[thekewl1]

it's hard to say because in many ways iDrive has so many good features, but some are just poorly implemented IMHO. I like the fact that it removes the clutter from the dash and allows you to control your interaction with the vehicle with the knob. It takes a little getting use to but the menu navigation is pretty intuitive.

My biggest gripe about iDrive is the poor implemenation of the navigation system. While the basic features of the navigation system works like a charm, the search capabilities are useless. It is impossible to find anything unless you know the address or intersection...what gives?

I've used many other nav systems before and their ability to search for the nearest POI are remarkable...and it's not just one company...almost all of them allow you to search for a POI with no problems. BMWs NAV is by far the worst performer in this category.

I'm not going to give up on iDrive because of this because the other aspects of iDrive are worth the $$. I just wish the iDrive developers would take a giant step back and consider re-doing the navigation POI search for future releases. They need to own and use the darn thing daily so they know what all of us are going through.