im looking to get a double din nav... im looking at the eclipse avn 6620 and the pioneer avic-f90bt audio guru's comments? im leaning towards the pioneer, though there are some flaws they dont seem to major and looks like they are in works of getting the rest of te bugs fixed...

 

What's your price range?

 

preferably 700ish but will consider 1k ish if i REALLY like the feats and its outstanding

 

Take a look at the kenwoods. DNX5120 and DNX7120

 

I use Eclipse myself. It is what I would recommend any day of the week over a Pioneer (and it's inherent bugs). For a navigation platform, it is great, for a audio platform it is outstanding. I noticed that here in Canada we just had a major price drop on them (today actually), this should also mean that the US market has also had the same price drop.

 

The more F-series Pioneer's I install.... the more I dislike them. They take FAR too long to boot up. It's really been getting on my nerves and I'm SOOOO glad my D3 is not like that....

 

ahh i was looking for a response from someone like you forbidden.. i remember when i first got my 8 i was always reading stuff u posted... ill take a look at eclipse line...

i know ppl say the f-series is slow and what not but it seems to be comming from all the electroni gurus who expect top notch everything.. for me i doubt i will know the difference since it will be my first aftermarket nav and have nothing to compare it to...

any other nav units have similiar features like the f series?
thanks again
-benny

 

Its going to be hard to find an eclipse double din with integrated nav for your price range. Being new to nav will also make it basically impossible to use an eclipse unit while driving. I have an eclipse in my Daily driver neon and put one in the company TT supra. They both take a thick manual and research to figure them out heh. I would research the kenwood. I will PM you later if I can find a good price for you.

Edit: I have sold car audio for a little over 2 years. I have had the best model single din eclipse makes for a little over 3 months. I still don't know how to work everything on it. I'm not an idiot its just that damn complicated. lol

 

Or someone who owns the previous model that boots up in 1/20th the time...

And you'll notice. It's not just the Nav that takes awhile to boot up. It's the entire unit. CD, Sat Radio, iPod. If you were last listening to the iPod when you got out of you car.... you'll be out of your driveway and 3 blocks down before the audio will begin again. Tell me that wouldn't bother even a novice.

EDIT: And I've gotta second WV's comments. I've had plenty of time playing with Eclipse Nav units too. They are a little cumbersome to use. Yes you would eventually get used to it. But it's not pick up and play, like a Pioneer or possibly others are. (Never used a Kenwood Nav unit) I'd get some serious research/feedback on the Kenwood models if I were in your position.

 

Read my post. Kenwood = baller status right now. You can read some reviews or watch some vids on youtube.

 

will do, checking them out right now...

looking at the avn 6600 i wasnt impressed... not HD and cd rom nav?
i REALLY dont want a cd nav again........

 

You might look at just getting a D3 for now (cheap and reliable) then upgrading in a year or two when some of the HU's that are expected to come out are available.

 

Just wanted to add my two cents. I haven't used anything other then a AVIC D3 but I do also own several Garmin and Tom Tom standalone GPSs.

I currently have the AVIC D3 installed in both of my vehicles (RX-8 and a SAAB). I really love the unit for the bluetooth and ipod integration. But I find the GPS utterly awful. Its to the point where I actually carry a seperate standalone unit in the glove boxes of both vehicles because of how terrible it is.

Among other things these are my gripes:

-The search function for points of interest in the D3 is terrible. It will not arrange points of interest based on there location relative to you. So here in Canada when I do a search for a Canadian Tire, I get every single Canadian tire in all of alberta and I have to scroll through 100s of hits to find the one closest to me. I was in an unfamiliar neighborhood looking for a hockey arena. I typed in Arena with the avic and it started finding arenas 50-100kms from my location. Loaded up my Garmin and in a minute it was showing me an arena 1 km away.

-9 times out of 10 the unit will not give you the quickest route when you're in a bind. Yeah it'll give you the right route when you're in a main city (take the highway) but get out of the city and you can be sure that it'll route you on a route that is at least 10 to 20km (one time before i loaded my garmin it was giving me a route that was 3 hours versus garmins route that is 2 hours) longer (whether the unit is set to fastest time or shortest route)

-There is no way to review the route that the unit gives you. It displays a vague line showing your potential route. In one mode you can see what the next 3 commands will be but it will not allow you to review the entire route turn by turn (probably because they dont want you to be able to prove that the routing algorithm is useless).

I've got several more gripes with the unit but suffice it to say that anyone who's ever used a real GPS unit (the AVIC D3's is absolute rubbish) will find the unit utterly useless for anything other then displaying where you currently are.
(i'm sure there will be a few people who disagree with me on this, but I guess most people like to defend what they spend there hard earned money, whether they want to believe they got taken by the D3 or not). I spent about 2200 dollars on both my avics (things are more expensive north of the boarder). As I said, love everything about the unit except the GPS. I'll be replacing the units soon enough with something that actually has a usable GPS feature.

 

All the kenwoods have built-in flash based nav. (I'm starting to sound like a kenwood sales rep. heh)

 

I agree that the Kenwoods are worth a good look. I think I'm headed with the DNX7120 when the Metra kit gets released. The 8120 looks awesome too, but I don't see features that warrant an extra $400 on top of the 7120.

 

avn6600 is a old model now dude, get the new one. The AVN6620 is the current model and it is on sale in Canada for $1000. It has two drives, one for the nav dvd and a second drive for cd or dvd.

 

hippak thanks for the review. thats what i was worried about... after the factory nav i dont think ill ever use another cd rom nav.. i dont think they are updated enough and just lack features...


god i hate all of you for recomending the kenwood.... i was looking at videos of them... now i want it.. but they are a bit pricey... which of the kenwoods do you think is best for its money?

i sure hope their units arent as terrible as their site.. its virtually useless and no information.

will check the avn 6620 as well

 

I would recommend downloading the manuals from their site. It describes most of the features. And yes.. the site sucks.

You could probably grab more info from crutchfield.

 

no worries LiL BenNy.

I'm going to take a look at the Kenwood units aswell. Looks like they use Garmin for their GPS navigation so I'd expect that the interface/routing/menu will be excellent.

 

i use a mix btw the nav on my phone and the factory nav. omg. when i get lost from those things all hell breaks loose. from the way you describe it i will drive off a bridge with the little things that suck on the d3 nav

 

do you guys think the dnx8120 is worth the price difference of the dnx7120?

 

Well the 8120 comes with built-in bluetooth, 7 channel pre-outs, twice the warranty, and I believe you can't get ipod VIDEO with 7120.

Otherwise it's really up to you.

 

I'm a member of Avic411.com and since Pioneer dropped the ball on the F-Series, a lot of members returned theirs for a DNX. Personally I think the F Series is awesome, since Pioneer released a FW update and in the past 2 months we've discovered that the F series runs on WinCE, is completely hackable, and we've also created some nice hacks. But it really comes down to what you are looking for from your unit.

 

It runs WinCE? NO WONDER!! AHAHA FAIL.

 

Heh. Amusing, but I think it's a little short sighted. Yeah, CE itself sucks, but as a platform that can be hacked/developed for, it opens up a lot of possibilities that you don't have with an unaccessible OS.

Knowing this actually makes me want to look at the F series again....