Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great unit , February 20, 2009
OK, my wife got a new car with the Honda Nav system, which has consolidated the tuner, CD changer, XM radio, bluetooth, and GPS with a nice size screen (about 7") and I immediately fell in love with it. Only, it's her car. So when I traded in my car for a new one, I started thinking about getting my own setup.
Enter the Kenwood DNX7120. It does not have all the features I wanted, specifically it was lacking satellite radio and bluetooth, but they are available as optional add-on components. With the add-ons, everything appears and functions as one consolidated unit. Great! The price is decent enough, the unit that is closer to being fully consolidated is priced at slightly over $1500 at this time, while this unit is just slightly over $900. The add-on componenents are roughly $200 extra, so the cost savings seemed to justify going this route.
Quality: from my perspective, great. The unit takes maybe 30 seconds to boot into a usable screen, but while it is booting up it automatically starts playing whatever you left it at. So if you were last listing to FM radio, about 5 - 10 seconds after you start you will at least have music. Sound is great, although my car is not an audiophile's high-end, but I enjoy it. The unit has a large number of potential interfaces, to include USB, I-pod, and A/V RCA connectors. Video display is nice and sharp. Favorites seems to be limited to 6 of each area (FM, XM), but that limitation might be because I haven't fully read the manuals yet. (I'd like to have more than 6 XM favorites).
This unit comes with a remote. The remote has a lot of buttons making it more complex than I care for, so I can't see myself using it while I drive. But maybe your passenger will want to use it.
Drawback: lack of data interfaces. The built-in Garmin would have a good source of updates if it had an SD card reader, but it doesn't. The manual says that updates are either through the SD or the DVD player, so I guess I'm stuck with ordering a DVD when it's time to update. I'll try the USB, but I had read another review that said the USB won't update the Garmin's database.
GPS: It's Garmin (love it or not). I love my portable Garmin Nuvi, and this acts very similar to it, so I feel comfortable with the nav programming. One bad thing (maybe should have put under drawbacks), if I'm running the GPS for a route and the phone rings and I take it, the GPS will not be displayed at all during the phone call. So either you're on a stretch of road that you won't miss a turn, or you'd better make the call short.
Last thoughts: This particular model is now, I believe, out of production and superceded by the DNX 81xx series. So obviously prices will be going down. If you can get this unit at $700 or under, it will be an exceptional bargain. It's still a good deal at current prices. Get all your optional components at one time and install everything together. You probably won't want to take it apart later just to add an add-on component.
UPDATE: After using this for a few days, reading the manual, and playing around with it, I have found that you can talk via bluetooth and still watch the GPS map. The unit will not automatically revert back to your screen, but all you have to do is press the NAV button and you will get the map back. So at this point, I wish I had given it 5 stars, but it seems that you cannot edit your initial star rating.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Quality, October 28, 2008
Well I bought this in August on this site and I have been pretty pleased with my purchase to this point.
PROS
-Spot on navigation (very responsive)
-Excellent sound quality
-Touch screen is nice
-Easy to bypass to watch videos all the time
-Aesthetically pleasing
-IPOD control is quick and flawless
-DVD playback is smooth
-Good price for the features
CONS
-Navigation voice can be a little mouthy (Ok Ok I'm turning dang) This can be remedied by turning her off and still having a warning beep.
-Screen could be a little brighter for DVD viewing
-Sat radio should be cheaper and easier to hook up
-Remote with this many features needs backlighting
All in all im very pleased. I think I may get the backup camera in the near future. Be sure to get all the options you want or otherwise you will have to remove the radio each time something is added
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The user manuals would have been better if chips wrote them, May 16, 2009
Its a fine product as far as I can tell, until you want to do anything cool or interesting with it and then good luck. Kenwood manuals are deplorable, when you call customer support they slough you off on Garmin and poor Garmin sends you back to Kenwood (when it really is a Kenwood issue).
So save yourself 4 hours on the phone if you buy the product, when you go to update it with an SD card and you discover there is NO SD card slot available, be warm in the knowledge that this is what you do and you will not find the data in a manual...hold the disk eject button for 5 seconds, maybe longer and lo and behold the screen pops down an additional inch or so to reveal a hidden SD slot. There is more hair pulling out fun after that in getting the machine to update, but at least you don't think yourself daft looking for the invisible SD reader.
I have several Garmin GPS's and I think this is by far my least favorite, beyond that comparison, I think its a nice all around all in one unit. It is by far not the best all in one but not the worst either, doesn't say a whole lot eh? (I have three cars and each has a different unit) The manuals being unhelpful and customer support being indifferent makes this a completely sub-par experience not worthy of repeating if I can help it.
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