While I've done a lot of reading about the F90BT, I haven't had a chance to play with it, until today. Because of my research, I knew going into it that the navigation only had a 3D mode and a 2D mode (without track up). However, I didn't realize how big of an issue that is probably going to be for me until seeing it today.

I've used an external garmin unit for the last two years and the only mode I have ever found useful is the 2D track up mode. However, I was hoping that the 3D mode would suffice. What I found, by having the unit demo a route similar to my daily 40 minute commute, is that the 2D mode would be frustrating because it is counterintuitive. I don't want a unit that shows me driving in different directions on the screen other than up, hence the reason that most navigation owners like and use the track up feature. Therefore, I used the 3D mode and the problem with that was that it shows much less detail and on a longer route (such as my 40 minute commute - 35 miles or so), it doesn't allow me to zoom out as much as the 2D does. The 2D mode allows me to zoom out so that I can see where I'm starting from and where I'm going to and many ranges imbetween (not so with the 3D mode).

My question to those of you F series owners - is this not something that also bothers you or is it something that you just learned to deal with over time? After today, I'm thinking that this might be a deal breaker for me but before I make that decision, I figured it would be good to get opinions from people who own and use the unit on a daily basis.

Yep, it bothers a lot of people, which is why there are some many threads about it. We're working on a fix, but ultimately it will probably take Pioneer released iGo 8.3 for the F-Series to fix it.

Same here! Also, I don't know if this happen with all Nav systems (or just mine) but, sometimes when I stop at a redlight the arrow on 3D mode will think that I'm going in a different direction.

When I stop sometimes, (not always) it will kick to the right and as soon as I drive straight through the light, it then straightens up.

Duh-No?

Guess I should stop stopping @ redlights...

Same here! Also, I don't know if this happen with all Nav systems (or just mine) but, sometimes when I stop at a redlight the arrow on 3D mode will think that I'm going in a different direction.

 

When I stop sometimes, (not always) it will kick to the right and as soon as I drive straight through the light, it then straightens up.

 

Duh-No?

No, my Eclipse Nav unit doesn't do that.When I stop at a redlight the cursor stops as well and there's no kick to the right when I start driving.

I actually really like "north up." Always have, it's the mode I've used on all of my nav systems. I don't like the whole thing rotating for just slight turns. Yuck.

but over here we call track up the "womans setting" as women are usually not that good in reading maps north up.

I would go crazy with the map rotating all the time, for me north up is much more intuitive especially when looking for shortcuts in heavy urban traffic where the routing is useless as it doesn't get TMC information.

never mind

Jörg

I actually really like "north up." Always have, it's the mode I've used on all of my nav systems. I don't like the whole thing rotating for just slight turns. Yuck.

I agree 100%! I don't like the whole screen turning either.

Heads up is a far more natural way for navigating IMO... but, like the OP, my main gripe with the 3D view is the total lack of detail when you even start to zoom out.

I tend to want to know a bit about where I am in the big picture, so to speak, which is why 300ft of nav detail just won't cut it. I hate being a slave to turn-by-turn directions... I'd rather give myself an idea of where I am and where I'm going in the next few miles. Must be the old map reader in me!

I have owned a Kenwood 4100 nav for the past 4 years. I installed the F700 today and I was wondering if there is a zoom in and out feature?

I sure could not find it if there is. I can tell that when you pay a quarter of the price, you get a quarter of a product. I am really gonna miss the DVD based nav.

I hope I am able to get used to this thing.

I guess it depends on what you're used to. I have a TomTom 720 and I've never used anything but the 3d mode. To me lack of 2D is a non-issue. The nav shows you what your next turn is, how to get to where you're going and where you are, everything else is just fluff.

I have owned a Kenwood 4100 nav for the past 4 years. I installed the F700 today and I was wondering if there is a zoom in and out feature?

 

I sure could not find it if there is. I can tell that when you pay a quarter of the price, you get a quarter of a product. I am really gonna miss the DVD based nav.

 

I hope I am able to get used to this thing.

How did you like the Kenwood? What are your pro's and con's on the unit?

I have owned a Kenwood 4100 nav for the past 4 years. I installed the F700 today and I was wondering if there is a zoom in and out feature?

AFAIK (having only played with the unit for hours in stores) you simply tilt the "volume" knob up or down to zoom in or out.

I can tell that when you pay a quarter of the price, you get a quarter of a product.

I'd never thought of it that way... however, the F700 might have BT but it does lack DVD playback so it sorta cancels things out. More worrying IMO is that iGo software is not exactly common and popular in the nav world as far as I can tell. Does that mean it's crap?!

Well, zooming in and out is described in the manual and not exactly hard to achieve...

iGO is, actually, a major supplier of Nav software (quite big in Europe), but because they do not market their own hardware, they are not as well known. Nevertheless, Mio used to use them before they got Navman software, HP uses them for IPAQ 31x series, and it is marketed in the US as OnCourse...

Well, zooming in and out is described in the manual and not exactly hard to achieve...

I will put the CD ROM in with the manual and take a look...

It should not take that to use a touch screen device.

As far as the Kenwood, it is the last of the awsome Nav systems. The Z3 would be the closest thing available today with a 20GB database. The Kenwood is very easy to use and everything was in the place you would expect it to be. It took me all of about 30 minutes to find my way around.

Of course the downside to the Kenwood is that the last available DVD's were made 10/2004. So it is out of date.

You can't do the same thing with 2GB that you can with 20GB. It would be nice if we could run a larger database though the SD card.

Well, it takes about 5 minutes to add + and - buttons to iGO skin (try doing that with a Kenwood:) ) but since Pioneer actually gives you a hardware button to do that, why not use it?

Personally, I found that setting autozoom and overview to my lpreference gives me ideal zoom in most situations.

20GB is certainly better (and iGO does support secondary data directory), but looking at data sizes of most major navigation units, 2-4GB seems to be reasonbably sufficient. Map compression technology has made great progress in the past few years...

Don't get me wrong, the F series has no limit to what it can do. It runs Windows CE and has all the hardware to pretty much support anything!

I was reffering to the OUT OF THE BOX unit. As a nav system OUT OF THE BOX it is not the KNA-DV4100. That is a 4 year old unit that is out of date. So pretty much nav as it was is NO more.

With that said I can't wait to see what is coming in the future.

I am hoping for ethernet support and the ability to install Windows Mobile Apps. I am sure we are a little ways from that. But I bet it will happen.