johnpye

iTrader: (3)

I am looking to changing my stereo in my 2004 sti as the standard one is pants, when looking to purchase this car i saw one other that had a built in sat nav, does anyone know anything about these???? Thanks

BlueBugEye

iTrader: (12)

I looked at the double din units with built in Sat nav, but ask yourself this. Do you really want the map display that low down in the car?

Molbyman

iTrader: (2)

Yes...agree with Bluebugeye's comments regarding how low the sat nav would be. I use a Navman on a windscreen sucker and can see where the road is straight to overtake safely, esp. usefull in Wales. I was looking to buy the Kenwood DNX5220 but would be concerned at looking down to see which way the bends were coming up...esp. night driving.
Anyone else have any comments regarding this ?

johnpye

iTrader: (3)

is there a system that runs a radio and sat nav or is it just sat nav????
where can these double din units be obtained from???
Thanks

Molbyman

iTrader: (2)

My research shows these 2 companies to be pretty good re. price/service.
http://caraudiosecurity.com/shop/home.html and Car Audio,Car Amplifier, Car subwoofers and Car Speakers - all at great prices - brands include Pioneer, Sony, Alpine, Kenwood and JVC

BlueBugEye

iTrader: (12)

And it's far cheaper to buy a good head unit either single or double din and a decent sat nav (I prefer the Garmins). The bonus with this is your Sat Nav is then portable and can be used biking/walking or in another car.

The Kenwood double dins have a great reputation and they do a Garmin based unit that's self contained but when I looked this was far more expensive than the same spec Head unit without sat nav and a separate sat nav unit. Also think about the practicalities of updating the sat nav, I update my speed camera Db weekly, how easy is it with a built in unit?

Again on cost it's cheaper to buy a new sat nav unit in the sales etc. than it is to buy updated maps (mine is Europe wide).

daijones

I've got the Kenwood unit, together with the adaptor for an iPod. It's a very nice piece of kit, and can be extended to pick up TV, use bluetooth, plug in a rear view camera, etc. It gives a much neater install than having a separate sat nav, and doesn't leave the rubber ring mark on the screen from the suction cup. This was an important consideration for me, probably cos of the areas I live and work in: after having the side window smashed in four times by people after my old portable sat nav I stoppped using it all together. Not that I used to leave it in the car, I'm not so daft, but any sign of a sat nav having been used - including that rubber ring mark which I sometimes forgot to rub off, or leaving the ashtray door open with the cigarette lighter removed - would lead to someone putting the window through for a look. Updating the maps is relatively straightforward - you download the new map, burn it onto a CD, and shove the CD in the unit. You can also install POI maps and speed camera maps through the same process, although the POI maps built in are very good - useful in the depths of mid Wales when you need to find a Shell garage! The built in maps have full coverage of western Europe and more limited coverage of Eastern Europe.

The downsides are as mentioned here: price, and the need to deflect the eyes a little more to see the map, though there's not much in it. Installing was straightforward, but by default it needs to be wired into the handbrake-on signal wire, because it's only supposed to allow you to program the sat nav or watch video when parked. The latter I can understand, but with the sat nav it's a real pain: earthing the relevant wire rather than connecting it to the handbrake line did the trick. Talking of video, it does a good job of playing back video off the iPod or off DVD. It's worth shopping around, I've seen prices vary between £515 and £700, and up to £900 for the bluetooth version. ShopWiki is a good price comparison site. The best site I found for speed camera maps was Pocket GPS World - SatNavs | GPS | Speed Cameras

D