Navigation DVD 6.1 vs 7.1 – One month impressions and problems
12-05-07, 02:59 PM
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Navigation DVD 6.1 vs 7.1 – One month impressions and problems
Some of you may have read my initial review of the updated 7.1 nav here, but I would like to see other people’s thoughts on the latest “update” before I spend time talking to Lexus about the what I believe are major issues/reductions in directional logic from the latest update.
I’ve spent the last month switching between 6.1 and 7.1 several times to confirm there is in fact a poorly “optimized” method of destination calculation that is done in 7.1 which was not in 6.1. Here is my list of problems that has been introduced:
1. On numerous occasion, the nav will actually have you exit highways, take an outer road (service road, outage, or frontage road depending on your part of the US) and rejoin the highway. I have experienced this four times in less than a month, three of which are on road that have not been updated in at least four years.
2. The nav will often do multiple updates with an new direction directly before or after a turn or exit (along with the guidance tone). This sounds like the nav is actually interrupting itself or stuttering.
3. On highways with both a left and right exit near one another, you will get an extra voice directional one to two miles prior to the exit giving an incorrect “slight left” or “slight right.” This will often be corrected in the last ½ mile, but it causes the nav to go into stutter mode and give half directions for about ¼ mile.
4. Once a destination and path has been calculated, the nav now wants to stay as close to this original path as possible even when a new path is shorter or faster. For example, imagine that you want to get from point “A” to point “B” which is six blocks north and four blocks west. The original route has you go six blocks north then four west as expected. If you then travel one block north and then detour one block west the route will then try to route you one block north, one block east then north the four original blocks then west four blocks. Version 6.1 would have you continue you west three more block then six north, or zigzag a block west and north, but never try to get you back to the original route.
5. Similar to number four above, entering an actual detour in the route will now route you as close as possible to the original route without taking into consideration the destination, only the previously defined route.
6. I have on several occasions received the message that turn by turn guidance would not be available on a portion of a trip where on previous versions this path had full turn by turn directions. The strange part is the road data is still there, and the path is now highlighted in a light blue path without turn by turn directions for this section. This may be a change in map data, but why would it still show the correct path then?
7. Finally, route calculations with multiple paths now take incredibly bad “shorter” routes over routes that take predominantly highways or interstates. These shorter routes will often take you through major downtown areas, neighborhoods, or subdivisions with significantly more stops and slower speeds. Under 6.1, these options were sometimes one of your three route choices, but now all choices include these shorter routes through urban areas.
I originally through I may have just remembered incorrectly, but have on two occasions, back tracked a route, replaced 7.1 with the 6.1 disc, and completed the route as expected. I have also needed to cover the same route twice and tried it with 6.1 vs 7.1, and 6.1 never experienced the improper behavior.
Anyone else experience any of this behavior and/or have suggestions on how to even contact regarding this “downgrade” in nav capabilities?
Dan
I’ve spent the last month switching between 6.1 and 7.1 several times to confirm there is in fact a poorly “optimized” method of destination calculation that is done in 7.1 which was not in 6.1. Here is my list of problems that has been introduced:
1. On numerous occasion, the nav will actually have you exit highways, take an outer road (service road, outage, or frontage road depending on your part of the US) and rejoin the highway. I have experienced this four times in less than a month, three of which are on road that have not been updated in at least four years.
2. The nav will often do multiple updates with an new direction directly before or after a turn or exit (along with the guidance tone). This sounds like the nav is actually interrupting itself or stuttering.
3. On highways with both a left and right exit near one another, you will get an extra voice directional one to two miles prior to the exit giving an incorrect “slight left” or “slight right.” This will often be corrected in the last ½ mile, but it causes the nav to go into stutter mode and give half directions for about ¼ mile.
4. Once a destination and path has been calculated, the nav now wants to stay as close to this original path as possible even when a new path is shorter or faster. For example, imagine that you want to get from point “A” to point “B” which is six blocks north and four blocks west. The original route has you go six blocks north then four west as expected. If you then travel one block north and then detour one block west the route will then try to route you one block north, one block east then north the four original blocks then west four blocks. Version 6.1 would have you continue you west three more block then six north, or zigzag a block west and north, but never try to get you back to the original route.
5. Similar to number four above, entering an actual detour in the route will now route you as close as possible to the original route without taking into consideration the destination, only the previously defined route.
6. I have on several occasions received the message that turn by turn guidance would not be available on a portion of a trip where on previous versions this path had full turn by turn directions. The strange part is the road data is still there, and the path is now highlighted in a light blue path without turn by turn directions for this section. This may be a change in map data, but why would it still show the correct path then?
7. Finally, route calculations with multiple paths now take incredibly bad “shorter” routes over routes that take predominantly highways or interstates. These shorter routes will often take you through major downtown areas, neighborhoods, or subdivisions with significantly more stops and slower speeds. Under 6.1, these options were sometimes one of your three route choices, but now all choices include these shorter routes through urban areas.
I originally through I may have just remembered incorrectly, but have on two occasions, back tracked a route, replaced 7.1 with the 6.1 disc, and completed the route as expected. I have also needed to cover the same route twice and tried it with 6.1 vs 7.1, and 6.1 never experienced the improper behavior.
Anyone else experience any of this behavior and/or have suggestions on how to even contact regarding this “downgrade” in nav capabilities?
Dan
12-06-07, 07:44 AM
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Regarding your item #1, we have also noticed this. I concluded that if you choose the shortest route and it's shorter to go off the freeway onto a secondary road that's what it does. OTOH, if you choose the fastest route it stays on the freeway.
Over the years we have owned and used 4 Garmin GPSs, one factory GPS in our 2004 Acura MDX, and one factory GPS in our 2007 Lexus ES350 (Ver 6.1 maps).
By far the Garmin units are the absolute best, next best is the 2004 Acura, and the absolute worst is the 2007 Lexus GPS. On a 1 to 10, Garmin 9, Acura 7, and Lexus 2.
We don't even like to use the Lexus GPS because it's not easy to use although we do use it sometimes. And of course it's best feature is that, if we're driving around town and decide to go to a store for which we are unsure of its location my wife cannot use the GPS until I, as the driver, stop the car, put on the emegency brake, turn on the healights, turn off the right turn signal, and unlock the trunk. Then we can enter a new destination. We just love it!
Mapwise Gamin is best and again the Acura maps are better than the Lexus maps. One simple example is the 2004 Acura maps show a tunnel road when you drive through the underground tunnel under the Las Vegas airport's runways. The 2007 Ver 6.1 Lexus maps show you going off road on uncharted dirt although they do reacquire the road when you reach the other end of the tunnel.
If we really need the GPS's assistance to get somewhere we take our portable Garmin GPS with us in our ES350.
Over the years we have owned and used 4 Garmin GPSs, one factory GPS in our 2004 Acura MDX, and one factory GPS in our 2007 Lexus ES350 (Ver 6.1 maps).
By far the Garmin units are the absolute best, next best is the 2004 Acura, and the absolute worst is the 2007 Lexus GPS. On a 1 to 10, Garmin 9, Acura 7, and Lexus 2.
We don't even like to use the Lexus GPS because it's not easy to use although we do use it sometimes. And of course it's best feature is that, if we're driving around town and decide to go to a store for which we are unsure of its location my wife cannot use the GPS until I, as the driver, stop the car, put on the emegency brake, turn on the healights, turn off the right turn signal, and unlock the trunk. Then we can enter a new destination. We just love it!
Mapwise Gamin is best and again the Acura maps are better than the Lexus maps. One simple example is the 2004 Acura maps show a tunnel road when you drive through the underground tunnel under the Las Vegas airport's runways. The 2007 Ver 6.1 Lexus maps show you going off road on uncharted dirt although they do reacquire the road when you reach the other end of the tunnel.
If we really need the GPS's assistance to get somewhere we take our portable Garmin GPS with us in our ES350.
12-09-07, 10:23 AM
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We experienced an odd one yesterday. Set the destination for an address about 35 miles from home. We go up the hill to the freeway no problem. But 32 miles of this 35 mile trip is ON the freeway, and the nav simply wouldn't get on this freeway, whether we tried shortest, fastest or otherwise. It kept wanting us to go back down the hill and get on a different freeway, despite the fact that both go the same place, both are major freeways (the one we were going on is an interstate). Yes, "freeways" were enabled in route preference. Weird. Anyone else experience this?
12-09-07, 02:15 PM
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This can happen when the GPSs maps do not have the specific freeway upon which you are driving but they do have the other freeway in the maps. Is the freeway upon which you were driving the newest one of these two freways?
12-09-07, 03:58 PM
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Jerfitz, I figured that, but while the second freeway is newer, both are old, and certainly way older than the maps! It's given us correct directions using this freeway in the past, thus our confusion. The freeway has been in existence since the late 60s/early 70s.
12-13-07, 06:27 AM
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I had this same problem a few years ago when I was living in the Washington, DC area. The Nav didn't recognize am interstate, and wanted me to take a local road that paralleled it. The entire interstate was only HOV toward DC in the morning, and only HOV outbound from DC in the evenings, but the rest of the time you didn't need an HOV car to use it. The explanation I was given was that the Nav recognived the road as HOV and therefore didn't consider it as an option for the route I needed to take, even though it wasn't HOV when I should have nbeen using it. There's an option on the Nav setup called "Notify Traffic Restriction" that, I think, prevents the use of restricted roads if it's turned "On." Perhaps turning it "Off" will help????
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12-13-07, 09:41 AM
#9
If we really need the GPS's assistance to get somewhere we take our portable Garmin GPS with us in our ES350.[/QUOTE]
Agreed...me too. I use my old Garmin 2610 for routes/waypoints, plus I like the ability to be able to create the route on the PC then load it into the Garmin, rather than sit out in the car with the ignition on and stumble my way through it. The NAV in my '06 GS430 does some strange things.
Whit
Agreed...me too. I use my old Garmin 2610 for routes/waypoints, plus I like the ability to be able to create the route on the PC then load it into the Garmin, rather than sit out in the car with the ignition on and stumble my way through it. The NAV in my '06 GS430 does some strange things.
Whit
12-14-07, 01:33 PM
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I've tried redoing the calibration, and it seems to be no difference. I've not noticed that anything tells me that the calibration is complete, so for all I know it's still calibrating. 
I did get new snow tires and did the recalibrate for new tires which also made no difference at all.
I may try to build a hybrid disk of 6.1 binaries and 7.1 map data to see if it's any difference over the holidays.
I did get new snow tires and did the recalibrate for new tires which also made no difference at all.
I may try to build a hybrid disk of 6.1 binaries and 7.1 map data to see if it's any difference over the holidays.
12-15-07, 03:09 PM
#11
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Agreed...me too. I use my old Garmin 2610 for routes/waypoints, plus I like the ability to be able to create the route on the PC then load it into the Garmin, rather than sit out in the car with the ignition on and stumble my way through it. The NAV in my '06 GS430 does some strange things.
Whit[/QUOTE]
we have three 2610s. it's great. Used it in Europe.. perfect.
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