Car Video & Reviews

Reviews

Short review for those with attention deficit disorder: Is the Eclipse AVN7000 worth two thousand dollars? Nope. Look elsewhere. There are a lot better ways to spend two grand. Longer review: Well, I purchased an Eclipse AVN7000 a couple days ago. I was very excited to get it installed in my new car. My options were limited, since I only had one DIN space to work with. So I chose the "top-of-the-line" AVN7000. Was it worth it? Nope. Why, you ask? Well, I was expecting a feature rich, easy to use, well thought out and designed unit with all of the bells and whistles. What you get is another product that was rushed out the door, and forgotten about by the manufacturer. The interface of this unit is clunky at best. There are very few buttons on the face of the unit - 10 buttons and a knob/button. That keeps it simple, but they managed to add several more on the touch screen itself - making me wonder why they put buttons on the face of the unit...? The Nav button on the face only has one purpose: to jump you from wherever you are to the nav screen. While that is handy, I fail to see why it can't do something else while you're in Nav mode. The Menu button takes you to an on-screen menu that is cryptic and poorly organized, and mostly to do with nav functions, NOT anything else. (I guess Fujitsu / Eclipse didn't really want you to use it as a stereo.) The Display button controls the day/night dimming of the screen, or will turn the screen off altogether. Why you would want to turn it off I don't know, just close it! If you do turn it off, you'll wreck your car trying to figure out how to get it back on. You have to press the Nav button! Yeah, that's intuitive! Why not the Display button?!? The Dest button brings up a menu of destination and Points of Interest (POI's). The menu looks easy to use, but is actually confusing. Just try to get it to show you the nearest gas station, and you'll know what I mean. You better pull over, because you're gonna be reading and "clicking" a lot to get it. The Open/Close button controls the screen's tilt and will close the screen. Oddly, this button takes you to a menu where you can adjust tilt or close the screen. Am I the only person who thought you should just be able to tap the button and close the display? Nope, you have to hold it in for a second or two for the display to close. The > buttons do the normal backward track and forward track skipping, like on most stereos. (Finally something standard!) The ^ button ejects the CD or DVD you have inserted. The volume knob is also a button, and it brings up a menu of all of the different options you have installed, such as CD, MP3 CD, DVD Movie, Rear View Camera, Side View Camera, etc. And you can easily switch between the functions. The volume knob can also be used to scroll through the functions when the display is closed. An odd abreviation of the function will appear on the stereo's mini display (not the big screen) when the screen is closed. The abbreviations are odd. CMP for an MP3 disc. Sidetrack: Who made that up? Why wouldn't you just use MP3? or even MP3 CD, the display has enough characters! I know that's nit-picky, but these are the things about this unit that just don't "sit right", and it's a good example of how the unit lacks "polish". These kinds of things could be easily avoided if the manufacturer had done some honest end-user trials with the unit before releasing it. Back on track: A power button is also available on the front, which works just as you would expect, it turns the audio portion off, but leaves the nav unit running and the display out and on. One of my pet peeves about the unit is that the menus are not organized in any logical way. I know that sounds picky, but when I'm cruising down the highway at 70 mph, I don't need to be distracted pressing buttons, surfing menus, trying to find the option I'm looking for. There should be ONE menu button that takes you to a short menu of options, subdivided by category: nav, audio, configuration, etc. Then sub-menus as necessary. The current menus seemed to be organized from a designer's standpoint, and I'm sure they made perfect sense to the Fujitsu engineers. But we're not Fujitsu engineers. We're users. Make the menus make sense to normal people that just walked up to the device. A word about the manual: The manual that comes with the head unit is abyssmal. Yes, it tells you how to set a destination. How to switch between your audio CD and your memory stick (I'll get to the memory stick in a moment). But it doesn't answer ANY technical questions. You're left to trial and error and fudging your way through. Such as: The unit will read MP3 files from a CD-ROM or a memory stick. It also plays DVD movies. So why wouldn't it read DVD-ROM's with MP3's on them? Well, it doesn't. How hard would that be Fujitsu? Come on! While surfing through the menus you'll notice that you can change the background image (wallpaper) or have it play an animation in the background - behind the menus. No where in the manual does it tell you HOW! You'll also see in the menu's that you can configure the audio of the head unit. There are various controls, such as one that you set the type of vehicle it is in. The manual gives NO explanation of what this really means. A couple of the choices are: Compact and Small. What's the difference? We'll never know! There's a section in the sound setup where you can set the crossover functions and speaker setup for your vehicle. There is NO explanation whatsoever in the manual of these functions. What choices should you make? What do the options really mean? Who knows!?! Conclusion: Overall, the MOST disappointing thing about this unit is the features that it is LACKING and that you would be expecting to have. Such as readily available and FREE nav data updates. After all, you're paying a premium price for this unit, it is insulting to charge for the updates. Well, there aren't ANY updates for this unit!! The data in the unit is from 2005, and there are no updates available!! The updates for other similar Eclipse units cost about three hundred dollars!!! Can you believe it! You can buy a LOT of copies of Microsoft Streets & Trips for that! The nav data is also lacking in another horrible way. Some areas of the country only have "partial" data. You can see the streets and intersections on the map, but the computer can't navigate you in these areas. It just tells you the equivalent of "sorry, no data, too bad for you". Fortunately, the GPS still places you in the correct place on the map, it just can't tell you to "turn here" or route you around one-way streets or anything like that. To make that situation worse, there's NO WAY to tell an area with full data from an area with partial data!! You would think that it would be a different color or something. Another nice "feature" from Fujitsu. Thanks fellas! On a personal note, I live smack-dap in the center of one of those partial data areas! So the device can't even navigate me to my own home! Of course, I know where I live, but it's just that more aggravating that a unit that costs this much does so little. I mentioned Memory Sticks above. The unit will read Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo's (the MagicGate variety only) and ONLY the 128Mb or smaller! What!?! Yes, I said 128Mb or smaller. OK Fujitsu, what's that all about? Why Sony Memory Sticks? Why not the ubiquitous SD memory cards? Or even Compact Flash? Why the most expensive flash memory available? Why only 128Mb? What am I gonna do with that? My WATCH has more memory than that!! Ugh. Well, I'm sure there are several other things I could complain about with this unit. I just hope I save at least ONE person from wasting there money on this clunky out-dated over-priced turd.

Reviews

Man this unit is so nice,you can change the color of it,built in Nav that is SWEET and the bluetooth is awesome too...The unit is user friendly,I mean Real easy..They have the touch scrren setup better than any other unit and ive had many including the pioneer z3....If you have the money and want to save time learning something and want all the features,this is the unit you want!!

this may seem like a good deal, but this unit is pretty frustrating to use. it is very slow to boot up. most of the time i have already driven to my destination by the time this thing finally starts up. it is not very responsive to touch commands. takes a couple seconds for the screen to change or for the volume to change. if you're listening to the radio and have a USB device hooked up, it will sometimes automatically switch over to USB mode. GPS is slow and takes about 10 minutes for street names to appear. all the specs surely look pretty cool, but i would not recommend this to anyone. this unit also freezes a lot. if you take the USB device out it will freeze.

Bought this unit in November along with the IPOD interface and the sterring wheel interface. I love it. It was well worth the purchase and I recommend to anyone looking for a indash navigation unit. I love the touch screen response along with the voice control. The bluetooth is awesome, don't have to do any thing but answer you calls and keep going. The navigation is update and haven't had any problems with it at all. Go get one!!!

I recently purchase the pioneer avic x910bt to be honest this thing is better than any factory navigation out on the market today, the only issue i have its with boot time and usb flash take long time to starts

Works well does what advertised with the exception of VR (voice recognition) reason for 3 1/2 stars out of 5. Hard to get it to recognize commands every time. I was told the more that it is used the better it will work. As the two I purchased were for my wife and daughter, I do not use enough to say if it has improved. They have yet to get used to the FACT that they can press and talk to change the source or make a call. My daughter will press contact on her phone and then realize as the phone rings through her speakers. My wife, well she is hopeless. But they both are extremely pleased that they have the 910BT when on the road. I on the other hand am happy that they have the bluetooth and navigation when they are traveling... PEACE OF MIND! When I did use the VR and it worked correctly, with contacts, source change, XM, ipod, and my Cowon S9 it was smooth. I will install Z110BT after my Sirius trail expires. Bottom line, even with the learning curve very good nav head unit. Pleased with purchase.

Reviews

i dont care what anyone has to said,its just simple elegant classic.easy to use nice sound wich i tink its the best sound out there ..

Installed in a 2010 Tundra. Everything wired up easily and if you have steering wheel controls, I highly recommend you get the adapter for that when you order this! The unit is a beast! It does alot of stuff in a compact package and I look forward to the updated firmware when the Z120 comes out. I'm not a huge iPhone/pod fan, so I don't really use that portion of it, but so far the maps are spot on, the voice control is better then my stock unit and the plethora of inputs and capabilities of it keep me happy. May have to update the wifes to this one, or the 920 as well soon.

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.

This receiver is awesome. Does everything you'd want. 2-zone entertainment lets the kids in the back watch or listento their own thing while the wife and I can listen to ours. The navigation software is not the best there is, but it's pretty darn good. Voice control is the best I've tried, though the number of phrases are limited. iPod control is outstanding and is where the voice control really shines, recognizing all your artists, albums, genres and playlists all via voice commands. Bluetooth handsfree phone operation is simmple to use and crystal clear both ways. Add MSN Direct (only available until Jan 2012) and you get traffic, weather and more. I also installed the HD radio and Sirius hardware and am very happy with them as well.

I bought this about a month ago, and so far I love it. I would make sure you have a professional install it and also override the parking brake restrictions. You also definitely want to add a rear view camera to this because it's probably one of my most used features. I have a ps3 slim running on the av2 and it looks great. Pros: * zillions of POIs in the navigation * bluetooth, dvd, radio work great * rear view camera Cons: * it takes a few seconds to boot ( I usually autostart may car w/ alarm so it's not noticed ) * the rear view camera can only be viewed going in reverse ( I added a switch that forces it into reverse ) * the voice commands can sometimes be wonky I would add it to any other vehicles I buy.

Reviews

I have a factory installed nav in my SUV and a portable Garmin. When the radio in my 11 year old Lexus began to fade, I decided to splurge and install this system as a replacement. I have plenty of experience with my other two systems. This system is as good a navigation system as any I have seen. The unit paired with my Blackberry Bold easily and hands-free calling is a breeze. Import of contacts from my blackberry was also a breeze. Both me and the caller can hear well with minimal disturbance. Playing music of the SD card is a breeze. The menu options playing music are intuitive. iPOD works well too. The rear view camera function is new for my car and I love it. The nav antenna was placed on the dashboard in the driver side corner right by the windshield. It seems to pick up satellite info with no difficulty. I had the system installed a Best Buy - it took them about 5 hours - for my car, the tech felt it was not a DIY project. Voice commands work OK at best - I can get it to call home and switch AV input to SD or FM. But I cannot get it to go to a particular album.

I replaced my 8000bt pionner unit with the avic-x710bt. The avic is a great unit but compatability with other electronics other than a ipod is horrible. I tried hooking up a hard drive-(worked with my $250 8000bt) does not work with this unit DUE TO THE LOWER AMPERAGE PUT OUT BY THE USB ON THIS UNIT (WONT SPIN UP THE HARD DRIVE NOT ENOUGH POWER). How about a 4g Ipod (will not work). THE IPOD TOUCH I HAVE WORKS REALLY GOOD (MUST BUY THE EXTRA CABLE WHICH IS NOT CHEAP $$$). I THINK PIONEER COULD HAVE DONE A BETTER JOB IN THE COMPATABILTY DEPT. ESP, WITH SUCH A COSTLY UNIT. I HAVE BOUGHT PIONEER UNITS FOR ALL OF MY VEHICLES IN THE PAST. THE FIRST UNIT I HAD WAS GREAT. THE QUALITY AND FEEL OF THERE PRODUCTS HAS DECREASED IN MY OPINION. THE SOFTWARE NEEDS WORK. AM I HAPPY WITH THIS UNIT?? YES/NO. IT SHOULD BE MORE COMPATIBLE AND AT LEAST LET YOU USE SOME STORAGE DEVICES BIGGER THEN 8GB. IF YOU USE AN IPOD SIZE DOES NOT MATTER. BUT WITH AN SD CARD YOUR LIMIT IS 8GB. IF I COULD RETURN THIS UNIT I WOULD. I AM NOT 100% SATISFIED AND OH BY THE WAY WITH THIS PRICE TAG IT DOES NOT COME WITH A REMOTE. VOICE COMMANDS ARE COOL AND WORK WELL.

This was my first in-dash navigation unit and I made a pretty good choice. If you have an iPod make sure you get the iPod cable, and you're good to go. It works great with my nano. It's very easy to jump from playlists to artists or whatever you're looking for. The navigation isn't fancy but its accurate. Bluetooth works well. I had problems finding my phone (LG Dare) from the receiver, but when I searched for the Pioneer from my phone it worked the first time. Now it automatically pairs to my phone. As far as load time when I first start the vehicle, you get music in about 10 seconds and everything else is loaded in about 45 seconds. Overall good unit!

- Great all-in-one package: Touch Screen, Hands free phone, Nav System, AM/FM Radio, CD Player, and external audio/video inputs. It even allows for a rear camera if optionally installed. - Installation: I did have this professionally installed and found only AFTER they opened up my dashboard that the Honda Civic 2000 requires a special-order double-din mounting kit. Not too expensive, but I recommend you CHECK THIS THOROUGHLY BEFORE PURCHASING... This detail is not really made clear, even if you previously had a double-din radio in your car. With the mounting kit, the unit fits and looks great. - Hands Free Phone: Took a little while to set up with my old bluetooth device, but once it found my phone, it connects automatically every time. Sound quality is good and it allows for voice activated calls. Voice activiation works pretty well, but can have trouble rocognizing some words. Sync'ing with my phone's address book has been problematic, but newer phones probably work better than my old Palm Treo. - AM/FM Radio: Sound is fine. Provides 24 FM Presets and 8 AM Presets. Changing the station is a bit clunky and can require several menu selections just to change from an FM to an AM station ion the Nav System. - Navigation System: Some nice advanced features like 3-D Maps & "Smart" zoom which automatically changes the zoom level based on where you are in your route. The Nav System in my Toyota Hilander is more refined and user friendly, but the AVIX is made by engineers to have some nice bells & whistles. Overall, a great unit and it functions well. I think its extended the useful life of my old car for another 3-5 years. I do wish that changing the radio station did not take so many key presses - it would have been nice to have a one-press feature to change the station from preset to preset even from AM to FM to CD.

Reviews

I TRIED 2 PUCKS, "THRU HAWL" -- READINGS WERE NEVER STABLE ENOUGH TO KNOW IF YOU WERE IN 4 FEET OF WATER OR 11 FEET OF WATER... THESE PUCKS WERE INSTALLED JUST 1/8" FIBERGLASS TO TRANSMIT THRU AND IN ACCORDANCE WITH THEIR INSTRUCTIONS... NEXTED I TRIED THE TRANSOM MOUNT RIGHT SMACK IN THE WATER, SITTING WITH NO ENGINE RUNNING AND 1/2 THE TIME IT SEEMED NORMAL BUT THEN IT WOULD START JUMPING AROUND..... THIS TYPE OF BEHAVIOR MADE ME FEEL I COULD NOT TRUST THE INDICATION I WAS SEEING.......... DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY!!!! THERE ARE OTHERS OUT THERE THAT WORK BUT MAY COST A FEW EXTRA DOLLARS BUT THAT'S YOUR CHOICE...

This depth finder does not have an internal On-off switch so make sure you wire one into it. I also had problems with the readings going haywire after initial installation following the installation instructions to a tee. I had to deviate and mount the transducer much higher than they recommend to get a reading. The readings still goes haywire when on-plane though not much I can do about that.

The product was new and packaged in orginal packaging. Condition excellent. We have not put the depth finder in our boat yet, but it looks like we shouldn't have any problems with it.