Car navigation system

I want to say that a lot of professional drivers still use Garmin to this day. I had one before I got a smartphone back in 2010-2012 and the only true thing I didn't like about it is you had to pay for map updates. Not sure if that's still a thing though.

I was in a similar boat. I jumped to a keitai for about 5 months but had to switch back to my smartphone, although mostly because of work. But what I did was use my car's hotspot and kept my smartphone as a wifi-only device, got rid of things like Firefox, social apps, etc etc and only used it for navigation and music. I know it's not an option for a lot of people though, especially since in-car wifi is just an additional expense that nobody wants.

I use an old Garmin with updated maps. Main reason is it's easy to read at a glance. I like it and do not feel like it's a downgrade as it just works. It's also independent of nav apps which may crash depending on how much on your phone. You can pick them up cheap online or local as most use phones now. Only thing you need to buy is an SD card so you can put new maps on it.