I am an XM Radio user who moved to the Baltimore/DC area and couldn't find his way to the grocery store without help. I took the plunge and replaced my stock radio with the Pioneer AVIC-N2. There is a similar AVIC-D1 if you have a double-DIN radio slot in your car, and it looks more like a factory navigation system, but I didn't have that option. The N2 has a display that motors out and up from the radio body when you start the car.

The navigation system is excellent. I've driven all around the DC/Baltimore metro area, and as far away as Southern Virginia, and had it guide me door to door without fail. Navigation comes from two DVDs, included in the package. One DVD is for the Eastern US, and the other for Western. You can store a portion of a map in the device's internal memory and then remove the DVD to play a CD or MP3 disk (it will also play DVD movies, but only to an external monitor while the vehicle is moving), but storage is limited to 32MB.

My complaint with the system is in how the radio interface was represented. Pioneer has a web site set up just for demo of the AVIC system, and it represents the N2 and D1 as having identical features, except for the configuration of the display. Not quite so. The D1 has a GUI for navigating the XM channels - the N2 doesn't. I complained to Pioneer about this, and got a wordy response that summed up to "that's too bad." Caveat emptor.

Where can I get one?
I'd like the software too.