Click here for an unbiased review of Pioneer AVIC-X910BT 5.8-Inch In-Dash Navigation A/V Receiver with DVD Playback and Bluetooth – Electronics – $615.00

Pioneer AVIC-X910BT 5.8-Inch In-Dash Navigation A/V Receiver with DVD Playback and Bluetooth Product: Click here for an unbiased review of Pioneer AVIC-X910BT 5.8-Inch In-Dash Navigation A/V Receiver with DVD Playback and Bluetooth – Electronics – $615.00 List Price: $1,200.00 Amazon Price: $615.00 Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price Add to cart to see low price@ Availability: In Stock Usually ships in 24 Hours Free Shipping Available

Compare Prices on Pioneer AVIC-X910BT 5.8-Inch In-Dash Navigation A/V Receiver with DVD Playback and Bluetooth

Pioneer Avic-X910Bt 5.8-Inch In-Dash Navigation A/V Receiver With Dvd Playback & Bluetooth

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2515 in Car Audio or Theater
• Brand: Pioneer
• Model: AVIC-X910BT
• Dimensions: 9.65″ h x 9.65″ w x 10.63″ l, 7.28 pounds
• Display size: 5.8

Features

• AM/FM radio, DVD, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW, MP3/WMA/WAV/AAC, DivX/MPEG4 receiver with GPS navigation and MSN Direct
• 4 x 50 Watts maximum power with front/rear and three sets of preamp outputs
• 5.8-inch widescreen TFT LCD touchscreen with 800 x 480 resolution
• Includes auxiliary input, USB port, SD card slot, iPod direct control; add optional tuners for SAT/HD radio
• On-board Bluetooth for hands-free calls, on-screen dialing and more

Love the X910BT, but it has a few quirks…..
Bought the X910BT for my car, we enjoy traveling the back roads of Arizona and the southwest. Having the Nav system installed in the car makes things very easy – no hassle connecting the various devices, cables running all over, taking it down and putting it back up when making stops, and little “suction circles” on the windshield that thieves look for. Now I only have to fuss with the radar detector. Startup time on the unit is really not a problem, my Garmin would often take several minutes to startup, the AVIC is typically ready to go in about 1 minute. The bluetooth connection takes a little longer and the unit is very sluggish until the bluetooth connects. After the bluetooth is connected, the X910BT is very responsive.

It’s a very easy unit to operate after you get used to it. My previous GPS was a Garmin unit, and I really got spoiled by their features. A few things I can complain about with the X910BT:
– Voice recognition on bluetooth – just doesn’t seem to understand what I’m saying, either by name or number. I usually end up selecting the contact off the screen instead of telling it who to call. After the call has started, it works great, incoming sound is loud and clear. One person told me I sounded kind of muffled on their end, but they did not have any problem understanding me.
– Route planning is a bit of a pain if you’re like me and like to take the back roads. When we travel, we like to stay off the interstate as much as possible. Disabling the Highway option makes for some very long trips as it will try to route you way out of the way to avoid highways. The AVICFeeds software is ok and I have used it to generate POIs for route planning, but it is tedious and not as easy to use as Garmin’s MapSource. AVICFeeds also has a 300 item limit on POIs it can import, which means getting creative if your have a file with a large number of locations, such as those found on POI-Factory.com.
– The volume knob is really small and hard to grasp. I picked up a press on knob from a guy on AVIC411.com and it works great, easy to grasp and works the way it should have from the factory.
– The maps are very limited in the speed limit data they have. One a recent trip Southern California, we were being tailed by a CHP on one of the backroads. We were doing a reasonable speed, but the AVIC did not have any speed information for the road we were on. Additionally, many of the major surface streets in the Phoenix metro area also do not have any speed limit info available. It was very rare for the Garmin to not have speed limit data available.

I have the Sirius option installed, it works great and I listen to it more often than FM or my SD Card. I used the factory installed Sirius antenna lead to connect to the X910BT with no problem. I was able to transfer my new car subscription over and they even waived the $15 transfer fee. I also found a nice flat spot under the dash to put the GPS antenna where it is hidden and out of sight. I do not have any extra objects laying on my dash or on my roof as giveaways to what I have in my car. I ran the microphone up inside the front pillar, under the roof liner and used velcro strips to attach it to the rear view mirror. It’s almost completely out of sight unless you know what to look for.

I really like he X910BT and would not go back to the portable Garmin GPS, though we still have it for use in our other vehicles and when we are hanging around planning a trip. It’s great having the GPS built-in, many times we are out running around and decide to go someplace, we can enter whatever we want to find right in the GPS and it tells us where it’s at.

So much potential, so many features, but tainted by bugs
Pioneer re-named a slightly modified AVIC-F900BT to the AVIC-X910BT, check reviews on that unit, as well as the AVIC-F90BT and AVIC-F700BT to see the common complaints.
Hardware changes are a new DVD drive, a new Apple chip to support new Apple devices and a minor update to the faceplate.
The software changes (which are available, for a fee, from Pioneer for existing F-series customers as a 3.0 update) include:
o An update of the WindowsCE operating system that runs underneath the user interface, which is responsible for the increase in responsiveness of the unit over the F-Series running on version 2.0.
o Updated navigation software from iGo 8.0 to iGo 8.3, this gives all the new map features advertised, like heading-up in 2D map mode and traffic signs.
o It now responds properly to steering wheel inputs with a remote adapter by going through presets instead of incrementing the tuner.
o A little more detail on this behavior – you can set buttons to preset up/down, but these buttons will not do preset up/down AND skip tracks, which is the behavior of almost every stock radio’s steering wheel buttons. I continue to have my steering wheel up/down set to the skip track, since I use that more often. I really wish it would skip tracks in CD/iPod mode and change presets in Radio Mode.
o Updated maps.

The unit itself promises a lot, and in most ways, it does. Spec-for-spec, there’s no unit (apart from Pioneer’s own Z110BT) that comes close at *any* price. The closest competition is the Kenwood DNX9140, however, while the X910BT allows voice commands, such as “Play the artist The Hanslick Rebellion” or “Play the album Physics”, the Kenwood DNX9140 responds it requires you to be looking at the screen and giving commands like “Line 4”, “Next Page”, which it responds to quickly, but is merely using your voice to duplicating pressing the screen with your fingers.

The AVIC-X910BT delivers on most all its promises, but the main gripes from the previous series still exist, which are well-covered in reviews of the F900BT, F700BT and F90BT. You *must* read those before making a decision to purchase this unit. For the price, this is an impressive unit, but it has quirks that not all are willing to live with. Keep the receipt in case you’re one of them.

Some issues but nice overall
I will not go into all details on this unit. This is my first GPS receiver and so far the Navigation has worked great. The only issue I have had with it is sometimes after system startup is complete it takes a minute or so before the option of using “around current GPS location” is selectable.

iPhone/iPod voice control works nice when using play artist, play album, etc. The unit fails using Call “name” to dial. I have yet to get the system to recognize a name that is in my phone book. I end up either having to use the contacts screen to select or use the voice command “call 555-555-5555”, which it gets right every time but I do not know all the numbers for my contacts so that is not the best alternative.

iPhone/iPod movies that I have paid for and downloaded from itunes do not play back well. They take forever to load and once they do the placeholders for the movie information remain on the screen the entire movie but do not even display any information. During playback you get some weird artifacts as well for example a line through the image at random points during playback. iTunes music videos however load fine.

One feature listed in the book is the display of incoming Short Mail (SMS). I have yet to have incoming SMS notifications display on this unit.

The X910BT has a nice appearance but having a glossy finish on a touch unit means very visible finger prints. A matte finish would have been better. The volume knob is not raised enough for comfortable operation unless you have the hands of a 7 year old.

Overall a nice system but it does have issues. Things I would expect to work on a unit at this price.