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105 of 110 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Best car stereo I've owned
Edit 2/2/10: After several months of use, I am revising my review to give this radio 4 stars. I still think it is the best out there today, but am subtracting a star to account for some poor design flaws on it with the way they integrate with the Bluetooth and Sirius units.

The Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD is a touch-screen Double DIN aftermarket car stereo. It has...
Published on April 16, 2009 by Scott

versus
11 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Nice deck for the price
I bought this deck to replace the factory stereo on my 2007 Mustang GT. It has a lot of nice features and a good display. For some reason, I can't get it to display JPEG images. Not a huge deal, but I wanted to be able to change the background.

Unfortunately, I didn't research this deck enough before I bought it. I really wish it had 3 sets of pre-outs...
Published on May 17, 2009 by Darien


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105 of 110 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Best car stereo I've owned, April 16, 2009
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD 5.8-Inch In-Dash Touchscreen Double-Din DVD Multimedia A/V Receiver (Electronics)
Edit 2/2/10: After several months of use, I am revising my review to give this radio 4 stars. I still think it is the best out there today, but am subtracting a star to account for some poor design flaws on it with the way they integrate with the Bluetooth and Sirius units.

The Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD is a touch-screen Double DIN aftermarket car stereo. It has a 5.8" full color widescreen face, front auxiliary port for connecting an IPod or other device, a front USB port for connecting a USB flash drive, and it can play DVD-R/RW, CD-R/RW, DivX, MP3, WMA and AAC files. The Pioneer AVH-P4100DVD 7-Inch In-Dash Double-DIN DVD Multimedia AV Receiver with Widescreen Display is the same exact radio, except it adds a bigger screen (7") by removing the physical buttons to the side, and it adds a subwoofer preamp output.

INSTALLATION AND DVD BYPASS: Double DIN means that it is roughly twice the size of a conventional car stereo, so before ordering, you need to make sure it will fit in your car. The best way to do this is to go to Crutchfield's web site and determine if it will work on your vehicle. The unit itself comes with the receiver, mounting screws, manual, a stylus pen, front mounting cover, and a power cable. I found it fairly easy to install. The power cable it comes with just has bare wires coming out of it. In addition to the radio, you will want to buy a mounting harness and mounting bracket for your vehicle. The harness looks just like the one that comes with the stereo, but it is designed to clip into the factory harness that's in your vehicle, to make it easy to remove the stereo. If you don't have one, you'll have to connect all of the wires by hand, and disconnect each one to remove. The mounting bracket is designed to make sure you radio fits correctly in your specific vehicle. I purchased both the harness and bracket from Crutchfield. My only problem with installation, is that it comes with a long green wire that is supposed to be connected to your emergency brake wire. This is necessary, because the unit has a safety feature that requires the emergency brake to be applied in order to play DVDs. My emergency brake wire was extremely hard to get to, and once I was able to finally remove the center console and find it, it was buried and almost impossible to access. I don't suggest doing this, but if you have the same problem and want to get around this issue, or if you want to be able to watch DVDs without having to engage the brake, then you need to connect this wire to an auto relay switch. Go to Radio Shack and buy a momentary push button switch, part number 275-1548. Cut the green wire coming out of the radio harness from the receiver, close to the end of it, maybe 5 inches away from that red clip. Strip the wire, and run it through one of the holes on the relay switch. You can solder it or just wrap it with electrical tape. Buy a standard 16 gauge wire from Radio Shack and connect it to the other hole on the switch, then connect the other end of it to a grounded connection on your vehicle. I just wrapped mine around one of the mounting screws for the radio. I stuffed this wire out of site under the dash and pull it out when I need it. Alternatively, you can just cut the green wire directly in half, and use the half you cut instead of having to buy more wire at Radio Shack, but I wanted an extra long wire in case I ever want to move it. Now, when you play a DVD, the warning screen will come on. Just press the button on the switch and it will go away, since it tricks the receiver into thinking you have engaged the parking brake. Be sure to check with your local laws, as having the DVD player on while driving or bypassing this may be illegal in your area. It may also void insurance claims. I definitely do not recommend ever watching a DVD while driving.

FORM FACTOR: The radio itself is beautiful. It fit flush with my dash and looks gorgeous. There are only a few buttons on the left hand side, and I didn't even realize they were buttons until I looked at them closely. They control volume, forward/backward, source, mute, and power. I like having these physical buttons, especially for volume and mute. If I get a phone call or need to hear something, I want to be able to instantly mute the radio without having to fool around with a touchscreen. It's very nice to have a radio that doesn't have 15 buttons all over it and looks cluttered. Customization is easy with the radio. You can select from several different colors, which will change the LED colors on these physical buttons and on the touchscreen menu buttons, so that it matches your car's LED colors. You can also choose from seven factory background screens, three of which are animated videos. The animation on the videos is very subtle and doesn't distract you. Plus, when you change the LED color, it actually changes the color of the background videos to match it, which is really cool. If you don't like these, you can use your own image from a CDR or USB drive. The screen contains a dimmer option, so when you turn on your lights, it automatically dims. This is pretty nice, but can also be annoying. I like to use my lights during the day, and while the screen is still readable, it can be hard to see. Fortunately, you can completely adjust the dimmer options through the settings.

TOUCHSCREEN: The touchscreen is very easy to navigate and done very well. The menu system is very intuitive and set up a lot like a computer. There is a back button and an escape button to get you through the menus. Seeking through a song can be done in three ways. You can hold down the physical forward/backward buttons on the unit, you can do the same with the touchscreen forward/backward buttons, or you can use your finger to slide a progress bar back and forth, the same as you would do with a video file on your computer or with an IPod. This is great because a 30 minute song can start, and I can just press the end of the progress bar with my finger and it will immediately skip to the end of the song (or whatever position I press on the bar). From what I can tell, it will scroll exactly like a computer and stop at the exact position you touch. A lot of touchscreens would have "segments" or 5-10 seconds, and stop on whichever segment you came close to. But with the AVH-P3100, it is segmented into 2 second increments, so you can have much more accurate scrolling. This is the only instance where I can see the stylus being of any use, but I have fairly large fingers and don't have any problem with the scroll bar. My main gripe with the touchscreen navigation, is with the up/down scrolling. This is used when navigating radio/satellite stations, song tracks on a CD, or file folders on a USB/IPod. There is no page up/down feature, so if five folders are displayed and you press the down arrow on the scroll bar, or if you press anywhere below the current position on the scroll bar, it will move the list down by one, instead of down by five. This is a major oversight in my opinion, and will affect the way you setup your folders. I have one folder on my USB with 80 subfolders. That means if I want to scroll through every folder in the list, I have to press the down button 75 times. Now you can put your finger on it and simply drag the arrow down to move quickly, but it goes kind of fast, and paging through the list would be so much more convenient. Also, since it only displays five lines at a time, it means you have to scroll one time to view all six of your radio presets.

USB: USB is the main reason I purchased this radio, and works well, with a few faults. First, it takes about 10 seconds when I start the car or select the USB source, for it to "read format." This is possibly because I am using a 8Gb drive with over 1000 songs on it, so it's acceptable to me. My main problem with the USB feature, is the way it organizes the folders. They do not appear alphabetically. I am not sure what method it uses, but like a lot of MP3 audio devices, it just seems to throw them up in the folder list in whatever order it wants. It will use the same order every time, but you can't trick it by copying a folder you want to appear at the top first, or adding "01, 02, 03, etc" in front of your folders/file names." There is probably a workaround for this, but I have no idea what it is. I think it would make more sense if it just listed the folders alphabetically. It does read ID3 information very well, however it cuts off anything after a certain character limit. It would be nice if it scrolled sideways through long song titles/artists to show you the full ID3 information, but for about 95% of people's music, this won't be a problem, and for the other 5% you should have enough of the title to figure out what it is. However if you don't have ID3 tags on your music, it can be a problem. For example, if you have a folder with 10 songs in it labeled "DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince - Greatest Hits - Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble," and there are no ID3 tags, it is only going to display the first part of the filename until it reaches the character limit. So your list on the screen will have 10 songs on it that all say something like "DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fr." Additionally, the USB drive is going to stick out 3" or so from the unit, so unless you remove it every time, you have to be aware of it and careful not to break it off. It doesn't bother me at all though. (Edit - I recently purchased elago Mobile Nano II USB 2.0 microSDHC Flash Memory Card Reader (Black) for it, which only sticks out about 3mm from the unit and is awesome. Get this and a Kingston 8 GB microSDHC Class 4 Flash Memory Card SDC4/8GB and you won't even notice the USB). The only other problem I've noticed with the USB playback, is that the progress bar is off. The bar shows time elapsed and time remaining at the same time. Time remaining is incorrect about 80% of the time. A song will start up and it will show that it has 6:22 remaining, when it is only a 4:00 song. Some songs are accurate, but the majority is off anywhere from :30 to 3:00 (Edit - A commenter informed me that this is likely caused by MP3s encoded in Variable Bit Rate (VBR) format. This is a very plausible explanation and the most likely reason.

IPOD: IPod usability is handled exceptionally well. You can just plug in your iPod using the factory USB into the USB input on the radio. You don't even need to use the aux input if you want to save that for something else. I assume you could also plug the iPod in using just the aux input and free up your USB, but I'm not positive. Unlike USB, the radio accesses iPod songs immediately. IPod menus look the same as the front of your regular IPod and navigation is easy. You can either use your iPod to navigate, or it will lock your iPod and you can use the front of the radio. If you do the latter, your screen mimics an iPod screen and controls. Unfortunately you can't use the screen to seek like you can with USB, and have to hold down a FORWARD/REVERSE button and it will skip through the song in 16 second increments. This is a bit slow and it never speeds up, so be warned before trying to get to the end of Freebird. This is my only problem with it, but I'm not sure if they could have come up with a way around it due to the iPod's design (although this feature may work if you use an iPod touch with it). It will also display a picture of the album. The song name is displayed beside the album picture for some reason even though there is plenty of space below the picture. This means you can only view about 9 characters of the artist name or song title. Audio quality with the iPod sounded amazing, even better than the USB. I don't know if that's due to the internal equalizer in the iPod or not, but I can hear a noticeable difference when using an iPod. Navigation of your iPod through the radio, including accessing your play lists and searching for songs/artists, is very quick and intuitive.

DVD PLAYBACK: DVD playback is superb. The video quality is on par with any portable DVD player you would buy. You cannot tilt the screen, so application is limited, but if you're parked somewhere you can easily enjoy a movie from any seat in the car. If it's daylight and sunny, you won't be able to see much however. The DVD onscreen menus are nice, and the scroll bar works well for skipping quickly through a movie, even better than a traditional DVD player. There's a HIDE button for quickly removing all onscreen displays, so you don't have to wait several seconds for the menus to time out.

SOUND: Sound quality is excellent. DVDs sound great. It has three loudness modes which really bring out the sound. I am using factory speakers with no amplifier, and the built-in Pioneer amplifier makes a huge difference. It has several pre-set equalizer settings for different types of music.

Overall, even if you don't get it at Amazon's current price (40% off SRP), I think this receiver is worth the money. It really is a beautiful and functional unit, and I always like showing it off to my passengers. It is too bad there doesn't seem to be a way to update the firmware, because it would be a perfect unit if Pioneer just made a few small changes to the menus. The unit also does not come with built in Bluetooth, HD Radio, Satellite, or steering wheel controls, but you can add all of these from the products below. I realize Pioneer makes more money by adding these separately, and also keeps costs down on the unit from not including them unless someone wants them, but it would be nice to have built in HD Radio and Bluetooth at least. Stay away from the remote though, it's worthless.

Pioneer CD-IU50V USB iPod Cable for Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD - You don't need this, you can use the factory USB cable that came with your iPod. You don't even need to use the auxiliary input.
Pioneer GEX-P10HD HD Radio Tuner for Pioneer HD Radio-Ready Head Units
Pioneer GEX-P920XM XM Satellite Tuner - See my comments on the Sirius tuner below.
Pioneer CD-SB10 - Sirius Bus Interface for use with Pioneer SAT Radio Ready Headunits and AV Receivers and SIRIUS SCC1 SIRIUS Connect Universal Tuner (you need BOTH of these to get Sirius radio) - I will write a separate more detailed review on these on their respective pages, but bottom line, is that I am very dissatisfied with the satellite radio tuner. The signal comes in great, and installation was fairly simple. The tuner works fine as far as I can tell. My issue is with the incredibly poor way the P3100 interfaces with it. Channel display is awful. Instead of displaying Station Number, Station Name, Current Artist, and Current Song or Track, like EVERY other satellite radio, the P3100 only gives you 1 single line of usable information for the satellite radio. You have to press an "info" button on the screen and it will then cycle through each piece of information. Since it has a useless "composer," that means 5 lines of information. You can never view the artist and song on the same line on your radio. For example, it will show "Bruce Springsteen." Hit "INFO" and it will then display "Born to Run." Hit INFO again and it will then display the station name "E Street Radio." Hit it again and it will display the channel number "S010." Hit it again and it will display "NO COMPOSER." Finally hitting it one more time will go back to the artist name. I don't have to tell you how annoying this is. The frustrating thing is it has the data fields and lines available to display all of that info at once, it just doesn't and uses that for empty space. Incredibly poor design. But I can live with it in order not to have an external radio taking up space and my cigarette adapter. I assume the XM tuner has the same issues. There are other issues with the design (like not even displaying station names in your programmed memory list), but if you just listen to a few channels it will do.
Pioneer CD BTB200 - Cellular phone Bluetooth adapter - This is designed almost as badly as the Sirius adapter, but the hands free works great and it beats having to hold a phone. I use my actual phone to dial out instead of the radio, since it is much faster than trying to bring up a phone number through the radio's built-in directory. Also, unless you have rigged up a handbrake bypass as I described above, you can only receive calls and can't use it to dial out unless the car is in park.
Pioneer ND-BC2 Universal Rear View Camera
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Head Unit, April 10, 2009
By 
GHUZ "Glen" (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD 5.8-Inch In-Dash Touchscreen Double-Din DVD Multimedia A/V Receiver (Electronics)
This head unit is by far the best I've encountered. I do installs for audio/video/lighting and other accessories on the side and out of all the head units I've come across this one is very versatile. I have a 98' accord and the stock head unit went so I decided to treat myself to a nice double din touch screen unit. The Main thing i wanted was a nice stock look, and with the ability to change the illumination colors I was able to achieve that. This is a feature that is not common on aftermarket head units. The other thing I liked about this head unit is that it was flush with the rest of my dash. There arent any ugly knobs with a ring of light protruding or cheesy looking buttons, its slick and clean with very responsive controls. The only Negative aspect of this product is the fact that in order to get full potential you need the add ons such as the bluetooth adaptor. I was budgeting for a nice head unit so I went the direction, however I feel something like the bluetooth or HD radio should be integrated like other single din receivers. Overall however, I still have to say this is an awesome product. The iPod can be connected and charged using a standard fire-wire cable, the screen resolution is superb, the personalization features are great, and the sleek look is unbeatable. 4 out of 5 stars just due to the lack of bluetooth and/or HD radio.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars 3100 new for 09, March 25, 2009
By 
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD 5.8-Inch In-Dash Touchscreen Double-Din DVD Multimedia A/V Receiver (Electronics)

This was ordered from Amazon, and as usual it arrived intact and quickly. I was replacing a Clarion Max385 and wanted a deck that didn't have to take so long to change sources (the clarion practically had to reboot everytime...) and that had a nice picture. The 3100 met both of those requirements and installed easy with the Scosche adapter I ordered from Crutchfield. No remote is included with the receiver, but they are available cheap here on Amazon. This new deck now offers a FRONT USB jack, as well as a front mini-jack for plugging in a key drive or your MP3 player, IPOD takes a separate adapter sold separately. Same for Bluetooth and Serius Radio.

The touch screen works well, the sound is nice, as is the option to use your own photos as the screen background, There are lots of color combinations built in to help match your dash lights coloring if you wish, and the top slot means no opening and closing the unit to insert and remove disks, a major pain with the Clarion... Several stereo shops told me this would not/could not fit my 2005 Tucson, but the Scosche adapter lets it fit easily with no cutting, And it sits flush with the dash when done.

5 stars for the nice screen, DIVX ability, USB port, and sound.

Only negative: no built-in bluetooth/ipod/Serius, all are add-ons.

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Anyone else out there with input?, April 5, 2009
By 
JJ (Vancouver WA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD 5.8-Inch In-Dash Touchscreen Double-Din DVD Multimedia A/V Receiver (Electronics)
Just recently bought this for my 1997 Nissan Maxima w/o Bose, and waiting for it to arrive. Only looked at double-din to match my current factory radio. I was seriously also looking at the Pioneer FH-P8000BT, but liked the idea of a touch screen. I went to a local B&M that had them both hooked up, played around with them a bit, and decided I really liked the touchscreen. The controls for the P8000BT seemed kinda wonky to me, but I'm sure I would have become accustomed to it. But for only $35-40 more, I get the touchscreen, with ability to change backgrounds and tweak the colors to match my green/white dash, and frontside USB. Oh yeah, and DVD/divx, which wasn't in my original plan, but to get the cool touchscreen...well, the DVD comes with.
I don't use my phone much, so the need to also add another box for Bluetooth wasn't a big deal. If it is for you, then seriously consider the 8000BT which has it built in.

Also thinking about getting the add-on HD box, only because putting this in will be a bit of a pain and thought I'd add now what I might want later, so I won't have to pull this out again. I see that Pioneer says for the 3100 to use the new GEX-P20HD, which isn't available on Amazon yet. Anybody have any experience with the newer P20HD vs the older P10HD. Can I still buy and use the P10HD?

Anyway, I'll update later after I get installed and tested out.
Just hoping a few more folks would add their inputs/expierence with this new model, and to see if I can get anymore ideas on the HD aspect of it.
Thanks, will post back on how it went in 2-3 weeks.


==========================================================================
4.20.09 Update:
Just finished the install this weekend. Yes, it rocks!
Likes:
- Touchscreen is very intuitive with all the controls.
- Equalizer, even though a 3-band, provides quite a bit of tweakability.
- Three level Loudness control adds that extra oomph to the highs and lows. This way you don't have to muck with your EQ on the fly.
- Ability to adjust the button panel and screen color to match your dash/mood.
- Display Off. You can use this to turn off the display but keep the unit playing. Then touch the screen and it comes back on long enough for you to do whatever, then goes back off after several seconds of idle screen time.
- BSM (Best Station Memory) is nice if you travel out of range of your normal area. It'll quickly capture the 6 clearest signals.
- USB port has a little cover you can slide down when its not in use.
- The factory background pics and "videos" are OK. Haven't tried setting up my own background pic.
- I dropped the HD idea and went ahead and bought the Pioneer XM Tuner as well. It integrates well.
BTW. If you call XM and use the code XMSCION03, you can get the XM Everything package for $77/yr + free activation! Not too bad.
- It sounds really good! I upgraded my speakers about 8 months ago, and this drives them well!

Dislikes (but not enough to knock it down any further):
- I prefer a rotary volume knob. I like being able to adjust the volume without taking my eyes off the road. A little knob would have been great, but maybe that woulda ruined the aesthetics? I'll probably get used to the button location, but sometimes I'm pressing + when I want -, and vice versa. Maybe a different feel to each button would have been the thing...
- When using USB drive, you can't do a list of the albums. You have to scroll through to find the one you want. This is OK if you only have a few albums, but if you have a lot... Oh well.

I also did the video bypass thing using a rocker switch. I installed it into an unused slot in my dash and it practically looks factory. I definitely recommend this cause you'll look really, really cool to all your friends.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The best 2-DIN DVD, May 8, 2009
This review is from: Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD 5.8-Inch In-Dash Touchscreen Double-Din DVD Multimedia A/V Receiver (Electronics)
I own a 2008 1500 Dodge Ram, and consider very important to keep the original equipment look. Since my pickup had a OEM stereo, to make it fit my dash I had to buy a factory NAV bezel from Dodge (the bezel for the pickup with navigation system). With the customizable illumination of the Pioneer receiver, it looks amazing and fits perfectly with the illumination of my whole dash.
The menus are very easy to use and the picture looks incredibly sharp. Even though that the screen is a little bit smaller than the AVH-4100DVD, the screen is fixed and I am sure it is better that way, since I don't exactly trust the other model's opening and closing mechanism. The animated backgrounds look very nice and the interface for the USB memory displays all the information of any song that is playing.
If you are considering buying a double DIN DVD, this is the best option on the market today.
Note: Some of the touch screen functions are blocked while driving unless you bypass the parking brake wire. For this bypass without a switch, I used a 5 pin relay (Mobile Spec MSRELAY Relay 30amp 5pin Sgl-Pull Dbl-Throw) and wired it as follows: prong 87 and 86 to ground wire, prong 85 to the remote wire coming off the head unit (blue wire) and then the parking brake wire (green) goes to prong 30. This connection will allow you to have the full touch sceen functions at all time and watch DVDs without the parking brake engaged.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Great interface, May 30, 2009
This review is from: Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD 5.8-Inch In-Dash Touchscreen Double-Din DVD Multimedia A/V Receiver (Electronics)
I bought the Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD to replace my week-old Jensen VM8023HD which I was extremely disappointed with. [Sidebar on the Jensen: The user interface on the Jensen is /terrible/. It is slow, buggy, and crash-prone. It is also very haphazard in terms of what button to push in any given mode. Sometimes it's the rotary encoder (volume knob), sometimes it's up/down, sometimes it's another button entirely. Totally violates the principal of least surprise. Seems like it was designed and implemented by some poor intern in 2 weeks. Nice feature set, but completely ruined by the interface. So I quickly ordered the Pioneer to replace the junky Jensen.]

Overall the Pioneer is great! It is orders of magnitude better than the Jensen in terms of interface and reliability. Sound quality is better, too, in my opinion. (The Jensen seemed to insert some digital-sounding "gunk" between MP3s; the Pioneer does not.)

- Menus are very intuitive and easy to navigate.

- It works well with MP3s on a USB stick. Navigation between folders (including nested folders) is easy. You can touch-drag to scroll quickly down a long list or to move the current playback position within a song. You can see 4 track names per screen (I think...it might be 5 or 6) which is adequate. (The Jensen only showed 2!)

- Touching a song name starts it playing but does not exit the menu so you can touch another song if you change your mind. This is great when searching for one specific song that you can't quite remember the name of.

The whole experience is better than the Jensen in almost every way. However, there are some things which could be improved (nothing is perfect!):

- The 'hard' buttons on the unit (volume +/-, track +/-, mute, source, and display off) require too much force to press in my opinion. I would prefer a softer feel. You really have to press the button like you mean it. I also would prefer a rotary knob for the volume control.

- The location of the USB and Aux ports (lower left corner) is poor because a USB stick poking out of the port can easily be hit by my hand when moving the shifter on the steering column. These would be better off on the lower right instead of lower left corner. Depending on the setup in your car that might not be a problem for you.

- It throws up a warning screen which you must acknowledge the first time you switch to a video source (DVD or AUX in) even if you're already parked with the parking brake on. I find this behavior really annoying. If you're already parked it should not give you the warning.

- I'm using a SWI-PS steering wheel interface and the 'mute' function of the interface causes the Pioneer to go into "Attenuation" mode where it lowers the volume but does not mute it completely. I'd much prefer it actually mute. I think this is a Pioneer issue, not a SWI-PS one since the SWI-PS muted the Jensen correctly. I have to contact the PAC folks and see if there is a workaround on the SWI-PS for this issue.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice unit with some quirks, December 28, 2009
By 
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD 5.8-Inch In-Dash Touchscreen Double-Din DVD Multimedia A/V Receiver (Electronics)
First off, I'm late to the party, so I won't repeat what you can find in the other reviews. I will say that I love this unit, despite some frustrations I have had (some of which were self-induced).

I lost the face plate for my previous head unit, a Pioneer DEH-P80MP. After searching eBay for a couple of weeks (where I bought the entire HU in the first place), I noticed that most faceplates were selling for more than $100 with shipping. Instead, I decided to suck up the difference and buy a new unit. After much searching, I decided to go with the AVH-P3100DVD, in part because of the price. (I have an older car so I didn't want to drop too much on a new stereo.)

After receiving the unit, there are three things I love about the 3100, even for Pioneer's "entry" DVD unit:
1. Basic control buttons on the left side of the unit. I don't know how reliable the touchscreens will be, but if it fails to work for some reason in the future, I can still control the source, volume, and track with mechanical buttons.
2. External USB port. When I was reading reviews before purchasing, some people complained about the front-facing USB port (e.g., lack of clean lines). I think it's great. I can pop in a USB drive and play music. Most of my trips are 1/2 hour or less commutes, so I tend to have 20-30 songs on a drive that I swap out frequently. The USB drive is a super-handy way to do this. Get one of the USB drives with a blue LED and it even matches the display...
3. The sound and picture quality are both good. When hooking up the unit, I was testing out the DVD with "Pirates of the Caribbean". The booming of the cannon fire and music made me think I was back in the theatre... only with a tiny screen.

Of course, even though I love the unit, people reading reviews often want to know what's "wrong" with it and, like anything, this unit could be better. Here are three things I wish were different:
1. The DVD set-up was a pain. I did not want to splice my emergency brake cable so I wanted to use a by-pass. (I know this is illegal, hence the parking brake switch, but I don't watch DVDs while driving...) The system was set-up, I had a bypass switch in place, and the receiver would play sound but no picture. Sometimes it would put up a warning message on the screen; usually it would be blank. After MUCH frustration, I found a small blurb in the manual about using the unit after driving. You have to switch the bypass from off to on to off again, then wait a couple of seconds and voila picture. My bad, perhaps, but it could have been more clear...
2. The normal display font is blocky and dated looking. Since the DVD player displays such good picture quality, why not smaller or different fonts?
3. To protect the touchscreen from greasy fingers, Pioneer includes a tiny, little touch pencil with the unit. I lost this in about 3 days.
4. You can load pictures, but if you load and use an image as a display, it "trumps" the DVD player. When I tried playing a DVD some time after loading my first picture, it was back to the same old sound-no picture problem I had on install (see #1). After toggling the bypass switch several times and realizing that wasn't the problem, it took me some time of trial-and-error testing before finding that I needed to turn off the image to show the DVD.

Note (neither good nor bad): I nearly shelled out $40 for the iPod connector. I decided not to buy this and glad I didn't waste the money. The iPod connector is only needed if you are planning to watch video from your iPod. Otherwise, you use your iPod charging cable to connect the iPod directly to the USB port. The 3100 detects it, and even puts a little iPod-like image on the touchscreen to control the song tracks.

Cheers
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Pioneer AVH-P300DVD 5.8inch car steroe, May 28, 2009
This review is from: Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD 5.8-Inch In-Dash Touchscreen Double-Din DVD Multimedia A/V Receiver (Electronics)
To start, I absolutly love this stereo. It has some great features for something of its price range. A lot I wouldn't expect. I love to customize my sound, and this has everything I need to do that. It also has plenty of extras, such as bluetooth, sat and hd radio. My favorite is the usb and aux inputs.... best of all the usb is compatible with my iphone and controls it just as it would an ipod. most usb interface stereos do not do this. As for it being a touch screen.. the size is just right and it fits perfectly into my dash. The user interface is great as well and easy to use. With ease i can scroll through displayed folders and songs, and again as for a touch screen this is one of the best ive ever used in that the slightest of touch is needed to activate the buttons, as where some touch screens seem to have trouble recognizing when you are actually touching it. Overall it is a great unit and really should cost a lot more for what you get and i would certainly suggest this over most models of in dash touch screens that cost almost $1000. Oh an no worries about not having built in navi... most ones that do have it do not allow you to listen to music while using the navigation. I dont know about you but I cant ride for 4 hours using the navigation without music. Id rather get a window mounted one. Do beware though of where you buy. I originally purchased it at an electronics store and paid almost $500, then I found it on here for just $290 and free shipping. Needless to say I took the first one back. Hope this helps.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Much bang for the buck, May 7, 2009
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This review is from: Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD 5.8-Inch In-Dash Touchscreen Double-Din DVD Multimedia A/V Receiver (Electronics)
I was looking for a head unit to replace a 3.5 inch Boss Audio head unit in my 05 Yukon. I kept coming across the Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD. After some research and reading reviews, I decided to give it a try. I am glad I did bc this head unit works as good as advertised. It is getting the most out of my Bose system and then some. I have owned it for two weeks now and nothing to complain of yet. The double din fits perfectly in my Yukon and looks like it came with the truck almost. I would definitely recommend this head unit to anyone.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD double din, April 16, 2009
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This review is from: Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD 5.8-Inch In-Dash Touchscreen Double-Din DVD Multimedia A/V Receiver (Electronics)
(spanish) Excelente producto cumple con todas las expectativas. El equipo no tiene nada que envidiarle a los otros reproductores pioneer mas caro, y por su precio accesible lo hace mucho mejor.
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