...more to the point... do people still use dedicated GPS units for vehicle navigation?
Because the car's GPS works immediately. I love seeing other people sitting in a car for 5 minutes, trying to catch satellites. And it puts data on the HUD. And it has 4 times the screen estate. And police should put you in jail if you are playing on your phone instead of driving.
Oops, I think we need to make a clear distinction between
in-dash navigation systems and standalone portable dedicated GPS units. The advantages you list are those of the in-dash systems, which use the car battery to always keep the GPS receiver updated with the current GPS almanac and ephemeris data, so that getting a fix happens quickly. (On some it's instant, by it updating the fix periodically even when the car is off. In others it takes a minute, until it has found enough satellites to get a fix.)
In contrast, the handheld GPS units, if they haven't been turned on for 4 hours, must first download the almanac and ephemeris, which takes up to 12.5 minutes (50 bits per second!), and once they have it, can still take a minute to find enough satellites to get a fix.
Mobile phones use Assisted GPS, which use the data connection to download the almanac and ephemeris quickly, as well as being able to use cell tower and wifi geolocation to get a rough fix, which supposedly allows the accurate GPS fix to be obtained much more quickly. (At minumum, it gets you a rough fix to show while the GPS fix is pending.)
I wouldn't be surprised if some in-dash navigation systems use Assisted GPS now, too, since some have data connections. (Like the GM ones with OnStar.)
I asked Toyota for an update for my maps. They qouted me few hundred euros. That is crazy, not the 99. You know, because they can.
Yep. My parents paid about CHF400/$400 to update the maps in their Volvo a few years back. Obviously they didn't update yearly, but just once in the lifetime of the car, once there were just too many missing changes to ignore.
Shockingly, there's rampant piracy of the map DVDs for OEM navigation systems. I just can't quite put my finger on why...