I did a search and it seems everyone that replaces there deck is using a Kenwood 7120 or 8120? I have ordered the Kenwood 8120 and it is on its way? I was thinking about returning it and getting the Alpine? What do you guys think?

 

A little late but...I am in the midst of installing a W505 in my car right now. What a pain in the ***...although I'm sure that would be the case with any double-DIN HU in this car.

jds

 

I looked very closely at the W505 because of it's beautiful high res screen (WVGA) but it's bluetooth is not compatible with my phone.

 

Wow,

It seems to have all the features of the Pioneer AVIC Z3 model plus some, like WVGA Screen, USB for MP3 players, Optical Digital Output for a 5.1 experience, and factory installed steering wheel controls. I wonder if it has composite cables out for a second screen (for my kid in the back)? Yes, yes it does. Now I am excited!!!!

 

Hmmm, not sure, but if you're basing this on their published list of compatible phones, it seems that that list is not correct. I saw several people post on caraudio.com that their Alpine Bt adapter was working with a phone that was not on that list.

That said, I can't get my phone to sync up..using the Nav-based BT. However, I suspect my phone at this point more than the Alpine.

jds

 

Minor nit to pick with your feature list...you still have to get something like the PAC SWI-Jack for steering wheel controls. What it does have is a hard-wired connection specifically for this.

 

I installed mine a couple weeks ago. I absolutely love it. I'm convinced that there is no better screen on the market. I currently use a USB flash drive for digital media, but I'll be switching to iPod in the summer (apparently it gets cold enough around new england that the hard drive on the iPod gets unhappy). Seems to play anything I throw at it beautifully and supports everything. I can't think of any complaints.

 

No, not just that. A local auto sound shop that sells Alpine also tried to sync my phone to their demo unit and called Alpine as well. They were very motivated to make the sale. That said, I haven't decided not to go the CarPC route, anyway, since I would like to install some instrument cluster software as well. But no single solution seems to yet do everything I want, eg, HD radio.

 

For what its worth, I changed the auto-sync setting in my phone and it works now. THe phonebook stuff doesn't seem to work right, but making and receiving calls seems to be OK.