Car Video & Reviews

Reviews

We purchased this system in April of 2001 for our van. We loved having it and it really worked nicely. Nice picture and sound quality. After about 12 months it began to develop stress cracks behind the screen near the hinge area. It was under warranty and we sent it in for repair. They replaced the screen and it was reinstalled. Again at the 24 month mark it is developing stress cracks behind the hinge again. Its a matter of a few uses until it completely drops off again, held only by the cables inside. After calling the customer service center and discussing sending it in yet again to be replaced it occurred to us that this will probably happen again in 12 months. After asking the customer service rep we found out that they will not replace it if the defect shows itself again after the 3 yr warranty is up ( from original purchase date). This product has an obvious design(integrity) issue and it needs to be adressed.

Reviews

I live in northern California where FloTV has great coverage. I get a good picture and decent sound, for the size of the speakers. My complaint is the programming. Currtenly FloTV only has 16 channels, and one of those is a preview channel. There are no local stations available; so, no local news, weather and sports. Among the stations available are ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, ESPN, and Fox News. But, the network stations are mostly the mobile versions of the networks. Unfortunately, the mobile versions don't always carry the same programming. CBS carried the Superbowl, but CBS Mobile did not (not that I'd want to watch the Superbowl on such a small screen). While NBC was showing the Winter Olympics, NBC Mobile was showing re-runs of Real Houeswives. I am hoping they add local programming or sports programming that will allow me to watch football or baseball games on it while I am at the game. When I bought my unit at Best Buy there was a sales representative from FloTV onsite who told me about the programming short-comings. I bought the unit anyway, hoping that the programming grows. Besides, FloTV is offering 6 months free programming if you buy the unit by March 31, 2010. After that the monthly fee is $15. The hardware is good and the reception is good. You have to decide if the programming is worth it to you.

This works pretty well, but it would be nice if the prices for service were listed on Amazon, along with the coverage areas. I assumed local channels would be free, but it doesn't get local channel and the cost is $14.99/month or you can pay another $149 for a full year. I sent mine back because I wasn't that impressed with it.

The Flo TV personal television device it's awesome. It comes with battery, earphones and soft cloth. Nice presentation. I turned it on as soon as I got it( it had like a 40%charge on it) but although that it has a battery power indicator button that helps a lot. Even with that power amount I could check some of the previews and set up my account. You have to set an account either on their website or through the device itself. For the $199.00 price you get a 6 month trial period that after it ends they bill you $14.99 a month for 12 channels (ABC, NBC,Comedy Central, ESPN, CBS, etc). I think pricewise it's ok but they should extend their channel lineup (I think the mobile and auto versions have more channels). Some of the programs are live or recorded and you have the chance to see a lot of reruns and encores from live TV shows. The reception in enclosed spaces( like at my work place) is somewhat limited but if you move around you will get a fair amount of signal. Audio and video quality is good, although while the device tries to get signal, you get some pixelation on the image, but for a small device like this the image and sound quality are really good. The touch screen technology to switch channels is really good too.

This device is incredible. I've tried to get mobile TV for years, but in the past, nothing would really work well, i.e., Slingbox, etc. This TV does. As others have said, it operates as a real TV. The signal for FloTV in my house is very strong, even in my basement, and normally the cell signal in my house is very weak. So this must be stronger than normal cell phone signals. FloTV is great for working out in the gym, bringing it on a picnic, or for entertaining the kids in a car or a busy restaurant. Now my husband can go to the kids' soccer game and also watch the football game. And since the mobile FloTV device is about the size of a deck of cards or an iphone, it's easy to put it in my purse, even when my purse is filled with a ton of other things. The screen is bright and easy to read in a normal room. It is harder to see in bright sun. It works fairly well in the shade. The speakers are quite loud. You can charge it from your computer or from a regular wall electrical outlet. The headphones it comes with work quite well. I don't have any buffering or skipping issues during the broadcast. The battery seems to last for five hours between charges. Some interesting things I'd like to see in the future are ways to connect this device to your computer, home TV or gaming machine (i.e. XBOX or playstation) as there are no outlets on the mobile device for this. Also, it does not have local channels or the weather channel so you can't necessarily use it as an emergency TV to get weather alerts if the cable goes out. Another interesting thing is that for the most part, it's live TV, but last night I wanted to see the Olympics. My regular cable TV was running the Olympics on NBC and MSNBC, but FloTV had pre-recorded programming on NBC and MSNBC, but no Olympics, so not everything is live programming. However, it was showing the exact same shows on FloTV for Fox, CNN and Disney that my live cable TV had. I would also like to see more channels like Animal Planet, the History Channel, the Discovery Channel and the Weather Channel, but I'm sure they will come with more time. The current selection of channels that they do have seems to appeal to all age groups. For the most part, this device is very handy to have, and it's a huge improvement over other products that have tried to offer mobile TV also. I'm very happy with FloTV.

Got this as a Valentine's gift. Everyone at work is jealous. Works perfectly. Good reception. Good picture. Good sound. No complaints.

Reviews

This was wonderful for the first two weeks of use (used only by one adult for about 1 hour per night). After about 2 weeks, the DVD player broke completely. The picture wuality started out great but got worse as time went on. I tried to return it, but this company was very hard to communicate with. I am not at all satisfied, and just wish I would have saved my money because this was a total waste! I would suggest something brand name, and something with some sort of warrenty to anyone interested in a product like this. These do not normally last very long, but this was rediculous.

Met expectations, easy to set up, picture and sound clear, may need to tweak antenna for optimum reception.

When I got it it di not work in TV mode. I had to send it in for repairs. Once I got it back it was fine. I really like it now.

REALLY SURPRISED AT THE EXCELLENT PICTURE QUALITY AND EASE OF SET UP.DIGITAL ANTENNA WAS SUFFICIENT AT MY LOCATION.

This DVD player was a surprise. The case it comes with easily mounts a head rest. Be careful because our tore a bit. The remote is nice, just make sure you know what button does what. Not impressed with the RCA input simply because you have no control over volume so be aware of that. The digital antenae works great. It has become my backup for certain channels if Mediacom keeps having issues with Sinclair! Battery life is low but if just make sure you have your car adapter!

Reviews

Although I did LOVE my REN MyGig, it was lacking something major for me, NAVIGATION! I tried to get the same MyGig with navigation, but at this price, I couldn't help but try the Kenwood. First, the navigation. It works SO much better than my Magellan GPS model. Garmin is GREAT in the nav department. Second, the radio. Volume? MUCH higehr. And I paid the extra $30 for the iPod connection, and it works great. iPod stays hidden in glove box, and ALL controls are done straight from screen of Kenwood. Even watching videos. Third, price. Price of unit (March 2009) was $587, price of install at Best Buy was $240. Can't beat it!

This unit is fairly easy to learn. Once you do, it will impress you with its functionality and tunability. Lots of functions and lots of fun! Highly recommended.

I bought this for my wife for Christmas since she liked my pioneer Avic D-3. It isn't as good as the Pioneer, but it does what it says it can. The maps are fairly accurate, with a few (why the heck is it making us turn here in the middle of this field) moments, but overall an average GPS system comparable with a Tom Tom or Garmin. The maps could have a little more deatail on them like more major road names instead of having to zoom way close to read the names of side streets and non-major roads. The GPS voice, lets just say that I-Robot it ain't. The voice is horrid. It mispronounces too many common street names and sometimes isn't clear on what it wants you to do. Example: instead of saying "Turn left on Morgan street ahead", it says "Turn on Morgan stra all lef". It's like having a foreign exchange student in the car with you mispronouncing common words, you just have to laugh, interpret what it said to whomever is in the car with you, and drive on hoping you made that correct turn. Overall, decent for 600 bucks, but it could have been fine-tuned

I picked the 5140 over the 6140 because I don't need bluetooth, besides that the units are exactly identical. Had Best Buy install the unit, they did a superb job for much less than what some of the local audio shops were quoting me. Now, onto the unit: -Boot up time is fast, I'm going good in about 10 seconds. I've heard other units are rather slow to boot up (Pioneer). So far no freezing or locking up except I get some lag when using USB (more later). It has an easy to understand interface but I did have to check out the manual once or twice on specific things. I like the fact you can pick what color you want the interface and physical buttons to light up, I have my radio matching my dash lights. -Navigation is great, and if you ever owned a Garmin unit you know full well how the navigation works. The navigation integrates great into the radio controls. The voices are a little loud and your music will mute for your voice guidance. If you are using your radio controls while navigating a route you will get a green notification bar at the bottom that shows the distance and the next turn you should make. I also like how it shows the speed limit and so far that's been very accurate. Garmin also updates their maps on a regular basis, and you can use the Garmin updates to update this unit. Some other manufacturers of in dash navigation don't update after release. Since I plan on having this unit for a few years that was important to me. -Works great with Sirius. I have my display setup as "4-line" which gives me three lines of song data plus one line of arrow controls. You can pick and choose where and what song data you want displayed with satellite. I personally picked Artist/Song Title/Channel Name in that order. Sirius also gives you 30 presets (6 per "band" and a maximum of 5 bands). Also there's an option to list all channels and you can see what artist or song is playing on each channel organized by category. Very neat. -The USB function is seriously lacking, and the reason I gave this unit 4 stars. First off the USB is slow, and the unit seems to lag when using the USB function. Also for some reason you're limited to 255 items per folder so if you have more than 255 songs you must start organizing your music in different subfolders. If you open a video file via USB it takes 30 seconds or so before it starts playing, and the unit will freeze during that time until the video starts. -Video display is crisp and clear. I've seen complaints about dimming but I don't share those complaints. I set my unit to dim with the GPS. This unit will play Divx/Xvid formatted files but you must change the name of the file from filename.avi to filename.mpg. The US version will not play .avi files, I guess due to piracy concerns. It's a cool feature not found on the spec sheet of the unit. -I didn't buy the iPod cable because I figured I'd just use a USB drive, but due to the terrible USB interface I'll have to buy an iPod cable. Hooking and iPod to the unit via USB without the cable gives no sound or video but it will let you test the iPod interface. It works beautifully. I've been very happy with the unit.

The Kenwood is great, however a little complicated. There are way too many buttons to press for certain features. Also, you can only pause your Ipod. It never really stops it.

Reviews

Love the case. It's very handy and not bulky but completely protects my Zune. The house charger was defective but the people at PCMicrostore resolved the issue with minimal effort on my part. Thanks for the excellant customer service PCM! I thought it was a dying art.

Reviews

The cover is a very nice leather piece and I assume that the car charger works ok but I believe that the AC charger fried the battery in the unit. We had to send the Zune back to Microsoft to replace the player completely. I am pretty convinced that the new AC charger is the culprit as the battery charged fine when connected to the USB cord that Microsoft provided. When I used the AC cord and left the unit to charge overnight, I came down in the morning to discover a strong electrical smell and the unit very hot to the touch. I would have thought that the AC charger had some circuitry in it to prevent overcharging but that does not seem to be the case.

Reviews

the radio is a great deal for the price, but it does have its flaws...first, the screen is super blurry and its impossible to see the track list on ur mp3 cd/dvd. the movie and tv picture is great, but all the menus are all blurry. and if u lose the remote, u just lost half of the radios functionality...i hate it cuz the radio face alone doesnt let u access menus, or settings. and its impossible to navigate an mp3 playlist of a couple hundred songs if u dont have the remote. nice radio, but really for show, not for someone who wants a nice in dash

Reviews

Purchased this to use with my Pioneer AVIC-Z110BT. It does everything it says it is supposed to and installation was easy. For the time remaining before the service is shut down, January 1 2012, it's a great piece of hardware. Microsoft is currently offering service for the remainder of this time for a total of $29.95, so it's a good value when you break down the monthly cost of service plus equipment, as long as you buy it in the first 6 months of 2010. I would have given it 5 stars if the service was not going away in 2012 and if the coverage areas were larger (only MAJOR metro areas are currentl covered, with some ajacent metros on the frignes duw to their vicinity to others). It's really neat to see real time traffic warnings, get weather info and instant directions to cheap gasoline! News, stock info, local events and movie times are mostly a novelty, but still pretty neat. I have my fingers crossed that someone will take thisservice over after MSN calls it quits, or a replacement interface of some type will be released to provide the same kind of data in the future.

It's a great product from Pioneer and working very well but MSN direct service will no longer available after 2011. What to do this tuner.

Reviews

I arrive myself incomplete, I need electricity cables, and the cable for the remote control I cannot use it until they solve the problem to me it was already used was not new me llego incompleto me faltan los cables de electricidad,y el cable para el control remoto, aparte ya era usado no lo he podido usar hasta que me solucionen el problema