I do home care nursing part time. I cover 6 counties in the SF Bay Area, and I have tons of Thomas Guides-- I really love driving around to new patients' addresses, finding them on maps. <br><br>I see that the NAV is $1900 and that seems like a lot. Why is it worth it, what do you all like about it? Can it really direct you to someone's door? How does it work?<br>Thanks. This list rules.<br><br>Vetali (still working 2 jobs, savin' up, and avidly reading the posts)

Hi Vetali,<br><br>Not many of us here can testify to exactly what the Toyota NAV does since it has not been available in the US except to special people. However, I have used DeLorme's Street Atlas software on a laptop plugged into a Garmin GPS unit. The price of this setup if bought solely for NAV purposes would be around $2000 for a laptop + another hundred or 2 for the software and GPS. The biggest drawbacks to this setup should be solved by builtin NAV:<br><br>1) Could not hear the audio from the laptop speaker and<br><br>2) Could not see the laptop reliably while driving.<br><br>Other than that, it is pretty cool.<br><br>How it works: There is a CD with a fairly complete set of maps of the US with each intersection and turn of the street tagged with its location in latitude/longitude. The street segments between intersections are also tagged with the street numbers that exist between those intersections. The GPS unit can determine your position to within a few 10s of meters and tell the computer in lat/long. The software then figures out where you are on the map by comparing your position with street positions.<br><br>The Delorme version is pretty good, although it has some errors in the database (usually when route numbers go off an exit etc). It also appears to interpolate street addresses linearly along a block. In other words, it will get you to the right block, but it might not get you to exactly the right house on the block purely by address.<br><br>Again, the above is NOT the Toyota NAV. It is only a description of how another GPS-based NAV system works.<br><br>Burns

I have the NAV system. I love it! You can input the address and it will take you right to the door. Yes, it is pricey, but very helful. For Example, I wanted to go to Tony Roma's, but didn't know where it was. I just input the name under Point of Interest and it took me there. One disadvantage is that it doesn't have newer locations. It is only as good as the version under your seat. It also does not have Post offices, schools and other public offices (That I could find) Another time it took me back on the Freeway when I was lost and in a not so good neighborhood. I hope this helps.

Is your NAV system in a Prius? If so, could you tell us how you got it? Are you a celebrity, a researcher in Ann Arbor, a Toyota employee, or just well connected?<br>Sam

I work for Toyota. I was extremely fortunate and was able to purchase a used Prius demo. I do not know if the NAV system I have is the exact same one that will be installed in the future.