 Completely Satisfied |
| Review Date: June 18, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Pleasure Hutchings, Marietta, GA |
| I am very pleased with my Pioneer AVIC-Z2 radio/navigation system. It was refurbished, but it works like it was brand new. The seller shipped the product fast and everything works fine. The system is so worth the money. I recommend this to anyone looking for an in-dash navigation system. |
I like it a lot...
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| Review Date: November 10, 2007 |
| Reviewer: DJB, |
I have had this unit up and running now for approximately two months. NAV system works great. Touch screen is very responsive. Less than 20 seconds to sync up with GPS and have my music or video running all at the same time when I first start my vehicle. Very nice and does not seem like a long time to me.
All NAV/DVD systems lock you out of certain features while you are driving. This is not new or exclusive to Pioneer. However, the fact that Pioneer saw fit to block bypass measures in their software installed on the hard drive of this device shows their overall lack of forward thinking. Too much control over a product deters and slows creativity, innovation, improvement, and compatibility. Wake up Pioneer!! I love your product, but get your corporate chains off my purchase...
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Not Perfect - but an Excellent Unit!
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| Review Date: August 8, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Richard A. Brown, Antelope, CA United States |
I have two of these, both originally AVIC-Z1 units. The first came with a used car I bought my wife. The 2nd unit I picked up after using the first one for a while. I had to have one of my own.
The nav system works very well, and has saved me on numerous occasions. The voice prompt with street names is great. The ability to find restaurants nearby.. or to pin locations you want to remember in an address book, or the history of past destinations you can easily scroll. Very convenient. The hands-free bluetooth for my Treo 680? Works great. Voice prompting to dial numbers, or answer, so I don't have to dig my phone out of my pocket while driving. CD Recording so you can build your own collection of music. You can delete tracks you don't want, and build playlists which mix the CD's you've recorded.
I installed the 2nd unit myself in my '07 Hyundai Sonata. Complex? Sure, lots of wiring, running the microphone through the headliner, hooking up the gps antenna, the speakers, the bluetooth receiver... It took a good couple days (wiring the harness was the first day). But it all works great, and I'm no rocket scientist. I've had no problems with the unit, which I bought as a refurb over a year ago.
The best part? Its hackable. :-) From time to time I remove the 30gb laptop harddrive to make backups on my computer just in case there is a failure. Need to update the software with new maps or firmware? Its available online. Just finished updating both of 'em to a Z3. Want to disable the parking break check for using your Nav while driving? No problem, instructions are online. Install your own custom backgrounds? Piece of cake. How many other devices let you do all this?
Anyway, I love the unit.
That being said, is it perfect? Not even close.
* It won't copy MP3's onto the hardrive, only CDs. So people with large MP3 collections will be stuck decompressing, writing the tracks to a CD, so the AVIC will record them. Plus you need to make sure you fill out the Album and Track info, or the organization will be nuts.
* Want to transfer music from one AVIC to another? Too bad, there's no interface for a USB device, SD card.
* The nav maps are usually behind the times. Pioneer doesn't update that often, so the TomTom Software I have with my PDA is always more current.
* The interface is quirky, but you do get used to it. TomTom's is better. The nav doesn't let you select "cross streets", which TomTom does, and I miss that feature.
* It typically takes extra effort to get your steering wheel controls to work. I did it, and its great, but it took an interface controller from another company.
* The up/down station change buttons are "tuning" buttons, so it doesn't toggle up and down your stored "favorite station" list. Both irritating and dumb!
* The bootup time IS SLOW. I figure its just a PC, so I don't worry about it... but I do understand that it can bother people used to just "turning on the radio".
* Although the unit hooks up to the vehicle's SpeedPulse wire, it uses it for navigation accuracy only. What about dynamic volume control? My OEM Ford unit in my truck has that... turns the volume up in relation to the cars speed. I mean, the wire is HOOKED UP ALREADY, why not give it as an option?
* The absence of RDS, which every OEM radio seems to support (my Ford truck included) is a sin at this price point. With that big a display, there's simply no excuse to give us the station text. (Though I've heard that if you purchase the HD Radio adapter, it'll do it).
But having said all that, its been a great unit/units. Don't have the rear view camera, XM radio, or the IPOD interface hooked up... so I can't comment on those.
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Best GPS out there
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| Review Date: September 21, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Dllem, |
I've looked at other car NAVs, even bought an external one for my girlfriend.. 95/100 of them would rate below the Pioneer Z series. The graphics are great, much better than other cars. My co-worker made sure to make that comment a dozen times..
The features and options are great. Bluetooth is great, tons and tons of addons.. 7" screen to watch DVDs or aux for ipod video.
Make sure you upgrade the firmware, and the addon ipod interface box is miserably slow(use the built in aux instead). These two minor points don't detract enough not to highly recommend it. |
Hope They Get it Better Next time
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| Review Date: March 22, 2010 |
| Reviewer: O. Obijiaku, Los Angeles, Ca |
I've had my AVIC for about 2-3yrs now. The unit itself is great! DVD/FM/AM/IPOD/NAV build into one unit is great. I have all the extra modules for iPod control and telephone Blue-tooth which all work great. Like a couple of other reviewers said the bootup time is kinda slow, but that's because it loading the MAP software from the internal drive. The good thing is that if you had the Radio or iPod going before you turned the unit off, the audio from either one of those sources comes up with 2-3 seconds after you turn on the ignition, so there is really no wait to start playing your music.
One of my biggest issues with the stereo is that iPod music search, it's extremely slow, and if you're not a fan of using playlists, it could take an eternity to get to a song. I had to start using playlists to create shortcuts to get to the song I was looking for.
Being that it's 2010, I would not recommend buying this unit brand new because Pioneer has a newer AVIC that eliminates alot of issues that some of the reviews were complaining about, but if you're getting a good deal on a used one than go for it. AVIC411(dot)com is a site dedicated to Pioneer AVIC series units with tips and tricks to customize the unit to suit your style. |
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