2011 Navigation POI's

[yohab]

Hi. I am considering the 2011 SEL with Nav. I currently use a Garmin and love it. I particularly like: 1) how the garmin displays the roads and the ease of figuring out which road you are currently on (visually) and which way you will turn upon a quick glance; and 2) the point of interest feature. I like choosing from numerous restaurants and gas stations by the click of a button. The Garmin seems fairly accurate as to which food spots are around. Does the Ford Nav have these features. How does it compare to my Garmin? Thanks for your help.

[choff1138]

Hi. I am considering the 2011 SEL with Nav. I currently use a Garmin and love it. I particularly like: 1) how the garmin displays the roads and the ease of figuring out which road you are currently on (visually) and which way you will turn upon a quick glance; and 2) the point of interest feature. I like choosing from numerous restaurants and gas stations by the click of a button. The Garmin seems fairly accurate as to which food spots are around. Does the Ford Nav have these features. How does it compare to my Garmin? Thanks for your help.

 

 

Ford's version of accuracy and completeness depends on where you are located. Street names and visual works great 95% of the time for most of the US from what it sounds like. Does pretty good in the Anchorage area of Alaska, but haven't gone much beyond that. The POI is pretty lacking up here, but then POI are pretty lacking up here. If you compare MFT to Ipods or Garmin's you will always find something about one or the other you like better. The thing is do you want a fully integrated system, or do you want an extra device that you have to find a place to set and make sure you take in and out of your car. Only you can decide.

[yohab]

Ford's version of accuracy and completeness depends on where you are located. Street names and visual works great 95% of the time for most of the US from what it sounds like. Does pretty good in the Anchorage area of Alaska, but haven't gone much beyond that. The POI is pretty lacking up here, but then POI are pretty lacking up here. If you compare MFT to Ipods or Garmin's you will always find something about one or the other you like better. The thing is do you want a fully integrated system, or do you want an extra device that you have to find a place to set and make sure you take in and out of your car. Only you can decide.

 

Thanks. You make a good point about integration. A couple of other questions. Does it get traffic updates and automatically reroute you around traffic delays like the Garmin? I live in Los Angeles. Also, do the voice commands work fairly well when giving an address or do you have to repeat yourself often? Thanks again.

[wilsons66604]

Thanks. You make a good point about integration. A couple of other questions. Does it get traffic updates and automatically reroute you around traffic delays like the Garmin? I live in Los Angeles. Also, do the voice commands work fairly well when giving an address or do you have to repeat yourself often? Thanks again.

The traffic is updated via the Sirius Travel Link feature. It warns of problems and offers to re-route you.

I've had no problems with the voice recognition of the Nav

[choff1138]

We don't have a lot of rerouting options on traffic... one highway in and out - if it is closed - you might get lucky to find out before you get on it. But our traffic isn't so bad either.

[GatorCat]

My '11 Sport has nav and I think that the map database is at least 1 year old, possibly 2. The POI data is quite a bit out of date and there are major roads that are more than a year old that aren't on the database at all. Have had missing data in Orlando (where I live), Jacksonville FL, and Tennessee (recent road trip).

 

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this. I expected that this is a new system we would have data that was at least current in 2010. I'm a little disappointed.

 

The system does work well overall, although the Nav Traffic usefulness is mediocre. That's a problem with the provider not Ford. Data is often old or not relevant. I've seen new alerts that weren't accurate or seemed worse that depicted on the alert.

 

I do wish we had a scroll wheel/knob as it's hard to use touch to move around the screen. But there are other very useful items such as being able to have context sensitive menu choices such as magnification values.

 

It's a good deal at 795 MSRP compared to some other companies that bundle everything into a $2K nav package.

[rwolson]

I've owned several Garmins and I do like the nav system in the Edge. The mappings fairly accurate around where I live, but when I head to Maine I've fouind a few inaccuraciesin nav mapsf. I know where I'm going so I can find my way around.

 

Here's some details on the nav compared to Garmin -

• Garmin shows a turn by turn list of directions. The Edge's nav "seems" to hide the same info in a View menu, but still not convinced.
  
• The Edge nav shows POI for every exit along your route when you choose a View. Actually, very useful!
  
• Both Garmin and Edge nav do text to voice turn instructions. However, the Edge seems to do turns a bit differently. The system alerts you to a turn in x miles plus the street name. However, just when you turn you'll hear a tone. I fidn it a useful feature.
  
• The Edge nav shows a progress monitor when you're approaching your turn or destination; great feature.
  
• Map screen on the Edge you can choose different zoom settings by selecting an icon for .50, .25, etc. I love the feature; so mcuh better than my Garmin where I need to keep hit the plus or minus to zoom.
  
• When you approach a turn or exit ramp on your route the Edge's nav screen splits showing the map on the left and the actual exit on the right . You'll see the actual turns in the blow up.
  
• POIs - hard to find on the Edge. If I remember correctly, on the map push the menu biutton or whatever; just don't remember at the moment. However, the map show a mx of three different POIs chosen from a the options list.
  
• No way to add custom POIs. I do hope Ford adds the feature in the future. I know we can download customized POIs for the Garmin from POI Factory and other sites.
  

 

Ok, I'm done. I know I forgot a few things, but I'm getting carried away.

Edited January 12, 2011 by rwolson