The Gen 6 Nav System Rocks.

[jainla]

Just got back from the Lexus Inspired event. Lexus really knows how to throw a party; i stepped into the room and was immediately offered a glass of champagne. Fantastic!

The reason I was there was to drool over the new RX 350/450 but more important to play with it's new Gen 6 Nav system. The product specialist confirmed the system will be coming to the new HS, RX and the LS for 2010. I wouldn't be surprised to see it on most of the Lexus and Toyota models this fall.

In a word it's amazing; easy to use and I think at this point the most advanced car infotainment system I've ever seen. The Infiniti music box is probably a close second; the new system in the BMW 7 series might be comparable but I haven't seen it yet.

The big upgrades from the Gen 5 system currently in Lexus/Toyota products:

• Haptic Controller (Remote Touch): The Lexus version of iDrive; this is actually a misnomer as it's much more like a computer mouse. You click between existing buttons on the touch screen; and you hold the enter button and move the controller to scroll the map. It's surprisingly quick to flick through the menu choices as the mouse pointer jumps from button to button with the feedback (you don't have to hit it exactly) and there is an up/down scroll rocker (like a scroll wheel on a mouse). After suffering with iDrive here and there this system is head and shoulders above it and Mercedes Command; it's probably the best out there today next to the standard touch screen.
  
• Bluetooth Audio Streaming: Ever since I saw the BT tab in the preview photos for the RX and HS I was wondering about this and it's true. You have to pair your phone (in my case a Blackberry 8300) for the phone portion and then connect to it as a bluetooth player in the audio section(it comes up as Car Multimedia instead of Handsfree in the current system). My phone says the car supports Hands Free unit, AV Remote control and Audio Sink profiles. Then you get play/pause buttons on the screen and the track up/down buttons work on the radio. It went through the contents of whatever playlist I was playing. It didn't show information as to what was playing on the screen; I'm not sure if it would have done better with a different phone but it was surprisingly cool and it sounded great.
  
• Bluetooth Telephony: a complete rework from the G4 and G5 systems. It's much easier to add and delete phones as well as select them; and the phone isn't buried in the information screen like it is in the current system. It's also now possible to have a car-initiated download of the phone address book (I don't know if you can make it automatic or not). The Parrot kits claim their similar address book download functionality works with the iPhone so in theory this might work with the G6 nav system; this would be big news for iPhone owners as currently there's no way to send the address book to another device. From what I can tell each phone has a separate address book (when I deleted my phone the address book button greyed out) instead of the 1 or 2 books you were previously limited to.
  
• Ipod/USB jack: the product specialist reports that plugging her ipod into the USB port allows her to scroll through the ipod menus as she's driving down the freeway at 70 mph; I didn't have an iPod so I couldn't confirm that. I also don't know if a hard drive or thumb drive plugged into the port would show up like a n MP3 CD but I'm guessing it might work; I don't know if other music players will be supported or not.
  
• Natural Voice Command: I'm not sure if the system in the RX has this; I didn't get to test it out that much because of time and noise constraints. But what is nice now is that when you click the voice command button you get a list of possible categories on the Nav screen (Phone, Audio, climate, etc) and then the system will prompt you through the menus. It's a nice touch as I never know exactly what commands the system will respond to and what they won't.
  

The system also has XM Nav/Traffic and I it's HD based so you probably can use it to rip music to like the LS 460/600. All in all it's a very impressive system that provides a major feature upgrade while retaining the ease of use Lexus is famous for.

Lexus inspired is having 2 more nights at the Beverly Hilton and I think 2 nights in Chicago; not sure if there is still space but checkut www.lexusinspired.com

[BillyShaft]

Wow! You aren't kidding. This is the Nav system we have been wanting in our Lexi!

I have a sony system in my F150 that streams bluetooth from my blackberry, and I was thinking that having the same in the Lex would be fantastic!

Next you will tell us is that it has full functionality when moving :)

Thanks for the awesome review!

[Doc H]

Wow! You aren't kidding. This is the Nav system we have been wanting in our Lexi!

I have a sony system in my F150 that streams bluetooth from my blackberry, and I was thinking that having the same in the Lex would be fantastic!

Next you will tell us is that it has full functionality when moving :)

Thanks for the awesome review!

I got to play with one at the recent auto show here, and yes, I am assured it has full functionality when moving (didn't get to drive it, so I'm merely relaying information). Downside (if there is one) is that Lexus gave up the touch screen, which would be problematic anyway since the screen is deeply recessed; a plus is that there is absolutely no glare, voice-activation really works with "natural" commands (and it is in the RX), and the controls, as reviewed, are completely intuitive and a breeze to use, a vast improvement over BMW's (previous) i-Drive. Waiting for this technology in the GX....