Pioneer AVIC-F900BT In-Dash Navigation Audio/Video Receiver
May 30th, 2009 | 108 views | Posted by in Cheap Car Electronics
Pioneer AVIC-F900BT In-Dash Navigation Audio/Video Receiver with DVD Playback and Advance Voice Controls
In-dash navigation audio/video receiver with DVD playback and advance voice controls.
- Conversational Voice Recognition for Ipod and Bluetooth Control
- Built-in Bluetooth technology
- A/V direct control for iPod
- USB direct control for portable media players
- 5.8-Inch Wide Touch Panel Display with WVGA High Resolutions
Pioneer AVIC-F900BT Review
I ordered this F900BT. Now I have had it installed with the firmware update for about a week and went on a 17hr road trip to test it out fully. Now I am glad to say this stereo is meeting my expectations from the previews months ago.
Sound:
Better than my factory of course with the usual Pioneer EQs such as Powerful, Super Bass etc..
Screen:
Preupdate, the screen only looked good in the shade and washed out a lot in sunlight but after the update I can see it a lot better along with greyed out icons. The splash/startup screen can be customized with a jpg by SD card or usb drive. The button lighting can also be adjusted to match your car interior. The responsiveness is ok after startup. But sometimes it can be picky.
Nav:
The Nav is nice. I’m coming from a Garmin Nuvi 200 and a Kenwood 5120. Since the 900 comes with Bluetooth you can call the POIs in the device with a touch of a button. You can create a trip/route with stops/waypoints in it and manage them. You can preplan restroom and food breaks or site-see. There is a screen for progress and itinerary info. This screen can show you your progress along the trip whether its miles left or hours left or you can view the trip as turn by turn. Your map screen can show you a lot of info such as speed limit, your speed, next turn and second turn, time to destination/turn and estimated arrival. The only annoying them after the update is the green turn boxes stay on screen even if you have no route in. Another minor thing is the voice prompts happen to frequently, you’ll notice this when entering/exiting a hwy or approaching a turn. There is also a button on the corner that shows what your currently listening to, that you can press and be sent to that screen. For instance, if its ipod, the current song will show on bottom along with album art. If you press the button it will take you to the main ipod screen with all the info. There are also tons of POIs in the unit, you can find them by: along route, near cursur, near destination, by current position. There is also a shortcut to POIs if you’re just cruising around. Press the info button on right side of map, this will show you a zoomed out image of where you are. From here you can save your location or press “info” and it’ll tell you all the POIs near you. You can also turn on speed warnings where it’ll warn you when you’re speeding. In the future Pioneer will introduce a POI creator. I’m not sure if this will enable proximity alerts such as Garmin’s red light/speed cam warnings.
HD radio (add-on):
First, Pioneer does not tell you this but you need an antenna splitter or additional antenna for HD Radio Tuner to work. I got one off Ebay for $6 shipped. The antenna goes to HD and stereo, stereo needs it for MSN to work but if you’re not using MSN then its fine. Pioneer told me this was aimed at the F700 since it doesn’t have MSN, but anyway. Ok, I’m in Raleigh and we have about 12 HD channels and they sound GOOD. It was like night and day when I put my antenna back into stereo while waiting for the splitter. Plus with the $50 HD rebate this was a cheap upgrade. HD integrates into interface and takes control of FM/AM if no splitter is present. When you select the HD source you’ll get 3 sets of FM presets and 1 set of AM presets. If you have a splitter this number is doubled because the FM source has its own 3 sets. Things work as expected but I have had two issues. One, when you press the next preset button (P. Ch > ) it tends to skip. For instance I’ll be on P6 and it’ll skip to P4 instead of P1. Two, preset info doesn’t show up on the Preset list. You just have to remember whats there. In FM mode the presets are listed as 88.9, 97.5, 99.1 and so on but in HD mode its just blank. While in HD you can do HD Seek where it will find the next HD channel instead of static from standard FM. Yes you can still listen to standard FM while in HD source. At car startup music will begin in about 5 secs.
iPod:
iPod interface is great. I wouldn’t say the manual searching is quick though but it has a huge shortcut, voice control. Just like Ford Sync, you can press a button and say “play artist…” and it will play that artist/album. You can tell it to show you artists, playlists and albums. It is really cool and is spot on. I was surprised by it getting Gnarls Barkley. Before the update the stereo had to catalogue the ipod at startup each time which was a pain but now you only need to do it once. Album art also shows up on the map as well. Videos look well also but I don’t think videos work when you have a nav route on (dvds do though)(assuming you have the bypass connected, be safe and watch the road). Full startup time on mine is about 1:45 when ipod is left as default (left on when car turned off), but music begins after about 30 secs.
DVD:
DVDs look good to me not much to say here. You have a set of controls come up when the movie is playing such as pause and next, but you can also skip chapters by pressing the knob. On the main menu screen you get arrow controls and a enter button. When I put in my first dvd the unit became unresponsive to the controls and wouldn’t eject but a reboot fixed that and it worked fine afterwards. If you’re in route the voice prompts will mute the audio. You can either pause the movie or press `map’ to see whats coming up and then return to movie. I only did this for my passengers so they wont annoy me.
MSN:
Depending on your area the info can be great. In Raleigh you get a lot of info but in Durham the signal is weak. Info comes through the FM antenna hence the need for a splitter for HD. If in a strong area, info comes in about 2 min. Traffic info will overlay on your map and if in route you will be guided around it. You can route to movie theatres or gas stations as well. Movie showtimes show up for the entire day and Gas prices may or may not be current but it tells you like this, $3.79 (+2 days) or $1.48 (today) wishful thinking I know.
Bluetooth:
Ok lets get the obvious out of the way, Blackberries are hit and miss with this. But I have a Samsung A900 and its works ok. Sounds good on my end and haven’t had complaints on callers end. My friends Treo 755 works really well. You can transfer your phonebook, store 5 phones, call contacts by name (Call Mike) or number (call 919-771-7771). It says you can receive/view incoming txts as well but I have not got any while in car to test this. Others report it works though.
Overall I have to same I am very very satisfied with the unit. Glad I waited for it.
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