Customer Reviews

Pioneer AVIC-Z110BT 7-Inch Flagship In-Dash Navigation A/V Receiver with DVD Playback and Bluetooth

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I'm glad I didn't read the review here before I bought this unit, or I'd have missed out on what is for me a great unit. Let me address the previous review line by line with the differences I see.

- no support for cd changers but many feel that because of usb drives and ipods, changers are legacy...whatever!
What's a CD? Does anybody use them anymore? :)
- touch screen has a sweet spot that is small and off-center so it's easy to make the wrong selection and have to waste time on a redo...
Haven't noticed it yet. There is a calibration for the screen that needs/can be done so maybe that would fix your issue.
- no IR functionality which means wireless remotes cannot be used and this unit really needs one...
I never liked remotes in a car. I've had three head units that had remotes, including the one I just took out. Never put a battery in them. The head unit is arms length away, the remote is under the seat, stuck to a french fry, whatever. What is the remote for? I know some people like them, I just never have.
- xm works great BUT xm traffic is not supported, only msn direct...
Yeah, XM traffic would be better. MSN is a no go. Per their website they are shutting down the service. However, all the online reviews of this unit say getting the MSN is a no brainer, that it's data in invaluable. Go figure.
- no exterior mute button....
Hold down the voice prompt button and it mutes. I luckily noticed this in the manual when I was perusing it during the install.
- installing the hd radio module disables regular am/fm functionality...
Hmm, that's odd. I asked about it and wasn't told this was an issue. I didn't get HD radio so I cannot comment.
- route guidance has no introductory statement to start your route, you just start driving and eventually it begins giving directions...
Good. The less it talks the better. I have people in the car, the telephone going, stuff to remember to do. Just tell me where to turn already, skip the rest.
- route guidance audio does not identify by exit number, street or exit name, just take next and you must look at screen for what next is...
Hmm, good point. I didn't think about this before. I guess refer to the point above for me. Just keep me from blasting by the turn. I'll handle the rest. The road, distance, and direction of turn are on screen.
- last unit i had gave me my vehicle speed as well as the current posted speed limit, this unit gives neither...
Agreed! Sorta. I love having the GPS speed on screen for some strange reason. The GPS speed is available on a setup/calibration screen, but not on the main screen to my knowledge. I guess I can get my GPS calculated speed fix there. As for the speed limit on the GPS, I think I'll trust the handy dandy signs that were happily stuck in the ground for my personal amusement along the side of the road.
- adding a route is real work. to start a route you must type each and every complete word exactly, it does not help you complete words with suggested common choices nor is it flexible when searching...
Type in part of the word and hit enter, it'll show the most likely matches. The route seemed perfectly easy to enter to me, and thank God, the keyboard layout is a QWERTY so you know where the letter is without singing the alphabet song.
- when recalculating a route, it says nothing and starts the process very slowly.
Again, thank God. Say less, do more. I hate it when you are going off route manually and you don't want to key in your change. "Recalculating route....Recalculating route...etc, etc until you give in and either cancel the route or get through your detour."
- there is a search by address voice function, but it's slow and awkward, using it is a real struggle...
All voice commands are slow and awkward to me. I've been amazed at how accurate this thing has been so far.
- no voice commands for basics such as "go home", "cancel route", etc. so you must touch screen through several menu layers for them...
I haven't tried this yet. Go home should be a voice command. I agree. Good points. I did take the time to setup my custome home screen. It has icons for cancel route and go home so they are right there on the home screen. Nice.

POI TRULY SUCKS...
I already tried some POIs. They were not in there as often as I'd like so I agree. But, via the SD card you can load POIs so I'll give it a pass. If it's something I need I'll load it. If not, oh well. I can always look up the address. I did take the time to load some POIs just to see how this worked. I now have every Hooters in the US on my GPS. Sorta overkill as I really don't like chicken wings that much but considering how easy it was to add thousands of esoteric POI waypoints, I think it would be hard to knock what they have built in.

So far, this unit has been pretty much everything I wanted. I pulled out and replaced a Clarion 675 VXD with this Pioneer. It's so much better than the Clarion it's hard to imagine. Everything works as it's supposed to on the Pioneer. Not so on the Clarion. And Pioneer is using Parrott's bluetooth technology. I love Parrott.

I do have a couple of squawks that aren't mentioned previously. The unit, like everything in this country today, has a legal warning. Of course, somebody lost a lawsuit somewhere along the way and not only do we have to agree not to be stupid once, we now have to agree every time the unit boots. I've sort of resigned myself to this fact of life, however, there is a quirk with the Pioneer. Until you ok the legal screen, some of the functionality doesn't work. The iPod voice recognition it does at every boot up doesn't start until you have clicked ok and if you have just updated your iPod this VR load can take several minutes. If you are on the audio screen, as I often am, the warning screen doesn't appear. It's a navigation warning screen, so audio is playing from your last song but the unit is effectively nerfed until you click ok, no VR load, no audio commands, etc. The backup camera does work and it does immediately, which is good. It can be frustrating to jump in the car, fire up and want to start a phone conversation right away but the voice commands won't work till the VR load finishes, the VR load won't start till you click ok, and none of that will start till you click ok on the nav screen which probably isn't up and running. It would be nice if after 30 seconds you haven't clicked ok, it just times out and starts it's normal process or if the warning screen would pop up over navigation and audio so you can click ok. (Update to this note.) Turns out the issue above is actually a quirk of my installation. We may have accidentally performed a work around to eliminate the speed sensing ability of the Pioneer, which would enable the use of the navigation system, and video playback, while the vehicle is in motion. The issue I noted above is a side effect of this work around. Out of the box, this issue apparently does not exist, but you cannot use the navigation system above 10mph, which is in itself annoying in my opinion.

I've had this head unit in my car for about a month now, and overall, I was expecting more from the best Pioneer has to offer.

The good:

The navigation system seems to be at about par with other navigation systems I have used, functionality-wise. I don't use POI, so I can't comment on that.

The audio sounds far better than the stock stereo that came with my porsche.

I really like the way I can make the button lights on the front perfectly match my dash lights. Also, the custom startup graphic is cool. It makes it feel like it was designed for my car.

My iPhone pairs automatically through bluetooth when I start my car, and receiving and making calls works exactly as I expected.

I like being able to play music directly from the sd card.

The touchscreen works just the way I want it to, except I really want to flick the scrolling menus the way I can on my iPhone. You can't have everything.

The not so good:

I'm not amazed by the way the map looks. It doesn't look as refined or aesthetically pleasing as other systems I have used such as Garmin or Tomtom. The 3d buildings are frankly a little cheesy. The MSN service is being discontinued so there is no traffic info.

One thing that really drives me batty is the way it automatically starts playing music from my iphone when I dock it, even if I am listening to another audio source. Sometimes I just want to charge my phone, and there doesn't appear to be any way to modify that functionality.

I think the audio devices UI is poorly designed. I have the HD radio tuner, an iPhone dock, and Sirius radio. The HD tuner reverts to regular AM and FM when an HD signal isn't present, so there is no reason to have the regular AM and FM devices in the audio menu, yet they are still there and there is no way to make them go away. All of the other possible devices are also on the menu, just greyed out. Why do I need a greyed out XM icon in my menu? i realize I have a special menu I can customize, but it would have been much better to be able to customize all of the menus by hiding the icons I don't need. It is cluttered and clumsy.

My biggest complaint is about the ui for the audio devices themselves.

The ui for Sirius and HD radio are roughly the same. It seems like a generic interface was developed in order to avoid designing a custom interface for each of these devices, and it falls short. You have to push a button on the screen to cycle through the metadata associated with a song playing on Sirius, so you can never see the channel title, channel number, genre, band name, and song title at once. You can only cycle through one at a time.

The preset menu is poorly implemented. In the regular AM and FM radio UI (which I don't use), when you make a preset, it displays the frequency of the channel in the area next to the preset number. In Sirius and HD radio, it is blank. You have to remeber which ones have already been set and what they are set to. I had this same level of functionality in my 1969 Chevy pickup.

There is no list of Sirius channels, just a seek button where you have to click through them one by one, or type in the number, if you remember it, and who can remember that many channels?

All in all, I expected more.

we were recently in los angeles, a city that i do not know very well for a few days house hunting and needed to do a lot of driving using a car with this unit installed. after only half a day, we switched to using a $100 sony hand held with a much better result.

a few observations:
- the poi function is pretty much useless except to locate a bank of america;
- can't locate many common poi's so it comes back with the wrong results;
- no ir capability so no remote...believe me, this unit really needs one;
- need to hold voice button for more than 5 seconds for mute...which is a real pain;
- traffic service only available with msn direct which is now a discontinued service;

- route guidance is just flat out horrible...
- can't find many addresses
- sometimes instructions takes you in circles
- no "previously selected" for choosing city, you need to re-enter city name over and over each and every time
- no introductory statement to begin your route and sometimes there is no voice for quite some time so be prepared for lots of u-turns.
- slow to give guidance instructions, sometimes already passed turn or in wrong lane
- no exit clarification, just "take next" is all you hear
- OK button is located in the very top left corner close to and just above the SCROLL button and the sweet spot is at the bottom of the buttons so it's very easy to hit the wrong one and have to re-enter your entire route all over again. (i have done it many times)
- i won't say the database is old, it finds most 2007 locations and a few 2008 locations but cannot finds some 2005 locations that my iPhone nav easily finds...go figure!
- map does not display the city you are currently in (when house hunting in LA where cities run together and you take down an address, you have no idea which city it's in)
- does not display your current speed or the posted speed limit
- when changing map scale, display changes orientation

- voice commands are limited and do not work well, for example: no commands for cancel route or for home route so you have work you way thru menu layers for them. also when using this units very limited (6 or 7) voice commands, the touch screen feature is disabled so you have to wait for this unit to tell you what your choices are before you can say them.

anyone that rates this unit highly is either selling them or a complete idiot.

i do not recommend this unit, it's pure rubbish!

my very last anything made by pioneer! they made a lot of fixes and instead of making them available to purchasers of this model with an apology, they released the changes in a new model, the z120...??? seems pioneer is more interested in selling new units than satisfying buyers of their old units!

june 10th update...
sold this unit on ebay and the idiot that bought it was so excited about his purchase! ha! replaced it with a kenwood dnx6980, which actually works!

I had been shopping for a replacement for my Kenwood 5140. When I saw the price drop, I jumped all over it. I should have read the reviews first.

If you have Sirius... not only do you need the SCC1 adapter, but you need the Pioneer adapter for that adapter. After that you still have a crappy interface with Sirius. It will not show you the channel names and you have to manually scroll through the artist, song name and channel number. From what I hear, XM is the way to go.

The Navigation, not so good. Kenwood blows it away. The simplest thing as trying to find a store or restaurant, is a hassle. You have to put in your location city every time, and then scroll through to find the closest one. Example: I entered Outback and the first one to come up was over 100 miles away. then scrolled down to find a location that was less than 10 miles. I had a hard time realizing that it couldn't / wouldn't sort them by distance first.

No remote control options. I have a Dodge 1500 Quad cab and the radio is a slight reach, which becomes a pain while driving.

The clarity of the movies and video on the screen is outstanding along with the sound. Bluetooth is fantastic (Parrot), while the voice command takes a while as the unit 'learns' your voice.

I would not buy this unit again. Alpine and Eclipse have better models.

When I buy the best the company has to offer, I expect top notch products. If I'm paying over a thousand for a head unit, I expect everything a head unit could offer and more. That, however, is not the case with the Pioneer Avic-Z110BT.

Pros: I bought this unit because of the bright screen, UI, ipod integration, navi and bluetooth features. The menu is customizable which was a big plus. The iPod integration is fast and very simple to use. Navigation is not the best, but still offers some nice features. Bluetooth is by Parrot which makes it work flawlessly and calls, history and contacts load instantly. The sound is spectacular and the built in amp does a very nice job and delivering crisp and clear sound. The options for EQ and sound stage makes it easy to find the best tweak for you.

Cons: There are a lot of standards this unit lacks. One feature I hate to see it lacking is the inability to quickly mute or lower the volume with a single touch. The unit can be muted, but the voice button must be pressed for longer than 5 seconds. Also, there is no remote available, which I would've expected since the lower models support them. The Navigation screen is not as customizable as I would've liked, and from the navigation screen there is actually no way to input an address. You can only search for POI or go back to home in order to enter an address. The iPod cable cost $45 but probably only costs Pioneer about $2 to make. It is ridiculously expensive and it should've been included in the package. The front lip of the unit where the controls are sticks out more than other units. In my Scion tC, it stops my cover from fully closing. Why does a unit that cost $1400 lack so many basic features?

Overall I like the Unit. I give it 3.5 stars. There are a lot of things that need improvement. When the new Z120BT comes out with the new firmware, we better be able to get it as well. It would be ludicrous and a disgrace if they release a new firmware on the new product and forget their loyal customers from the past.

This unit is a disappointment. The bluetooth is bug ridden, it no longer will support gauges that my old avic d2 showed giving you a separate speed to verify your speedo and when an incoming call is answered it only lowers the music but does not mute it which makes the call impossible Pioneer released this before it was ready. Hopefully they will offer an upgrade which I will begrudgingly pay for

Here is why I like it:

* Reverse camera available almost immediately after starting car
* Radio starts about 5 seconds later while unit continues to boot
* expecting it to be upgradable to Pioneer AVIC-Z120BT 7" In-Dash Double-Din Navigation CD/DVD/MP3 with Pandora iPhone streaming later this year
* Quick booting, very responsive
* Looks great, no out of place knobs, completely touchscreen minus some small buttons on the bottom.
* Msn Direct. Many people like to complain it is only available until Jan 2012. While this is true, if you buy now, the cost is very little after averaging it out over the life of the unit. Hopefully Pioneer will have something else ready by then.
* Dead reckoning. Haven't hooked up my speed wire yet but people seem to like so I assume I'll like it too.
* Voice recognition /blue tooth seems to be hit or miss with some people but I find most people like it, and it works well for me.

Biggest problems I think are really with the GPS maps. Street names are not always labeled while driving. Can't upgrade....very little customization as far as I can tell. I haven't used IGO but I'd imagine if would feel like a downgrade compared to it. The unit also runs windows automotive which is not hackable in the same way units running CE are.

Another downside are somewhat costly modules if you want to add to your unit. Some things you may want to add which include additional purchases are

* Steering wheel controls
* MSN Direct (not sure but may not be able to combine with HD Radio or Sirius)
* HD radio
* Sirius / XM
* IPOD connector (NOTE: For me, music streaming from my ipod seems to work well using the standard IPOD Usb cable)

Ultimately, I wanted something that booted up relatively fast, was responsive, had traffic, not too expensive, and something that wouldn't stand out from the rest of the car and I'm happy with my choice.

I have had two other Pioneer products of this type and this unit by far was over and above my expectations. W/O going thru all the bells and whistles that usually accompany these reviews, I will get to the one that means the most; it works as designed in every respect and has great response times to all commands. My wife has a built in unit for her Lexus RX350 and this unit is just amazing. It starts up quickly and responds instantly. Well, finally Pioneer has a unit that equals the flash memory performance of that GPS unit and with a few extras ta boot.. The Pioneer development lab must have realized that using a better performing flash memory was tantamount in getting the most out of their designs. (duh!) The Z110BT will not disappoint!

Review:

Basically comes down to this, the gui is awesome and has tons of features like making your own shortcut home screen to watching movies through Bluetooth from your ipone. However the navigation is not that great... the maps look cool and nicely laid out but the routing is often terribly wrong. Another strange thing I've notice was when your zooming out the map, often the street your on will no longer be displayed, and I'm not talking about zooming out real far either and these are main roads. The Mic that came with the unit was not very good. I had read about this before but decided to try it out and everyone said It sounded bad so I bought a garmin mic that has been a huge improvement.

Best thing:

The new z120bt coming out soon will have all new software and gui interface is really cool AND you can purchase and upgrade for the z110bt because there is no difference between the two besides software. Lots of people (like me) are buying up the z110bt because the prices are pretty low compared to when the new one comes out and you'll have to pay a premium for it.

Worst:

Navigation is just subpar for a flagship from pioneer...

Fantastic sound and the XM radio interface is nice with the station logo art. The GUI is simple and is easy to use and navigate.

The navigation system is truly horrid. After a month it still hadn't fully calibrated and would often put me off position by as much as several blocks. The routing was just plain silly often having me zig zagging through neighborhoods when a straight line would have been most efficient. The MSN traffic is a joke. POIs are way below expectations. Garmin simply outclasses this format in all respects.

Voice command is nice when it works.

Bottom line.....if you want a nice sounding stereo get it. If you are looking for something with good navigation keep looking because this will be a major disappointment.