Quote:
Originally Posted by accwai
The base level 86 has a space in front of the shifter that's wide enough to hold a 5" GPS:
Base level BRZ should be similar. I think the real question is why one would want the nav screen down there. Example: If one's in a traffic jam in a downtown area with lots of one way streets, fixing one missed turn is going to cost big time. One probably wants to check the nav screen a lot. I personally much prefer mounting at eye level on the front window.
As for phone vs GPS, for me the biggest advantage of phone is more detailed traffic info. If you need more than high/major streets on GPS, getting one with cellphone traffic link can work. One advantage of GPS is they don't need phone signal to work, which can come in handy in some situations. Example: there are big patches of Canadian Rockies that have no phone signal and no lights. You got online and booked a motel in the middle of nowhere. Trying finding your way there with a cellphone in the middle of a rainy night.
Around here a lot of the limo service drivers run both GPS and phone at the same time. They seem to glance at traffic and talk to base on the phone but mostly use the GPS for routing.
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Thanks for the pic. I couldn't remember how big that space was from the test drive.
Agree re: traffic info. Even if an in-dash nav system gets traffic info from a cell network, I don't think it does as good a job routing around traffic as Waze. I almost always use Waze when driving, even for a 10 minute trip where I know exactly where I'm going, in order to avoid traffic.
As for the visibility of the phone when it's that low, yeah, that's where I have it in my car now and it's not optimal, but usually I only have to glance at the phone once in a while and only long enough to read the next instruction. If I'm driving somewhere tricky, I turn on the voice instructions so I can focus on driving and don't have to look at the phone at all.
As for offline access to maps, there are apps for phones that you can download from e.g. TomTom that give you the same exact offline functionality as a dedicated nav unit. Might be worth checking out if you find yourself driving in areas without cell coverage for any significant amount of time.
But even if a nav app relies on cell data, it will usually cache the route, so as long as you follow its directions, you'll still have nav. I've played the "zoom out and let's try to get back to the street it thinks we're supposed to be on" game a few times.
