both handheld and built-in's so your comparison is appreciated. You validated all my suspicions about convenience or lack thereof of the handheld. Do you also have any thoughts about the technical issues in my post above, such as built-in works in tunnels thanks to gyro vs handheld having to recompute position when line-of-sight is restored. Also, the accuracy issue of one antenna on handheld vs 2 antenna on built-in offering greater accuracy. Did you ever notice either of these phenomena?

Originally posted by 8_wannabe
Awesome comments, MaRX8. Thanks. You're the only one I've seen so far that has used both handheld and built-in's so your comparison is appreciated. You validated all my suspicions about convenience or lack thereof of the handheld. Do you also have any thoughts about the technical issues in my post above, such as built-in works in tunnels thanks to gyro vs handheld having to recompute position when line-of-sight is restored. Also, the accuracy issue of one antenna on handheld vs 2 antenna on built-in offering greater accuracy. Did you ever notice either of these phenomena?

Going thru a tunnel is usually not a big deal for a NAV unit. Because it instantly updates your position, once you've restored line-of sight again. A system that uses a gyro unit, can certainly help with this, but I've haven't used one that does have a gyro in it. That's something thats fairly new.

Also about 3 years ago, the government made it so that commercial GPS units where more precise. There use to be a delay or an offset of the GPS signals being transmitted. This was done for security reasons. Only Government GPS units had a special device to correct this signal flaw. So your accuracy was not as precise as it is today.
"Intentional degradation of the satellite signal — Selective Availability (SA) is an intentional degradation of the signal once imposed by the U.S. Department of Defence. SA was intended to prevent military adversaries from using the highly accurate GPS signals. The government turned off SA in May 2000, which significantly improved the accuracy of civilian GPS receivers."

Since commerical airliners started to migrate to GPS units. There was a request to remove this delay/offset. When they finally removed the delay/offset, everyone's GPS unit got an automatic upgrade in a way. It was more precise.

The Nav unit calculates your elevation, and speed biased on the triangulation of the Satellites. Your Nav unit needs at least three satellites to determine your 2-D position, if you add a forth it can tell you where you are 3-D, meaning your elevation. I'm not up to date on the latest and greatest, but my car unit would track up to 8 satellites, which was pretty good the more satellites it's tracking the more precise the system will be. Newer units track around 12. With there being about 29 sats operational. Half of those are on the other side of the earth at any given time. You would have to have a clear 360 degree view of the horizon and sky for your GPS unit to pick all 12 up. But you only need 3 for pretty accurate information. GPS isn't like Satellite radio, where you get drop outs every once in awhile usually from tall building or canyons. With 29 Satellites in the sky, there are always a few that it can see.

Most unit's only have 1 GPS antenna. Where that antenna is mounted is the biggest factor. The top of the roof is the best place. Or somewhere near your rear window glass. Or where the rear view mirror is a good place also.
I guess some Navigation units might have more than 1 antenna, but the only reason to have 2 would to get a better view of the sky, and if your car was at a stand still, and you needed to know what direction it was facing because it was on a turntable. If your at a stand still, a single antenna GPS unit can't tell you what direction your facing, unless your moving, and it only thinks your facing that direction because your moving that way. Two antennas would allow the unit to know which way it's truly facing.

So here's another thing about Install vs. Handeld. Powering up the unit. Depending on how fast the processor is in the device. It has to take a few minute to align it's self (Find and track the Satellites in the sky). This can be a few seconds to a few minutes. 10 mins is the longest I've seen it take to align a GPS unit. Once it's found 3 satellites in the sky, it can usually find the others quickly. So unless you have some type of power to the unit at all times. It has to re-sync it's self with the sky. Car units usually get this power from the cars battery, or a sub battery that recharges when the car is running. So it's always aligned to the Satellite in the sky. Some unit's just have such a fast processor that it just finds that satellites that fast.

Hope this helps, I'm not sure of the specifics of the RX-8 unit. But I ordered one because, I know what it's like to have a handheld unit. Handheld units are great, for your Hand and outside. Not that great for your car.