| The cold or warm locking with the Navman was pretty pants, it's true - but the performance of the Haicom GPS mouse I now use is very good, even in heavily built up areas.
Diverse, you mention 'TMC'? Can you elaborate?
I have to be honest - I've seen both Alpine and Blaupunkt 1U sat navs in operation, and the biggest drawback is the small screen. Camparing the small, mono display to the typical dispay on a PDA or something like a Garmin, there's no real contest. Sure you can add a really good screen to the Alpine, but then you're looking at the £2000 mark... plus, as mentioned in previous posts, the DVD upgrades can be very expensive.
For me, Sat Nav isn't just useful at junctions. I've found mine useful on twisty roads, to see any unexpectedly sharp bends coming up, especially at night. You need the sort of detail a PDA or similar offers to do this. Plus, the positioning of the head unit in a Mini makes looking at the screen while driving much more difficult.
Having the sound through the regular speakers, mixed with your regular audio source is nice though.  | 
