Hello.

Unlike many here, I am actually resident in Japan and looking at whether to buy a car navigation system or buy an IPad and install something like Garmin.

First, I don't drive..my Japanese only speaking wife does.

But I am the techie in the family, though both hardware and software navi is a big unknown to me.

We have an IPad, but it has no GPS, so thinking of getting the Mini..think a two year contract comes to the equivalent of 20 US dollars a month. Not sure what happens after that. The two years includes the Mini itself I think. They said that it comes with 7G of usage, after that it slows down. We are thinking to save usage, we will disable all Internet using functions when using for navigation and only allowing them when near wifi. We cannot afford smart phones for the same reason

And then if we get the IPad, we could use something like Garmin, or whatever can work in real time to show routes, traffic jams, even recalculate if a wrong term is made, etc.

At least that is what the Pioneer navigation system in a rented car could do. I saw something for the IPad...Haze? Something like that. It looked relatively primitive compared To the dedicated navigation system. And no intersections were shown.

Does anyone have any specific recommendations, caveats, etc. about using the Mini for navigation in terms of accuracy, functions, etc. compared to a dedicated navigation system. We have a VW and their dedicated ones cost one to 2000 US dollars. Yet on the Internet, Kakaku.com, etc. we see dedicated ones for less than a hundred, with those by makers like Garmin for about 200-400 dollars. They may be dash mounted. Not sure if they can be installed by the VW or other dealers. If a Midi, wonder how we could attach it so a driver alone in the card could read it? Velcro?

Thanks in advance.

paul
Fukuoka, Japan