Customer Reviews

Clarion VX400 6.5-Inch In-Dash Double-DIN Touchscreen DVD/CD/MP3/USB Receiver with Bluetooth

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I received this item quickly and packed very well. The unit itself is nice looking and fit in my 2006 F-150 nicely. It is important to get the wiring harness adapter and installation kit. I was able to get my steering wheel inputs to work with the PAC SWIJACK Steering Wheel Remote Interface unit sold here on Amazon. I read mixed reviews on the steering wheel interface but I got mine to work.

The GUI is easy to use but it is not intuitive.

The Bluetooth found and downloaded my address book from my iPhone with no trouble. The built-in microphone is not the best. I suspect that it is because you are so far away from it. Beware that only one speaker (you can chose front right or left) will produce the sound from your caller. One nice thing is that you can adjust the volume for calls; it remembers that setting and does not affect the volume from the rest of the audio sources. In other words, if I am listening to music at volume level of 10, then raise the volume to 35 during a call and return to music the volume will go back to 10 for the music. The next and any call after will remain on volume level 35.

Playing Ipod tunes is awful on this unit. The library layout is not as good as the iPod/iPhone. I looked up songs by artist and found that some of the albums are missing. I can find them if I switch to locating by album but this should not happen. On several occasions while listening to music from my iPhone and then received a call, the music was still heard (although at a low level). Another bad thing is that if you have the iPod/iPhone hooked up to the unit before you power up the audio does not come through. I have to disconnect, reconnect, wait for the unit to "see" it then the audio will come through.

Playing CDs and DVDs is easy and sound great.

Other than playing music from my iPhone, I am pleased with this unit. I had the high end factory Audiophile in my vehicle before this unit. The factory unit was good, but I do notice a difference in sound quality with this unit.

I have come back to this review after I have had the unit for awhile now. I have given it one less star. I pursched the Sat radio adapter for it and it is driving me crazy. The problem is the software in the head unit. It will not remember the last station you were on once you turn the system off. This means everytime I listen to sat radio, I have to select the channel I want. I say the problem is the head unit because I was finally able to get someone from Clarion to look into the problem. After weeks of researching the issue, they called me and told me that I need to remove the unit and send it back to Clarion for a software update. They told me they would email the RMA number and address to send it to. Problem is not only having my heaad unit gone for 6 weeks, Clarion has not sent me the RMA and location to send it to. That was 2 months ago....

Love the new clarion vx400. Blue tooth works fantastic and integrates with iphone flawless. Ipod control and charging is okay. Used off brand cables. I would recommend clarion cable. I get a lot of messages not compatible with iphone yet it plays everthing. The upgrades on this thing is great getting back up camera and rear entertainment montitor soon. Got sirius satellite scc1. Its pretty good but it does not have the capabilit to show
station and whats playing in group listing. Told the oem bridge for volume control is not very good.

What I like alot about this unit is that it is so upgradable, I am ordering hd radio receiver now, then routing speakers through deck instead of factory amp, then down the road adding a good amp and 2 8 inch subs which are controllable through deck for awesome sound and performance. You can add nav which I have on cell phone which is cool but not needed for me, oh yeah getting oem steering wheel controls as well, we'll see how that works.

Alright, I love the features and you can't beat the price. Everyone has said that and it's true.

The interface is tragic though. It's clunky, scattered, unintuitive, and all in all seems pretty poorly thought out. Poorly in the sense that any middle school kid could have come up with a better interface. Options are scattered, and you can't do anything else while streaming A2DP bluetooth music. You can't even turn the screen off like you can for every other input. You can't change the color of the button lights like you can on some basic receivers, so if you don't like a nice pure blue, don't bother. The screen is resistive, but still fairly responsive, so that's good; and the buttons are big, so that's good too. I would recommend bumping up to a higher model just to avoid the UI, or at least waiting until a later model with an interface that makes the least bit of sense.

Update: I'm reducing the review to 2 stars as my bluetooth just stopped working on this unit. It says it's connected, but there's no audio. It just stopped spontaneously.

yes the Clarion VX400, just like every other Double Din I've explored, researched and played with has it's flaws. But pound for pound this is an exceptional deck. I'd love to give it a 5 Stars but it could have more bells, whistles and trivial offerings to make a perfect 5 Star unit. At the same time no other unit offers what I'd like to see incorporated so perhaps I'm being a bit harsh.

As others have pointed out the upgradeable options are a huge plus for this unit. You can add GPS for a reasonable price, HD Radio, Backup Camera, Ipod connectivity... However out of the box you get you a fantastic deck w/ nice options for a phenomenal price. Blue tooth built right in, internal storage for music playback, a very easy and straight forward interface that's easy to navigate that is in fact very intuitive. Sound quality is excellent, video quality is pretty average but perhaps I'm just too use to watching Blu Ray now, Phone calls are easy, pairing blue tooth is as simple as it gets, clear and functional, the buttons are well placed and easy to access/use (though it does come w/ a remote as well)... It's just such an easy to use straight forward unit.

Downsides. Just like any other unit of it's kind the load times are a tad sluggish. Much improved over years past but still a bit on the slow side. Really think of these as PCs now because that's more and more what they're becoming. A computer. It takes a few seconds to a good minute to boot up your PC right? Certainly. While it doesn't take that long for the Clarion to boot up it does take a good 15-30 seconds I'd say. I can pull out of the garage and a house down before it loads up and starts playing. But as I said, in reality all these takes have a slow start up & imo this acceptable and common. My biggest gripes are quite trivial. Color options and Backgrounds/Screen savers. You'd think more options would be available. You'd also think that custom backgrounds would be an option. Download a X by X pic and the menu simply overlays the image. I suppose the good thing is the backgrounds that are currently on the unit are decent to begin with.

Pound for pound you really can't beat the Clarion VX400. It's just as good as any others out there and offers more than the standard units the competition offers. It's price is as good or better than it's competition & it already has bluetooth built in a ready (not something you need to upgrade to make calls). If you don't want a GPS unit this perfect. if you want a GPS unit you can upgrade this Clarion to include it. Even w/ the upgrade it's cheaper than any GPS unit on the market & less than $5oo for the deck and GPS. I took my time and researched, researched, toyed with, toyed with some more and thought long and hard about what unit to get. Having this as a top 3 choice I've been more than happy having purchased this instead of... Chances are if you like the options and unit you're going to find yourself pleased with the product. Definitely a deck worth owning

I bought this from 6th ave electronics last week for 398 +tx + $425 with the navi module. it's a really good deck. I have a jeep commander with the boston acoustics navi system. it always had a little mud in it but the stereo sound so much better now with the Clarion. has a lot of bass and very crisp highs. The navigation is good as well. My oem unit wasn't touch screen so input was a pain. this makes it soooo much easier! The video is really clear and enjoyable and in the truck it sounds like a movie theater. definitely work the coin. I wish it had at least hard mute button for the quick turn down. i would definitely recommend. great for the kids. Next upgrade is the steering wheel controls and some monitors in the headrest. BINGO!

I've found many drawbacks with this unit. I guess my expectations were too high, I thought it would work well with my iPhone (3GS 4.01). Here's a list of the issues:

- Bluetooth doesn't mute the radio all the time, sometimes it continues to play after I've dialed a number. Both parties can hear the music (and it's loud!)
- Bluetooth phonebook doesn't display well on the unit. If you have multiple numbers for a contact or its name is long, it doesn't display more than about 15 characters. You can't tell if it's the person's cellphone or business number, etc. The screen is wide enough, it can display full song names when in ipod mode, but expect names in your phonebook to be cut off and you have to guess if you are dialing a cellphone or a home/business number.
- Bluetooth phonebook - A list of my favorite contacts would be very handy, you can select recently dialed or received calls, but no favorites, so if you haven't recently talked to the person and don't have his or her number memorized then you have to dig through your phonebook (scrolling is slow and choppy, searching by the first letter of his or her name is slow, but better than scrolling). Doing this while driving is more dangerous then holding the phone in your hand.
- Bluetooth number pad - who decided to reinvent the number pad?? All phones I have EVER USED have 1,2,3 on the top; 4,5,6 in the middle; 7,8,9 on the bottom; and *,0,# on the very bottom. This unit has 4 numbers per line. Try dialing on that keypad while doing 65.
- Bluetooth connection - whenever my phone makes the connection to the unit I hear a pphhwaapping sound over the speakers.

- iPod - sound issues - another reviewer mentioned this but it's worth repeating, when the iphone is plugged in via usb and you turn the unit ON it will not play music from the iPod. You have to unplug and replug in the iphone or you have to go into the bluetooth menu, select stream audio (pphhwaapp), unselect stream audio (pphhwaapp), go back into the ipod menu and press play to get sound out of it.
- iPod - sound issues 2 - there is a soft clackling sound when listening to music, could be the cable, not sure.
- iPod - menus - please don't redesign the ipod menus, they are clunky. Apple made their's very functional, just copy them.

- it would be nice if the unit dimmed with the other interior lights and you could choose different screen colors, I guess you have to pay more for these features...

Other than the above issues I like the unit, but I would buy a different one if I had another chance.

This deck is great. Good power output and plenty of options to play with.. Works well with my ipod and mp3 cds. The only negative thing I have for this product is the display picture. The VX 400 is not the navigation model. Other than that I have had no complaints

PRO.....Bluetooth works well i stream music from my cell. (no jacks attached) usb is ok.
CON.....Don't care for the menu set up,when scrolling through menue every music stops playing.
when all is said and done I like this unit would reccomend it.

I purchased this unit for my 2006 Camry,and it fits the dash perfectly.However, this unit does not live up to expectations compared to similar units from Pioneer, Sony in its price range.There are no screen savers for the kind money this unit cost,blue-tooth has to be constantly re-set,touch-screen sensitivity has to be also re-calibrated constantly,phone speaker (left or right speaker),keeps switching from original setting, not easy to manually save your favorite radio stations,It has to scan and save which will include stations not preferred.Tuner is not the best. I know lesser units that have better quality tuners.
I paid $250.00 for Power Akoustik in my Altima, and it has better features, and great touch screen sensitivity than this unit, with added screen savers, easy favorite channel saving.
It goes to show expensive doesn't mean the best!
Thoroughly dissatified and dissapointed!