Figure 14: Entering the House Number

With the city and street names successfully entered, I was surprised to see that the Mercedes jumped right ahead and was prepared to start navigating without asking me for a house number. How do I input the house number?

Figure 15: Entering the House Number

For some odd reason the Mercedes navigation system didn't ask me for a house number, although it did present a menu system along the left side of the screen that included a button for entering the house number ("Hse No."). Pressing this button brought up the house number entry screen, shown below.

Figure 16: Entering the House Number

Using the arrow keys on the pushbutton, I entered 135 as the house number and then pressed OK.

Figure 17: Mercedes' Strange House Number Entry System

After entering 135 as the house number and pressing OK, the Mercedes presented me with the strange menu shown above. Apparently, I could not choose 135 as the house number for my destination address (even though 135 is a valid street number and all other GPS units allow me to enter this address without issue, as does any online mapping portal).

Instead, Mercedes' navigation system created groupings of valid house number ranges along my chosen street (Central Park West). A quick check on Google Maps reveals that these groupings each represent one block. For example, the 130-139 represents all the addresses from 73rd - 74th street, so the GPS will end up routing us very close to our desired destination address of 135 Central Park West, but for some odd reason the system won't allow us to enter the exact house number as our destination address.

Figure 18: Ready to Start Navigating

Now that we've entered the city name, street name, and house number (sort of), the navigation system has all the information it needs to start routing us to our destination address, and displays the screen shown above. From here we can use the soft keys along the left and right hand sides of the 7-inch display to:

• View the destination address on the map ("Map")
• Find parking at our destination address ("Parking")
• Search the POI database for businesses along the route or near our destination address ("POIs")
• Save the address to the address book for future use ("Save")
• Go back and adjust the destination address ("Back")

Or we can scroll over to "Start Route Guidance" and have the 'Benz start routing us.

Navigating with the COMAND Navigation System

Figure 19: Calculating Route

Route calculation was acceptable in terms of speed, although it was not particularly speedy. While you're waiting for specific instructions to appear, the Mercedes displays an arrow pointing in the general direction of your destination address. I'm not convinced this is any more helpful than a screen that just says "Calculating Route", but I suppose if you're routing to a nearby destination the arrow could at least point you in the right direction before specific routing instructions are available.

Figure 20: Map Screen

Once the Mercedes navigation system has calculated the route, the system displays a split-screen with the left side showing the 3D map, and the right side showing a 2D arrow that shows the details of your next maneuver. I felt there was considerable room for improvement on the map screen. For starters, it's unlikely that anyone will need to continuously monitor their exact longitude and latitude coordinates, so I'm not sure why Mercedes dedicates so much key real estate on the bottom of the screen to showing these numbers. I have the same issue with displaying altitude.

Also, while I do like the idea of displaying a split screen view prior to an upcoming maneuver (similar to the way Magellan's RoadMates do), much more information should be displayed. For example, instead of just saying there's a right turn in 700 feet, why not display the exact street name of the turn? Or display the street name of the next turn, and then show a smaller arrow below showing the maneuver after that. That way, if the maneuver was "left turn followed by an immediate right turn", both turns could be displayed along with street names.

On the left side of the screen I felt the 3D aspect ratio was too harsh, creating a view that, although visually interesting, is difficult to navigate to.

Mercedes has a large 7-inch canvas to work with, and I feel that they could provide much more information on the display. What little information is currently displayed is mostly of little value. Given the large size of the screen, there's no reason why Mercedes couldn't display:

• + and - Zoom buttons
• Time and distance to destination address
• Estimated arrival time
• Satellite signal reception bar
• Detailed street name of the next turn, and possibly the turn after that as well

Figure 21: Accessing the Menu from the Map Screen

Pressing the soft key next to the information icon in the upper left of the map screen activates the menu options while navigating or while viewing the map screen.