I've had my car for a month now and have covered about 3,000 miles so thought I would post my thoughts on the RNS 315. I'll start with the positives....
Its very easy to use, sounds good and has lots of features. My daughter loves the fact that she can connect her ipod touch via bloototh, I prefer that it can be plugged in and then controlled from the main unit. The hidden compartment in the glove box is a very neat idea for this. I currently have a memory stick plugged in here loaded with music and therefore have not even used the CD player yet. I've never had a DAB radio in a car before and expected that the reception would be terrible, but its not. Its a bit sketchy sometimes but and goes quiet for a second while it retunes. I was listening to radio 2 on DAB and the car automatically tuned to FM for a while which I thought was clever!
The phone is easy to use, uploads my phonebook, last dialled, missed calls etc. The reception is clear and sounds good to the person on the other end of the line and unlike my old Accord, it has not lost the bluetooth reception yet while in use!
The sat nav is easy to use, and despite a smaller screen than many sat navs, it is clear and easy to follow. A big plus is that it can also show the directions in the multi function display in the dashboard, so the directions are next to the speedo.
On to the negatives...
The phone is very easy to use, but cannot be operated from the steering wheel controls. I was a bit surprised at this, I used to have a Seat Leon with the same computer and the bluetooth phone worked from the same steering wheel controls. Not a massive issue, but locating an entry in my phone book using the sterring wheel controls and dash display is safer than using the controls on the unit.
Whilst the sat nav is easy to use it is very lacking in functionality. Only being able to enter 5 digits of the postcode is simply not acceptable when cheap portable satnavs have had this function for the past 5 years. The 5 digit postcode entry works fine if you then have the street name. But I had to go to a farm the other day, I had the full postal address but this could not be entered. In the end I had to locate the farm (using the 7 digit postcode) on my computer, draw a quick map, use the sat nav to get me close, then use my map!
The POI function is also severly lacking when compared to a Garmin or a TomTom. VW are clearly aware of this problem and have developped VWlabs.com allowing you to use google maps to download POI onto an SD card, but this doesn't work with the RNS 315, only the more expensive satnavs! If you have another VW satnav, you should check out VWlabs.com.
Overall, I think it is a good system, I've just taken to planning my route a little more before I leave and have bought a book of maps just in case!
I hope anyone considering ordering the RNS 315 as an extra on an S or SE model finds this helpful.
RNS 315 sat nav
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