Navigation system question.
 

My brother has a Acura TSX with the navigation and I loved it. It had voice commands which I really liked.

I'm getting my RX-8 delivered in a few weeks (with navi) and I want to know how good is the system. I haven't heard anything bad about it but, what are some of the features.

I have the Nav system on my 8. It rocks, lots of features, voice, Maps for whole US on 1 dvd, turn by turn, memory for like 100 destinations, routes. It gets me in and out of San Fransisco just fine. That's saying something. You'll love it. Check out the threads in Audio and Electronics.

Oh no doubt I'll love it. To me it wasn't a question of not having it but, my brothers navi on the TSX is just awesome. I was/am hoping that it has the feature set an ease of use that it had in the TSX.


The thing that was great was that I'm from Atlanta and I went to visit a friend who lives in Lawrenceville quite a drive from my parents house. Well on the way up there he called me and asked me to go to the liquor store and pick up some drinks. Well if you've never been to Atlanta is it a VERY woody area and lots of people live in backwood areas or roads with no street lights things like that. Well any ways I plotted a course to the store and routed myself to back to his house. Well his house wasn't exactly on the map but, it was close enough that I could get into his subdivision. But, with those dark country roads and being in a new area I would say it was worth every penny my brother spent.

It support detours as well as alternate routes. It will find the liqour store and recalculate the route then after the stop get you headed back in the right direction. It will even give you the stores address and phone number, though data seems to be a few years old.

I used mine quite a bit recently going from Spokane to Santa Cruz and on the way home visiting my brother who is in the Coast Guard and stationed in Ilwaco, WA. Some of the areas I was in were pretty rural and I was still able to figure out where anything I needed was. My brothers street was not on the map but it calculated his house location without the street map and let me know when I was in front of his house. Pretty slick if you ask me. The only time I struggled with it was on the I-90 going back to Spokane I was trying to find a rest area to use the restroom and couldn't figure out how to find them.

i have the navi in my 8, though i've played with the one in sthe tsx.... sorry you'll be disapointed, the tsx has alot more features.. the one in the 8 is nice to have, gotten me out of a couple sticky situations but the tsx has more features, i can't remeber all of them but when i was buying a car i remember i liked the navi in the tsx more... but that wasn't nearly enough.... the 8 is still more fun to drive..... good luck, what you prob could do is go test drive an 8 with a navi and play with it a little, thats actually what i did, and decided against a navi, but somehow still ended up with it (dealer screwed me, and they found another car exactly how i wanted it but it had a navi, so i said i'll take it, and now happy that i did)

That's a bummer. Will the RX-8 Navi "learn" new roads. My brother's house isn't in the system but, the Navi has created plot points maping the path to his house from the last known location.

I know you can define "Marked points" and supposedly routes too. I assume if the route tracking is turned on it will remember how to get you back there again.

Mine didn't with my brothers. He lives in base housing but the area has both base housing and civilian housing. His street showed when I selected the destination but it didn't have a map to guide me in off the main road. So the main highway shows up on the map but the residential streets don't. There was the finish line flag at the correct place where is house was but it looked like it was in an empty field not on a residential (if rural) street.

That's fine from what you say it sounds like it operates the same way as the Acura version.

Nav is great, albeit pricey. It would be nice if it didn't take so long to boot up, if the nag screen could be disabled, and if the updates weren't so darn expensive ($200, I believe). It does not accept voice commands, as I think the systems on some BMW cars have. Also, it would be better if it could handle Lat/Lon coordinates. That would allow you to navigate to anywhere, whether the map was updated or not, provided you could calculate the proper place. The only other gripe I have is that it won't allow you to delete points from your history menu.

If you can't afford it, this is a toy you can skip. If you can afford it, it's terrific. I really like the fact that I can drive and drive and drive -- even in the dark, and I always come right home when its time to go to bed.

lol, just don't go places that you shouldn't and this won't be a problem. ;)

Nav was a "gotta have" for my new car; I'm a geek and I love toys like this. At first I was disappointed with the 8's nav, but after I got more familiar with it I came to like it more and more. I not only could do more with it, but can do so with fewer mouse clicks as I learn shortcuts. I'd like to hear specific features from other systems that the Mazda nav supposedly can't do; we may find it can but you just don't know how.

For those who said to try it out on a test drive, I don't think this'll be very satisfying. It took me a few weeks of focused attention to really get good at it.

Affording the options is not a problem. If that was the case I'd by a Sentra ;). It's was never a question of not getting it. My question is more about the functionality of the Navigation system as it compared to Acuras.

Sorry if I strayed off topic. I cannot speak to other auto nav systems, but I played with GPS devices and software for about two years before buying my RX-8. I had hoped the NAV would do several things this one does not do. The car knows what time it is and where you are and it has memory, so it knows where you've been and when you were there. It could do an amazing amount of stuff with that sort of information and I'm sure there are systems that do more. For example, it could let me download POI from my PDA, intended routes from my MS Mappoint software through the wireless network. It could better calcuate ETAs based on prior trips. It could allow for the addition of new roads without a new DVD by recording prior trips. It could recognize my voice commands - I am not sure from your post whether the Acura accepts voice commands, but some systems do. I already mentioned not being able to use Lat./Lon. info, which I would like to do. The "joystick" is also a bit difficult to manipulate. Perhaps someone else could comment on whether the Acura can do any of these particular things. The input of addresses into the RX-8 NAV is difficult if the address is not already in the history.

There is one thing this unit does that none of the other hand-held and PDA units I've used does -- it never crashes and needs to be rebooted. It just works. It might get lost or confused, but it self corrects over time. I really thought that there would be times that I've have to turn the car off to get it to reset. It's just very reliable, and that's by far the most important thing for a unit that you can rely on to find your way home. Again, perhaps someone else could comment on whether other car-based systems require rebooting. Although my Garmin hand-held units never did, they had none of the high-end mapping the RX-8's system has; almost every PDA or laptop system I've used required reboots or at least forced program shut downs, including when running NavTech software. Then again, my experience is exclusively with MS operating systems...

Twice now my Mazda nav was WAAY off course and showed my car going the wrong direction. One time, I just drove and it eventually fixed itself (1-2 minutes.) The other time, I turned off the car, restarted, and the nav instantly fixed itself. Exactly the same thing happened in our 2000 BMW; after a couple minutes it fixed itself. I think this is not a "mazda" problem per se but some quirk of satellite transmission, geometry, signal propogation or timing. But the GPS system is redundant and ultimately all errors are sorted out.

No prob. I know how it goes. But, I'm always a little irked by the "you can buy a map and save $1998.53" crew or the "I paid 30K for transportation but, the 2K was WAY too much" crew.

GREAT INFO!!!!! this is EXACTLY the information I was looking for. I have spent a great deal of time in the Acura and I can say that it does have voice commands that work really well. If you had both cars the you would consider the lack of voice a loss in the RX-8 but, if you never plan on driving an Acura then you won't miss it. The Acura needs a DVD for the update of new software. I think this is a technical issue you would think that the the nav system could download terrain infomation dynamically to update new roads on the fly. I'm sure that will be the case in later generation nav systems but no biggy. Does the NAVI speak to you like "turn left at the next intersection" or do you have to constantly look at the map for that kind of info?

A PDA unit was never in my sights. I ask myself how much is my time worth? Having to fiddle with a hand held anything when I'm speeding isn't worth it to me.

It verbally tells you, and gives you a coupla heads up before your turn. If you watch the display you will see it counting down the last few hundred yards. It also tells you if you need to be in the right or left lane (like a freeway split) and what side of the road your destination is on.

Cool so in that regard it does behave like the Acura Navi.

I'm telling ya, the Mazda navi is pretty slick, it just takes a while to appreciate all its features. There is a vast amount of info onscreen and on the DVD once you know how to access it. Short of voice recognition, I still haven't seen anyone mention what the Acura can do that the Mazda can't. Do you know of anything?

Outside of the voice commands I don't know of any difference. I mean I didn't test the Acura sysyem balls to the wall, but I did use the standard functions to navigate across town every now and again. The complaints I have seem to be standard to in car navigation technology and not specifc to one car or the other.


Thanks everyone for responding you all have been a great help in raising my expectations even more.

Furthermore, in magazine reviews of the Honda nav, I've read that voice recognition isn't all it was cracked up to me. I'm assuming it's the same system used in Acura. The reviewer complained it was pretty hit-and-miss as to whether the car could understand what you were saying; an exercise in frustration. Voice command was also used to control audio and climate settings in the car. Anyone have experience with this in Honda/Acura? Is voice recognition really ready for primetime?

Just got back from exploring the NAV system. I found not just one, but two back doors. I am not sure if this is documented on this board or not, but I'll post my pics here for now. Perhaps later, someone can take the time to go through them and properly document what each screen does...

The second back door... (not sure of the stick combination, but pushing it up and down on the version screen should eventually bring up the following screen):

The Nav Signal Screen was pretty cool, showing the location and strength of satellites being received, as well as Lat/Lon position and altitude: