I'll be calling my installer this week about the steering wheel controls... he's got a solution, but we didn't have time to try it before I went on vacation.
My rational in going with the Z2 was the navigation. I didn't want to have to switch DVDs when driving out of state. I MAY end up using the hard drive library eventually, but right now the iPod is working outstanding.
Thanks for the compliments ont he background pics. I do photography as a hobby (mostly... only rarely professionally) and I enjoy having my own photos as backgrounds.
I'll say this... we just went to Florida (drove) on a 10 day trip... having this nav system was EXCELLENT. The live traffic did indeed help us avoid delays. Having XM to listen to the Mets game on the way down was a beautiful thing! Having our entire music library with us, and in the car, on our iPod, was great (we always bring an Apple HiFi with us on vacations too). And the bluetooth connection to my phone got used more than once. The navigation itself functioned really well, and we were able to find just about anything we needed along the way and when down in Orlando... and with the Bypass it was easy to program while driving. The detailed 3D maps when in major cities was very neat (in Tampa, and when we drove through Washington DC).
We had a very good experience with the Z2 for our first big trip out of state.