Alpine iDA-X100 Digital Media Receiver

Pros: Looks nice, flashy display... good interface, lots of bells and whistles.

Cons: No CD player, no HDD, no remote, no fuse built into the deck. Accessories advertised for the equipment is expensive. Very pricey to get it to do everything it advertises.

Summary: I was disappointed when I opened the box and found so little came with my new deck. I get the fact that it's a media player, but it's basically an expensive flashy box to play your iPod through. It doesn't have a CD player, so you'd better start ripping all your old discs to Mp3 and transferring them to your Mp3 player now. It doesn't come with a remote, so if you want to find a song, you'll be messing with the thumbwheel to find your tracks, which i imagine will be rather distracting while driving. You'll need to spend another $25.00 if you want a remote. There is no hard drive, so you'll need to plug in a thumb drive which means you have to disconnect your iPod. It's not something they really mention on the box, and they refer to it rather vaguely in the instructions... it all seems kinda cumbersome to me. Other decks at a lower cost have a blue tooth capability built in, but you'll have to drop another $200 plus installation to get that up. Same with the Sat Radio. I just don't get it. After removing the components for a CD player, you think there'd be room enough to fit the electronics for blue tooth, or a hard drive or something other than what they give you.

I know it seems a little silly, but the kicker was the fact that there's not a fuse built into the box. It's part of the harness. I've already had a deck professionally installed, so I thought I'd just hook it up to the old harness, but my last deck had the fuse built into the deck, so I had to replace the harness as well. Not a terribly big deal, but it's just another case of them sticking it to you. If you don't know much about electronics, that's even more money you have to spend to have a new deck installed.

All in all, if you've got plenty of excess cash to drop on the deck, installation, a remote and blue tooth and sat radio hardware, as well as plenty of free time, an iPod, and no need for CD's, then this is the deck for you. I'm taking my back and buying a Pioneer deck.