Well, I've owned the car for over a week now, and still haven't gotten to read all the way thru the nav manual, which is over 200 pages long. But, here are some good things to know about the nav system, for anyone who has it or is considering it:

1) The POI (point of interest) database is insanely large. This weekend I drove down to DC from NYC and used it to find: a gas station, a Courtyard Marriott hotel outside DC in Virginia, a Cheesecake Factory restaurant, and a mall. The only thing not in there that I was looking for was the Smithsonian National Zoo, but maybe it was under another name or something.

2) I had said before that the nav was giving me funny directions, but this may have been in part because by default, the nav is set to AVOID ALL TOLL ROADS. Mine was like this anyway. In So Cal or other parts of the country, this probably isn't a big deal, but out here, pretty much every road has tolls on it. Going from NYC to DC one way is about $20+ worth of tolls. So if you go into the nav setup and change it to allow toll roads, you will get much better results!

3) The colors on the nav change at night, so that open space is displayed as black rather than white. This really helps preserve your night vision and reduce glare to the rest of the passenger compartment. Very thoughtful touch!

4) The nav gives lane guidance. If you're like me, you sometimes stress about getting into the correct lane in heavy traffic, in order to make your exit. This thing tells you well in advance which lane(s) you will need to be in to go the right way. Also when you're on the freeway, it tells you which exits are coming up and how far (in time and miles) until you get there, even if it's not the exit you want to take. This helps you be aware of where you are on the highway.

5) If you do take a wrong turn, it is *very* fast at calculating a new route. The one thing I would suggest, though, is that it will often have you go pretty far before it thinks you can make a "legal" u-turn, so if you do need to turn around, just pull into a driveway or something and back out - the nav will never suggest that you do this. But it does know where you can and can't make legal u-turns. So that's pretty cool.

This is an amazing machine. Get it!

 

Thanks for the lengthy review of the nav features...One thing that nobody has mentioned is if, you can input things while you drive using the voice commands?

 

That's a very slick feature!

I currently have a Tom Tom Go (great product, BTW) but it doesn't have this and it's very much needed here in SoCal.

 

I think you can, but I haven't tried any of the voice stuff yet. I'll put more info once I read the manual and actually find out everything it can do!

 

diablo1

Very Good Post. Thanks for writing that up. That is good info about the tolls. It seems like it has alot of cool features, is there anyway to snap a pic of the difference between day & night view of the Nav screen so we have an idea what your talking about. It sounds great though that it changes color depth.

I will definately be getting the Nav which will be my first ever car with a Nav.

 

Nice writeup Diablo, thank you

Have you tried the override trick that other members (3GS for example) have posted about on your nav? I can't recall if it's been discussed in the 2IS forum yet.

 

What trick?

 

Sorry, got pulled away before I could post a link

Change NAV destination while in motion
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=167666

 

VERY cool, anyone with 5th gen. navigation, PLEASE let us know if this works!

 

It works perfectly. We left a few of the IS250 and IS350's at the Taste of Lexus event in Irvine yesterday on one of the service screens. LOL.

 

Yes, people have said that the override trick does work on the IS 350. The problem is that you have to do it every time you start the car. Apparently someone who created a hardware mod for the Toyota Prius is working on a mod for the IS that will allow you to bypass the "I Agree" screen, enter destinations when in motion, and also have full access to the phone features while driving (apparently you can't enter new phone numbers when driving, or look people up by name, or something like that?). That would be very cool.

I'll try to get some pictures of the nav during the day and night and post them. I still have to post pics of my car too... Soon!

 

My Nav screen doesn't change to night mode when it gets dark. I have my headlights set to auto...I thought that the Nav uses the same ambient light sensor as the headlights? I must be missing a setting somewhere. If someone can let me know what/where the setting is, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanx,
Erock

 

You need to play with the dimmer switch. It may be on the brightest mode and lowering it may help.

 

Yes, that's the ticket! If the dimmer switch is set on max output, the nav will not dim at night. You need to lower the dimmer switch. Just move it until it clicks and the night mode on the nav should work.

 

Worked like a charm! Thank you very much. I love this board...now if only you guys can magically make the rock chips on my hood disapear

Erock