BMW 2011 TELE ATLAS Navigation DVD w/ Red Light Camera & Police Speed Traps Review by delmarco

5 minute read

BMW 2011 TELE ATLAS Navigation DVD w/ Red Light Camera & Police Speed Traps Review

Compliments of delmarco @ www.bimmerfest.com

1-8-2011

This is a quick video review of the 2011 Tele Atlas Navigation DVD modified with Police Speed Traps and Red Light Camera POI for BMW cars.


PART ONE :

PART TWO :

PROS:
- The 2011 Tele Atlas DVD is very fast. I also use the factory OEM 2010 Tele Atlas DVD daily in my car and the modified 2011 disc was just as fast if not faster! In Part One of the video review I pull up a destination about 28 miles away from my location and LITERALLY within a second the MK4 navigation computer has routed my trip using the 2011 DVD.

- The Red Light Cameras are very much on point and up to date. Even all the new cameras that went up around Brooklyn since summer of 2010 are ALL on the DVD.

- The Police Speed Traps are not exclusive to Speed Traps but it shows the Police Cars POI icons at locations on the map where Police cars, marked and unmarked, tend to hang out and ticket unsuspecting drivers for traffic infractions (seat belts, cell phones, running stop signs/red lights, not using turn signals, illegal turns/u-turns, etc...). I find this to actually be more useful than anything else (especially in New York City) since you can get traffic tickets for other things beside speeding and running red lights.
out
- The 2011 DVD also has all the up to date POIs and street names from 2010. Not that much has changed in the year but it seems to be truly up to date.


CONS: 
- The Red Light camera and Speed Trap features are not embedded into the map as an Active Traffic Feature like it is on the TOM TOM devices and the European DVDs that has the Red Light Cameras and Speed Trap Feature. Rather it is just more or less of a passive POI display icon. Also, because it is only a POI, to access it you have to dig thru the Tele Atlas Nav menus to get to it. Then to see them you have to display them as POIs. This is only useful if you tend to have your Nav screen in FULL Route Map Display mode when you drive and you tend to look at your Navigation screen frequently. I don't do neither of these but at the start of my trip I just scan the map at radius with in where I am driving to see where the cameras and traps are.

Also the 2011 DVD as well as all the MK4 based nav DVDs seem to display one POI icon at a time. So I cannot get both the Red Light Cameras locations POI Icons and the Police Speed Trap location POI Icons at the same time to show on my Map Screen. I'm not sure if there is a method for getting more than one POI Icon to show on the MK4 map screens but at this time I don't know of any.

In contrast, the TOM TOM Go XXL device has the cameras and traps embedded onto the maps as a traffic feature and not a POI (for example a street name is a traffic feature where as a Coffee Shop or Book Store is a POI). This means that every time you drive within 50 yards of a red light camera or trap the TOM TOM beeps to alert you and flashes an icon on the map screen showing you exactly where the camera or trap is. This is a much better use of the Red Light Camera feature. The TOM TOM is also superior in that it updates itself anytime so that any changes to the maps and traffic features are added to the device as soon as possible. This highlights the biggest flaw of DVD based Navigation in that the DVD consumer needs to wait a year and pay more money for a new Tele Atlas DVD in order to get current updates to the maps.

IN CONCLUSION: I had plenty of fun using the red light camera and traps feature. Not that I tend to run lights or speed around needlessly but it is ALWAYS good and exciting to "know" where and how you can get caught!

4.5 out of 5 stars!



SCREEN SHOTS:

NOTE: Please buy ALL your BMW Navigation DVDs from the BMW Dealership or an authorized reseller. Buying used Factory OEM Tele Atlas Navigation DVDs off eBay or in the classifieds from private sellers are also legally fine. As a private reviewer of this product I do not particapte or condone in any way the procuring, manufacturing, selling, buying or trading bootleg, pirated or illegal copies of Tele Atlas, NavTeq or other BMW Navigation DVDs.

1-16-2011

Updated the video:
1/16/2011