More Extensive Tech Options Come at a Steep CostOne of the most popular cars on the road today is the Toyota Prius, so it's no surprise that the reincarnated Honda Insight was literally designed to steal market share from Toyota's iconic, in-demand hybrid. And though the primary appeal of a hybrid is better fuel economy while gaining green cred, high-tech amenities are part of the allure for many people shopping these two competitors head-to-head.

We compared the technology offerings (beyond their hybrid drivetrains) of the 2010 Prius and Insight, pitting a top-of-the-line Prius V ($32,720 including the optional $4,500 Advanced Technology package) against the range-topping $23,770 Honda Insight EX with Navigation. With such a huge discrepancy in price, we found these cross-shopped vehicles have an equally wide variance in available tech features.
MPG Display

Gas mileage is often a foremost concern for hybrid buyers, and both the Prius and Insight provide dedicated, detailed displays for the fuel frugal to monitor. For its 2010 refresh, the familiar Prius energy monitor — which shows power flow among the gas engine, electric motor and hybrid battery — moved from the center of the dash to the instrument panel, no longer competing with controls for audio and navigation. In addition to power flow, it displays:
Energy recovered by regenerative braking
If the car is being driven within a "Hybrid Eco" zone to provide superior fuel-efficiency
Detailed fuel consumption in 1- or 5-minute intervals
Fuel consumption history and average fuel consumption based on two separate trip meters

The Insight also has a power flow display and an "Eco Drive Bar" to monitor how fuel economy is affected by driving, as well as a Deceleration Monitor to indicate inefficient braking. The Insight goes a step farther with its Eco Assist display to let you compete against your own best fuel economy ratings by growing leaves on "plants" in the display. Eco Assist shows the score for each trip as well as accumulated points, and if you earn enough leaves, you receive a "trophy" in the display.

Arching over the dash above the Insight's instrument panel is an additional lighted panel that surrounds the digital speedometer and changes from green to blue-green to blue to provide instant fuel economy information. This panel will change color, with green being best and blue being worst, as throttle position and rate of acceleration change. This way, even if you don't glance down at the more detailed display under the analog speedo, you can get a sense of how your driving is affecting fuel economy just by checking the digital speedometer and the surrounding panel's color.

Fuel economy display: Insight
Managing Music

Neither car has a very impressive sound system, which is a shame considering that quiet hybrid interiors make for a potentially ideal audio environment. While both systems had solid sound staging and surprisingly good bass impact for such small cars without a dedicated subwoofer, tonal balance, tonal accuracy and timbre were sorely lacking.

If our test cars' audio systems are nearly on par in terms of sound quality, the Insight takes a huge lead by way of media options. For starters, the Prius only has a four-disc CD changer (a non-navi head unit available for the car comes with a six-disc version) that plays MP3/WMA files on a disc, an aux-in jack for iPod/MP3 player integration and wireless Bluetooth audio streaming.

In contrast, the Insight offers a six-CD changer and an aux-in jack, a USB port that allows access to music files on a USB drive, as well as full iPod control using the device's standard USB cable instead of requiring an optional, proprietary cable. The Insight EX with Navi also includes a PC card reader behind the head unit's fold-down faceplate for access to digital tunes on a memory card, although an adapter is required.

Music options: Insight
Hands-Free and Voice Activation

Bluetooth for mobile phones comes standard on both vehicles, and each car's hands-free system is largely hassle-free. Phone pairing is easy and straightforward, as is downloading a phone's address book. But the Insight has a few quirks that give the Prius an edge.

Both systems have voice-activated controls, but the Prius setup readily recognized vocal commands, whereas the Insight system commonly misheard commands. Plus, the Insight doesn't allow you to call by voice from a phone's address book; instead you can only use the head unit touchscreen, although you can set up voice tags for contacts and dial that way via voice. But in the Prius it was simply a matter of saying, "Dial by name" and then saying a contact — and it worked well with difficult names that usually trip up a voice-activation system.