Dual XDVDN8190N AM/FM/DVD Receiver with 7-Inch Motorized, Touch, Navigation,Bluetooth Interface (Black) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I received this as a Christmas gift. Installed the next day. Loved the idea of all the features (DVD, navigation, iPod connectivity, Bluetooth) as this replaced an existing GPS and iPod FM transmitter. Even better was the fact that it looked like a cheap in-dash CD player to potential thieves. All the features worked as expected. The DVD feature is nice for long trips but the built-in screen can't be used while the car is in motion (there's a connection for an external monitor). The navigation feature is nice, but the user interface is a bit 'clunky' in my opinion. The main reason for choosing this unit was the built-in iPod connectivity as I spend about 3 hours commuting daily. The on-screen iPod controls are much easier (and safer) to use than the iPod controls. However, don't expect it to mimic the controls from the iPod exactly. It's great for basic playback but is best used with playlists. Bluetooth phone connectivity is a great feature but the built-in mic makes it difficult for callers to hear you (even sitting still with the engine off). An external clip-on microphone would have been a much better choice and sadly there's no option to add one. Otherwise the phone book and caller display works well. After my initial impressions I would give this unit 4 of 5 stars.
Now for the long-term review...
After using this unit for nearly a year, I'd like to report how I feel about it, what I've experienced, and why I wouldn't recommend this product now.
The DVD feature is nice but I noticed that the unit has a tendency to overheat after a few hours of use. I've read on other sites that adequate ventilation was necessary for this unit. There's a small rear-facing fan that must be clear of any obstructions. I ensured that it wasn't blocked (my 2002 Intrepid has plenty of room behind the head unit). While the 'overheating' didn't affect playing the iPod, the Bluetooth, or the navigation, it did severely affect DVD playback. After about 45 minutes of playing a DVD the video would get blocky and studder, or the sound would cut out, as if the DVD was scratched. I tried several including a couple of brand new discs and had the same issue. Haven't used the DVD in a while now.
The navigation worked well until suddenly it just stopped one day. After getting the 'press here to accept' message I began getting some kind of error indicating that the GPS software couldn't load. On a side note, it appears that this unit uses an embedded version of Windows CE, as the dialog box from the error looked very much (read exactly) like error messages I'd seen before of CE-based devices. I tried restoring the navigation data from the DVD included with the unit but that didn't help. After exchanging e-mail with Dual's technical support I was told that I needed to send the CF card back and they'd check it. Would've been easier if they'd included the application software on the DVD instead of just the navigation data so that I could try a different card myself. Still haven't sent the card in but guess I will have to if I want my navigation back.
The main reason I wanted this unit was for the iPod connectivity. It works OK but the on-screen user interface is buggy. For whatever reason, when using my iPod Video and the on-screen pause, it locks the head unit up. For example, if you press pause while playing a song, the unit will pause the song but I can't resume it. I have to switch to the radio tuner and then back again to get it to play. And it skips to the next song, it doesn't resume the song I was listening to. I don't have these problems with my iPod Nano. Since I use it to listen to audiobooks and podcasts I don't pause that much. I've learned to use the mode button to switch to the tuner if I need to pause the audio. As I have the audiobook feature turned on on the iPod, it resumes where I left off when I switch back to it.
My biggest complaint, though, is when shutting off the car. If the radio, or iPod, is playing when I turn off the ignition there's no audio when I re-start the car! If I turn off the radio before shutting the car off this isn't a problem. To get audio back, I have to turn the radio off and back on again. And, no, it's not a wiring problem (I've checked and had it checked by a professional).
As I noted earlier, it appears this unit is running an embedded version of Windows CE. Dual has promised updates on their website since I bought the unit but as of this writing they haven't made updates available. I can only hope that sometime soon they will update the software and fix what is otherwise a great product for the price. Until they do, however, I'm sticking by my 2 star rating.

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Eclipse AVN7000 7-Inch HD Navigation System With Dvd/Ms Multi-Source Receiver Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer 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.

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Clarion NZ409 7-Inch Portable GPS Navigator Review

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(More customer reviews)Pro: the price was right with the nav and it is well integrated. The sound is right up there with the Alpine I had before. It does run my iPod Nano as advertised. When I played a DVD, it played the music but not the video (because the parking brake was not on)...that was cool.
Con: I tried as hard as I possibly could to find a DVD player that would let me search through the iPod titles...this unit is down near the bottom of that capability about the best you can do with the iPod is put it on shuffle or make some good playlists. It may be that the next generation of gear will do this, but for now, you're almost better off getting a unit with a aux jack on the front and using the ipod itself.
The Nav is good but is very different than the Garmin Nuvi I have. It gets a fix very quickly, but got totally confused yesterday when I tried to go to a nearby town using backroads. I had to turn the nav off after I made one turn it didn't like. The Garmin seems to recover better and recalculate your trip when something is wrong (like the road it wants to use is closed for construction).
The voice sounds like one of those answering phone synthetic voices that reads your credit card number back to you, not near as nice as the Garmin.
Once I get over how cool it is having it all-in-one, I will starting thinking about how much I spent to have a stereo that sounds about as good as the one I had before, plays an ipod almost the same as the one I had before, and has a nav almost as good as the one I had suction-cupped to my windshield that I could put in any car I drove.....it is cool having a touch screen and I guess that is the feature I really paid for.

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Get there fast, and get there entertained with Clarion's NZ409. Featuring built-in GPS navigation, a 7-inch motorized touchscreen, iPod direct control, and plenty more, it's the perfect hub for your mobile entertainment needs.

QVGA Color LCD Monitor The 7-inch touchscreen QVGA monitor is fully motorized, and offers a great picture whether you're using the GPS navigation or stopping to enjoy some video.
Enjoy Your Favorite Media Take in your favorite music and movies from DVD, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, CD, CD-DA, HDCD, or CD-R/RW. You can also enjoy MP3 and WMA digital audio files from a data disc or USB thumb drive, for hours of music and ID3-TAG display of track information.
Easy-view Sub Display In addition to its main LCD screen, while "closed," the NZ409 shows you its informative 12-digit blue LCD display for maximum visibility within a space-saving profile.
iPod Direct Control via USB Just connect the USB cable that's included with your iPod to the source unit's USB input to control your iPod. Using an optional CCA723 cable will even let you watch iPod Video on the screen. The same USB terminal can also be used to connect a USB memory device with digital music files stored on it.
24-bit D/A Converter for Superb Sound Reproduction Fully enjoy the sonic impact of DVD movie soundtracks or music videos. 24-bit technology actually oversamples the digital signal, providing excellent results that just weren't possible with older 16-bit systems.
Built-in Navigation System Nothing to add--it's all there from the get go. Count on GPS accuracy, an efficient navigation engine, and intuitive 2D/3D map screens to guide you to your destination. Navigation data is pre-stored on the internal flash memory for quick access and response.
2 GB flash memory map storage
Map Coverage: US 50 States and Canada
12 Million built-in POIs
TTS (Text to Speach) for Street Announcements

Sirius SSP Direct Connection Ready Connect to a Sirius Satellite Radio receiver without any need for a interface box--and enjoy over 130 channels of music, news, talk shows, sports and traffic information with digital quality sound throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Rear Vision Camera RCA Input This RCA input enables you to smoothly connect a rear camera to display the area behind your vehicle. The increased view encourages and facilitates safer driving.
6ch/2V RCA Output The NZ409 boasts a 40W x 4 built-in amplifier, but with 3 sets of RCA outputs, you are free to add external power amplifiers to create a more powerful, sophisticated audio system.
Bluetooth Ready Used with the optional BLT370 Bluetooth transceiver, you will be able to enjoy the benefits of hands-free calling as well as audio streaming of music you have stored on your mobile phone.
Remote Control Included Control the action with the included wireless remote.
What's in the Box Clarion NZ409, trim ring, wiring harness, remote control, installation hardware, owner's manual, installation guide.

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