2014 FRS Premium NAV review for Canadian

[sero901]

So I figured i would do i quick write up for you canadians looking to purchase a 2014 FRS with the Premium NAV option. DONT WAIST YOUR MONEY!!!!
If you have went to the website, like me, the description for what you get is extremely vague.

The all-new Scion Premium Display Audio System with Navigation boasts a number of advanced features, as user-friendly and intuitive as they are practical and innovative. With “One Shot” voice commands, you can input navigation and audio commands in English or French without the hassle of long menus. The unit keeps you connected through Bluetooth with advanced text-to-speech capabilities for text messages and emails. In addition, with the entire Gracenote Database at your fingertips, completing your music collection with cover art and artist/track information has never been easier. The “Play More Like This” feature lets you discover more music you love deep in your own collection by finding similar songs to the one currently playing using track metadata.

Summary:
-Nav
-one shot
-text-speach
-gracenote? (no idea what this is)
Those features are basic at best.

US model apps:
-Bing
-Pandora
-Weather
-Map
-Fuel Prices
-iHeart radio
-Movies
-Sports
-Traffic
-Open table
-Stocks
-E-Mail
-Calendar
-Pictures

Canadian model apps
-Map
-Pictures
-Email?

(its says email on all the paperwork although i cannot find it ANYWHERE, i have tried everything the manual just shows it in the app screen but it is actually not there.)

These two units cost about the same to upgrade to but as you can see the US model contains a million more features which we do not get in Canada. In addition to this this unit is not satellite radio capable. Im not out to bash scion, i love my 2014 FRS but i feel they should have put slightly more effort in making this unit comparable to American model.
If anyone wants to know anything else before wasting $1,000 on this unit post it here and il do my best to demo it so you can see and decide for your self. I would sell this unit if i could get my $1000 back for it and go with a DN990HD or something.

[TRDCal]

Thanks for the review...I realize its a few or 7 months old but figured I'd try asking here instead of starting a new thread.

I'm looking to add nav to my FR-S. I'm not interested in the extra crazy fun stuff, I just want the little lady who tells me where to go and can find the closest Tims while retaining the factory look and warranty

Can you review that feature alittle more? How does it work, you press the "APP" button and it brings up a menu where you select Nav?
Does the unit search for a GPS signal as soon as the radio is on or is there a waiver screen you have to accept everytime like the Eclipse Nav in my 4runner?
How's the POI/Address database? (I had a Garmin that couldn't find either of my parents houses in the boonies)
Does it calculate/recalculate routes quickly?
Can you input information while driving or does it need the handbrake pulled?
Did you install? If so, how did it go, where do you put the GPS antenna?

Any help would be great!

Also, does anyone know if an American NAV headunit can be swapped in without displaying a bunch of unusable features (ie: can you disable them in setup menu) and would it have Canadian maps and POIs??

I want to because they can be had for the price of the premium upgrade here and I prefer the lower R/H button to say MAP (and presumable brings you right to nav) as opposed to fumbling around with the APP menu etc. Also would like to investigate changing the back lighting to red but don't have the guts to dig into the original factory headunit (yah i'm crazy like that). I'd like to know which genius thought it was a good idea to have red backlighting everywhere in the car but the radio!?!?

[TRDCal]

Bump...only one guy bought the nav upgrade?

[sero901]

hey sorry to took a while to answer, been at the cabin and the closest thing to reception up there is AM CBC radio lol.
Il do my best to answer all your questions:
when you select "APP" and you select MAP it comes to a warning screen. when you hit agree the map loads almost instantaneously. No buffering or wait time. Takes about 10 sec to load a route and when you miss a turn recalculated very quickly. The POI database was pretty good. Found all the important things (like coffee). Where i live in in a small town i only really used it when i was in st johns. A couple of times it missed the spot and i looked up the address in my phone, punched it in and found it that way. I think it would be spot on in a larger city.
It locks you out from manually inputing data while your driving but you can push the voice button on the top l/h corner and verbally input the location. its a bit tricky but it can be done effectively with practice. i never installed but i uninstalled when i changed it to a kenwood nav unit. the GPS antenna goes behind the gauge cluster under the cover. The worst part of the unit and the main reason i removed it from my car was interfacing with my iPhone. I wouldn't play music from an app without opening youtube through the internet (not the app) clicking a video and the exiting and playing radio from the app (i was using the Edge in Toronto). Some music apps wouldn't work then. even after you got it playing the stereo would randomly come up "STOPPED". I would have to exit and go back to the internet youtube and try to get it to play again. It drove me crazy. for the money i would go with a aftermarket pioneer or kenwood or alpine. the CaFi stereo looks neat too. I noticed a significant improvement in audio quality with the kenwood 990HD over the stock unit (and i'm no crazy audio guy so it has to be a huge improvement for me to notice) Hope this helps. anything else let me know.

[TRDCal]

Originally Posted by sero901

hey sorry to took a while to answer, been at the cabin and the closest thing to reception up there is AM CBC radio lol.
Il do my best to answer all your questions:
when you select "APP" and you select MAP it comes to a warning screen. when you hit agree the map loads almost instantaneously. No buffering or wait time. Takes about 10 sec to load a route and when you miss a turn recalculated very quickly. The POI database was pretty good. Found all the important things (like coffee). Where i live in in a small town i only really used it when i was in st johns. A couple of times it missed the spot and i looked up the address in my phone, punched it in and found it that way. I think it would be spot on in a larger city.
It locks you out from manually inputing data while your driving but you can push the voice button on the top l/h corner and verbally input the location. its a bit tricky but it can be done effectively with practice. i never installed but i uninstalled when i changed it to a kenwood nav unit. the GPS antenna goes behind the gauge cluster under the cover. The worst part of the unit and the main reason i removed it from my car was interfacing with my iPhone. I wouldn't play music from an app without opening youtube through the internet (not the app) clicking a video and the exiting and playing radio from the app (i was using the Edge in Toronto). Some music apps wouldn't work then. even after you got it playing the stereo would randomly come up "STOPPED". I would have to exit and go back to the internet youtube and try to get it to play again. It drove me crazy. for the money i would go with a aftermarket pioneer or kenwood or alpine. the CaFi stereo looks neat too. I noticed a significant improvement in audio quality with the kenwood 990HD over the stock unit (and i'm no crazy audio guy so it has to be a huge improvement for me to notice) Hope this helps. anything else let me know.

Awesome...thanks for the info. I'll probably end up going aftermarket as well.