For years, I poo pooed the fancy-dancy expensive
It is obvious that the Quest has benefited from generations of refinement. Every little detail works nicely and intuitively, from the backet-with-suction-cup that actually sticks to the windshield to the screen which presents the information actually needed by the driver at all times in a font that is large enough to read.
As a driver, my experience is near perfect. First, I pick a place that I want to go and I have quite a few ways to do that, including
- Looking up an address
- Looking up a business by name or type (e.g., restaurant or gas station)
- Point at the destination on the map
Then I select “Route To” and the Quest gets me there. When plugged into the bracket in the car, it vocalizes the instructions with phrases like, “Turn right in point two miles” and “Turn right in three hundred feet” and, eventually, “Arriving at destination on left.”
While driving, the Quest shows a nice map that zooms to the appropriate magnification to always show both my current location and the next turn. The map is always oriented so that I am driving “up,” eliminating the need for me to mentally remember which way I am really going. The screen also contains text telling me what and when the next turn will be, e.g., “I-70 W to Exit 148 Hwy 54 S” and “Time to Next 15:30.” The effect is to remove all of the uncertainty about driving into uncharted territory.
My only complaint is that the database, while extremely accurate (it even knows about the lake roads in
