This GPS looks interesting - made especially for the Prado?

[mav Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close mav]

Re: Polaris

The Polaris unit fits with no extra facia required. Mav is one fellow who has studied these units, I'd take his advice very seriously before you buy the roadrover. Good luck with the unit you choose.

As Desmond is located in the UK then the availability of the Polaris unit for him is doubtful. Navteq have their roots in Europe and do provide superior mapping over there to a lot of other map producers so in Desmonds case the Roadrover would be the better unit. I initially did not realise that Desmond was in the UK. :wink:

[4D4 PRADO 08 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 4D4 PRADO 08]

Re: Polaris

The Polaris unit fits with no extra facia required. Mav is one fellow who has studied these units, I'd take his advice very seriously before you buy the roadrover. Good luck with the unit you choose.

As Desmond is located in the UK then the availability of the Polaris unit for him is doubtful. Navteq have there roots in Europe and do provide superior mapping over there to a lot of other map producers so in Desmonds case the Roadrover would be the better unit. I initially did not realise that Desmond was in the UK. :wink:

[4D4 PRADO 08 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 4D4 PRADO 08]

Re: Polaris

Sure euro mapping comes on a card that simply would slide straight into the polaris. Dvd driven sat nav can be change from car to car (Lexus - Ford) so changing the card should be similar.

[mav Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close mav]

Re: Polaris

Sure euro mapping comes on a card that simply would slide straight into the polaris. Dvd driven sat nav can be change from car to car (Lexus - Ford) so changing the card should be similar.

I do not doubt that however I am not sure of the availability of the Polaris unit in the UK. It is probably marketed there under a different brand name as these untis are all made in China and simply rebadged but without specifically researching it in the UK I am unable to direct Desmond in that regard.

[desmond Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close desmond]

thanx lads for all the advise and support, however my main objective is to get a decent entertainment system with dvd player + head-rest screes, mp3 and radio + bt hands free. Sat nav is a secondary and nice-to-have feature for me.

I also need a head unit that looks like original/build-in by toyota. Any other generic unit like kenwood, pioneer or polaris my get stolen in a split second on the streets in Europe (London, Pairs, Amsterdam, Brussels are my main destinations...). In fact you cannot even leave a phone holder in a car over here as thieves will break in anyway in search for a sat-nav or pdf hidden in glove box or under the seats. :evil:

I have sat-nav solution in my Nokia N95 phone which I am very happy with and I can use it in case roadrover gps/mapping doesnt work.

So, all-in-all would you still recommend roadrover for this application or shall I look elsewhere for a decent entertainment system?

[mav Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close mav]

thanx lads for all the advise and support, however my main objective is to get a decent entertainment system with dvd player + head-rest screes, mp3 and radio + bt hands free. Sat nav is a secondary and nice-to-have feature for me.

I also need a head unit that looks like original/build-in by toyota. Any other generic unit like kenwood, pioneer or polaris my get stolen in a split second on the streets in Europe (London, Pairs, Amsterdam, Brussels are my main destinations...). In fact you cannot even leave a phone holder in a car over here as thieves will break in anyway in search for a sat-nav or pdf hidden in glove box or under the seats. :evil:

I have sat-nav solution in my Nokia N95 phone which I am very happy with and I can use it in case roadrover gps/mapping doesnt work.

So, all-in-all would you still recommend roadrover for this application or shall I look elsewhere for a decent entertainment system?

For the money Desmond the Roadrover would be hard to beat, it performs its entertainment functions very well from my experience.

Cheers

Mav

[Salarzae Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Salarzae]

Re: This GPS looks interesting - made especially for the Prado?

Hi Guys

I'm very new to Prado Point and would love to contribute as much as I can. It was little difficult for me to go through all this post but thought of sharing my experience of GPS unit I've.

- Head unit is Shenzen based with GPS/TV/DVD/VCD/DivX/MP3/MP4/CDDA
- Touch Screen capabilities.
- Built-in Hands Free Bluetooth
- Reads USB/SD Cards
- Separate channels for rear head rests.
- Rear View Camera etc etc etc.







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Although it looks neat and flush with the dash but there are some quirks in the touch screen system. It becomes dead and takes sometimes 3~5 minutes to start working again. The GPS gets position regularly but sometimes you've to reboot it to get it working. The GPS maps are pathetic for daytime mode but are better looking in night time mode.

The worst part is that I cannot create my own trail so that later I can follow it up. If its not on the map, it shows off-road and won't navigate you to your destination. Sometimes the statics get calculated in such a way that I felt I did managed to post an unbeatable World Land Speed Record.





The DVD player is quite fishy, most of the times it wont play a single DVD even, that's why I always prefer USB for videos and mp3s. The SD Card reader only reads maps, not video, mp3, mp4 etc. Other then that the Radio reception is the worst I've ever seen on any unit, specially for FM station, AM seems be working fine, mysteriously.

There are so many quirks and gimmicks involved that I can't recall them all. I've already ordered a similarly designed but high quality Windows PC with GPS and DVD. Am hoping for the best.

[McBAIN Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close McBAIN]

Re: This GPS looks interesting - made especially for the Prado?

Wow, your prado's quick! does it feel stable on the road when travelling and >76000kmh?

unit look pretty neat though! the supplier i got mine from has just released one that fits like that, i'm tempted to give it a crack but not sure how it will fit against the old "non climate control" centre console..

Hi Guys

[Salarzae Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Salarzae]

Re: This GPS looks interesting - made especially for the Prado?

@McBain

Thats looks pretty scary but was pretty much stable, I just needed wings to beat the Concorde :twisted:

Just found after a few days experiment that the Touch Screen will not work on early cold mornings when its less the 15~17 'C. Once the panel heats up enough, it'll start. Anyone knows the logic behind this?

[mav Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close mav]

Re: This GPS looks interesting - made especially for the Prado?

@McBain

Thats looks pretty scary but was pretty much stable, I just needed wings to beat the Concorde :twisted:

Just found after a few days experiment that the Touch Screen will not work on early cold mornings when its less the 15~17 'C. Once the panel heats up enough, it'll start. Anyone knows the logic behind this?

It would probably be a cold solder joint that is causing high resistance until it warms up then the resistance drops across the joint and allows the panel to fire up.

[Salarzae Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Salarzae]

Re: This GPS looks interesting - made especially for the Prado?

by mav on Sat Jan 17, 2009 3:51 pm

It would probably be a cold solder joint that is causing high resistance until it warms up then the resistance drops across the joint and allows the panel to fire up.

Probably, but have no plans to mess around with it, will wait for another one! :P

[daniellu Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close daniellu]

Re: This GPS looks interesting - made especially for the Prado?

this is a great forum! I learned a lot from here, eg, how to connect a reversing camera--simply get the power from brake lamp and use the positive cable to control the screen switch!
I want to share some of my experience here. I noticed McBAIN was using the same unit I have. As we all know, it's a route 66 GPS system and has a very old map. I got it from ebay. Surprisingly after 2-3 years it is still working until a couple weeks ago.(the GPS stopped). Maybe it was my fault, since I never stopped searching for new maps for route 66 and keep trying. This time I downloaded an Australia map for Nokia and my car unit had difficulties to work with it and finally stopped--appeared 'no GPS signal'.
I removed this all-in-one unit from my car. I opened the unit and decided to forget about the warranty. I couldn't find the ebay seller anyway. I was surprised by the poor soldering work inside,almost like a piece of my work! the amplifier IC, I probably would not use in last century. that explains the poor sound quality. I guess the pre-amp output is still usable, they can output to my sony amplifier to get better quality.
Somehow I found Route 66 version 8N for try with great success. the map is still not up to date, but it's much better now(end of 2008) and the new route 66 is much functional. One problem I had was that it was not able to save settings, though it can remember all your recent destination etc. I got around this by running Route66 8N on my PDA first and made all the settings(it can remember in PDA), then copy those files to SD card for my car unit. Now the GPS works again, and better!