Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Small but full of Technology, August 31, 2007
This is one hell of a unit. I have had it for 3months now and suffice it to say it has everything you could ever ask for. For example, if you decide to adjust the sound settings, watch out, you might rip your speakers or are you into satelite radios...it is Sirius and XM radio ready. Navigation is superb and as far as I am concerned, it is on par with my 2007 Yukon navigation system. I have watched full lenght movies on the screen with front passengers and connected video monitors on the headrests for rear passengers. There are so much more to this unit; bluetooth, MP3/ZUNE/IPOD adapter, 13million POI etc
I love it and will buy another if I ever have to.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Packed with features - solid interface, March 22, 2008
This little guy has everything! Save that other DIN space for a cubbyhole. Don't think the screen is too small - your eyes should be on the road anyway. It speaks GPS directions to you! It's incredibly powerful and although professional installation is probably easiest, there are tons of forums on the net with advice that can help you do it yourself. I love this unit!
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Very functional and useful, despite minor flaws, October 31, 2009
I bought this over 2 years ago now and it's still a great purchase. It's relatively easy to install (once I found the documentation for my car that told me which wire is the speed sensor wire and found a found a path through my car's dash).
The hard drive is great, because it holds the maps so you don't have to use a separate maps DVD. There is also about 20 GB of space for your own MP3's. I figure the hard drive will be the first thing to go...but so far it is going strong.
Copying music to the hard drive....UGH. From a DVD, it takes about 2-3 minutes to copy 1 albums worth of MP3s from a DVD This doesn't seem like a long time, but when you want to copy 5 GB of MP3s, that means about two hours. A long time to sit in the car pushing buttons. Make sure they are properly tagged and in separate folders by Artist/Album).
I haven't bothered to encode MP3s from audio CD's (well, I did it once and it was painfully slow - about 15 minutes to copy a 60 minute album). When you encode from Audio CD, the artist and song names are just random junk unless you take the time to fix it. If the CD has CD-Text, then the song names will show up properly, but in my experience most commercial audio CD's do not have CD-Text.
MP3s played from the Hard drive do not auto resume from the previous song position after turning your car on. MP3s played from Disc or Ipod adapter DO resume correctly. HOWEVER, if the 4 GB DVD is full on MP3s, it takes about 30-40 seconds for the stereo to enumerate all the tracks and start playback. Sound quality is decent and their is a full EQ with factory and user definable levels.
There are a ton of features on this thing but one drawback is that you can't use more than one external connector at a time. In other words, you can use the bluetooth adapter OR the ipod adapter OR the Aux adapter OR the XM adapter. Changing the adapters requires pulling the stereo out and switch it...not a trivial thing.
Also, I would not recommend the ipod adapter. Yes it is capable of charging the ipod (sometimes) but it is not compatible with some of the newer ipods, in particular it does not work with my 1st gen ipod touch or my iphone 3G. It did work with my ipod 5th gen video charging and playback (until that was stolen). HOWEVER a major drawback of the ipod adapter is you HAVE to use the interface on the stereo which is AWFUL if you have more than 50 or so songs on your ipod (especially if they aren't tagged properly by artist album). With that in mind I would recommend the KS-U58 adapter which has just a 3.5 mm stereo jack (headphone mini) which can interface with any mp3 player. It is a lot cheaper than the ipod adapter. No it will not charge, but when your friend rides along and they want to listen to their ipod it is a PAIN to teach them how to use the stereo's interface, so the standard 3.5 mm adapter lets them use the ipod's interface.
I have not used the bluetooh or XM adapters.
The navigation is very good in my experience (mostly navigating in the Boston/New England area - City, suburbs, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut). Re-routing works flawlessly, and the paths are pretty good (if only it could be configured to ignore Fenway on gameday!) It only says generic street names (e.g. "Continue on Ninety-three North" or "Make a left on U-S twenty-eight", it will not say "Harvard Street" or "Commonwealth Ave". For some reason the accuracy of the roundabout directions surprises me, it will say "Take the 3rd exit at the traffic circle" which is impressive.
The speed sensor wire has come loose two times in two years. Navigation will not work AT ALL without the speed sensor wire. It was relatively easy to pop the hood and re-clamp the connector. I'm sure if I'd had it professionally installed, they would have done a better job than I of securing the connection.
No touchscreen or voice commands, if those are deal breakers for you, but honestly I'm am SOOO glad I have this instead of a Tom-Tom or Garmin. It doesn't take up a power outlet, less concerned about it being stolen (detachable faceplate FTW), and it's always there when I need it, and it has a MP3 hard drive built in. I bought it for Music and Navigation and couldn't be happier...the purpose of a review is to be critical and point out flaws that others may have a problem with. I consider the unit's flaws to be minor so I think this stereo is great after-market option that rivals the newer factory installed in dash units in features (if not screen size).
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