Becker sat nav head units - any good?

[willdew]

Does anyone have any experience of the Becker sav nav headunits? I've posted on the sav nav forum, but suspect the traffic there to be limited, and know Becker systems are popular with Porsche owners.

I'm fancying the Indianapolis Pro, but concerned a sat nav unit in such a small screen with such limited input mechanisms might be rather limiting.

If anyone has any experience of them it would be much appreciated.

Also - what's the sound quality like?

[c2dtg]

I have no direct experience of the units. We favour them as they look very OEM from a pork perspective.

I too had been tempted by one (you know during those blissful times when there is spare cash available) but from reading the posts on PH previously, I understand the Becker systems do not allow full postcode entry and have a single colour screen.

on the plus side, some of the nav systems they do come with full ipod control capability

[fidgits]

From my perspective, the TomTom-esq sat nav systems you can buy are much cheaper, and while dont have the OEM look - would for me, make more sense!

[993rsr]

Like the Becker units, got a 7820 hi speed. They work very well, have good voice commands, the whole of Europe on one disc and look factory fitted in a Porsche.

[Koln-RS]

I had one in my 996.

It looked very neat (OE Quality) and worked well. It was at least as reliable as PCM1, with better more up to date software.

[willdew]

They attract me as I would like to enable the car with a few things, including:

- Sat nav covering Europe
- Camera locations (ideally with updateable database)
- Mobile phone hands-free kit
- Update headunit
- iPod control

I really dislike having additional gadgets in the car, primarily as I think all the wiring everywehere is ugly. The fact the hands free with the Becker system is bluetooth enabled, and it's also an mp3 compatable etc are all bonuses.

I'm struggling to find any reviews of the Becker sat nav functionality though. I'm suspecting that having it all in monochrome, on a 1" x 6" screen might be rather compromised, unless they've got a really first rate piece of software which has made it a very useable piece of kit despite this limitation.

[993rsr]

The more up to date units have bluetooth and colour screens. They are however more expensive. £750 + £80 for an IPOD interface.
www.caraudiodiscount.com/acatalog/becker_navigation_bluetooth.html

[fidgits]

willdew said:

They attract me as I would like to enable the car with a few things, including:

- Sat nav covering Europe
- Camera locations (ideally with updateable database)
- Mobile phone hands-free kit
- Update headunit
- iPod control

I really dislike having additional gadgets in the car, primarily as I think all the wiring everywehere is ugly. The fact the hands free with the Becker system is bluetooth enabled, and it's also an mp3 compatable etc are all bonuses.

I'm struggling to find any reviews of the Becker sat nav functionality though. I'm suspecting that having it all in monochrome, on a 1" x 6" screen might be rather compromised, unless they've got a really first rate piece of software which has made it a very useable piece of kit despite this limitation.

I have to say that does sound very good...