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"Voice recognition flawed, user interface complex." on by californialife
Pros: Navigation is good and easy to follow. Sound quality very good and display has nice graphics. Mechanical design and finish are elegant and not overly flashy like some other units and it has a handy micro-SD slot on the front panel.
Cons: Voice recognition is horrible for hands-free calling, unusable. Less than 10 percent correct recognition of contacts. I had a Parrot system that recognized 100% from the start and I replaced it with this? Also misinterprets commands and pauses iPod.
Summary: I mainly purchased this product for the purpose of providing hands-free bluetooth calling and iPod/MP3 playback, and secondarily to have everything integrated into one unit where I had several separate components before that never played well together.
I'll be candid with you and tell you that I've had the system for less than 24 hours. I haven't read the whole manual but have read some of the portions pertinent to my issues, to little avail. It took the installers two days to integrate this into my 2004 GMC Yukon with steering wheel controls. and we still had to figure out some of the functions when I went to pick it up.
User interface is inconsistent. I can scroll music selections by swiping my finger across the touchpad, but cannot do this with contacts. Trying to do so simply selects the contact you first touched. Although there appears to be a slider bar on the left side, it only seems to function as a position indicator. In the absence of workable voice recognition, this makes navigation and selection of hundreds of contacts a cumbersome and distracting task, driving or not. My Android phone is set to display first name first on the contacts listings but the Pioneer displays last name first and I haven't found a way yet to change this. Annoying.
Voice recognition is unusable for me. I had this problem with my older Pioneer navigation unit that I replaced with this unit. Maybe it's my voice but it should be more robust than this, being 6 years newer than the one I replaced. Both technicians also tried the contacts voice dialing and it didn't work for them either. They couldn't believe the results. I had a Parrot MKI-9100 bluetooth adaptor in place just before this and the voice recognition was amazing; never missed a single one from the start. The Pioneer unit is getting 10% or less correct and I finally just stopped trying; total frustration. And yes, I tried both first name first and last name first and it didn't make a difference. Some of the basic commands work for switching sources and the like, but it falls completely apart when trying to do hands-free dialing out of my contacts. Several times when attempting to issue voice commands for a call, the system interpreted the command as a Pause command for the iPod instead. System frequently returns wrong guesses or "didn't understand" messages. Voice inputs to the navigation mode were unreliable, sometimes having to back up and retry 2-3 times to get the right city or street name. Having seen what voice recognition is capable of in other systems, I was profoundly disappoionted in the results from the Pioneer and would suggest that you find someone who has one that you can try out voice commands on before you invest in this system.
I find the user interface less than intuitive and overly complex when driving. If this were a home stereo unit where you could devote your entire attention to using it, it might be great, but not so when driving. Simple things like selecting a different FM preset require you to change screens to pull up a selection screen when a simple row of buttons across the bottom of the main screen would have made this a simple, one-step action.
The iPod shuffle selector on the iPod control screen does not appear to be able to select a shuffle of all songs in the iPod or a genre. I had to go to a separate setup screen to do this. Also annoying was the fact that when I plugged inmy iPod for the first time, it automatically switched sources and began building a song inventory. The iPod continued to play the first album on the iPod and could not be interrupted. I had to shut the power off to get back to testing other parts of the system without having to listen to an album I did not want to hear while it indexed.
I cannot comment on the MusicSphere function because I am not willing to invest the time into setting up something that may go away if I replace this unit, which I probably will unless Pioneer support produces some miracle to make the voice recognition work for me.
All I can say is maybe it will work great for you but try before you buy if you can! I'll probably be replacing this with another brand. -
"Be careful!!!" on by astrobill32
Pros: Decent navigation features. Slightly cheaper than the Kenwoods...
Cons: Voice-recognition calling & other features of the X920BT don't work unless one boots up in the map screen & hits "OK" before Bluetooth connects. Traffic & other features get shur down in Jan 2012.
Summary: The Pioneer AVIC units have tended to be plagued by pretty silly bugs that more thorough product testing would've caught before release. The AVIC X920BT is no exception. For example, The voice-recognition (VR) calling & other features of this unit (the X920BT) will NOT work properly unless one boots up in the map screen & hits "OK" before Bluetooth connects. Pioneer has claimed to the online community of AVIC enthusiasts that this is "by design," but it's pretty clearly a silly bug, given that the unit gives you no indication that you have to reboot or hit a special key sequence at start up for voice recognition calling or other features to work! More importantly, the CNET reviewer correctly points out that Traffic & other features on the Pioneer AVIC X920BT rely on Microsoft's MSN Direct service, which is shutting down in Jan 2012. Pioneer apparently has no plans for a replacement traffic accessory or add-on for this unit, not to mention the many others they've sold that rely on MSN Direct. Instead, they simply tell customers that their units will offer all features until Jan 2012. One would think that an FM Traffic Data System (TDS) accessory would be easy to design for this unit, but given Pioneer's record of inadequate support -- and delayed map updates -- for previous AVIC units, customers should be rightly nervous about purchasing this unit, given its planned obsolescence.
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"Flawed Product - Avoid like the plague" on by schatzidog
Pros: None that I've found
Cons: Terrible reception
Terrible user interface
Voice recognition DOES NOT WORK
Poor Pioneer customer supportSummary: I've had the dealer replace the unit 3 times. It simply just does not work. Voice recognition is about 10%. The iPhone I hook it up to works about 90% for us. THe user interface is terrible. Selecting a radio station is tedious, and having to choose between Navigation model and input mode is terrible - why not have the current radio station in the corner on the GPS view. Pioneer tech support has acknowledged to me that their whole line of voice command car hands free dialing is flawed, and they get a lot of complaints on this and many of the other models. I'm out $1200, I wouldn't pay $1 for this unit. But if you want a cheap one, you'll find mine on eBay!
Correction: the iPhone I hook it up to works only about 30% of the time for us. Sorry for the typo.
Updated on Aug 16, 2011 -
"I really want to like it, but it keeps disappointing me" on by sminnski
Pros: Audio and video sounds decent enough, reliable unit so far(9 months since installed)
Cons: GPS layout doesn't provide near enough detail compared to Mio digiwalker I also have.
Not nearly enough options for display. Difficult user interface, not intuitive. Cannot trust the directions the GPS gives! Simply gives wrong data too oftenSummary: I really want to like this thing, but it keeps disappointing me......iI would not buy this unit again, its lead me that last two out of two times to a wrong address, even though it displays the address i want. the gps provides less detail than the OEM unit in my 2004 Mini cooper, although this unit is only 9 months old. How about this, no type ahead feature? c'mon, is that so revolutionary in this age? No options for changing vehicle icons, downloading different voices, or displaying analog gauges for voltmeter, etc. this unit does interface a variety of devices well, the streaming bluetooth audio seems to work, the bluetooth phone interface seems to work, and the ipod interface too seems to work. Mute button is worthless unless you want to keep pressing it for 5 seconds, by that time you can just repeatedly hit the volume down button. Here's another example, when a phone call comes in over bluetooth, a notice appears with the ringer volume the third button from the left, once the call is answered, that button shifts and in its exact place the call hangup button appears! Dumb, i have so many times cancel a call inadvertantly while turning down the ring volume, which incidentally always reverts back to high and is way to loud. little things like this make for a poor product.
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"Nice unit but Bluetooth firmware has problems" on by xyzzydude
Pros: Nice nav interface, excellent iPod/Iphone and Pandora interface, many features, software flexibility
Cons: Bluetooth audio firmware has problems and requires a firmware update that isn't yet available, can't stream BT audio from Android phones.
Summary: If it's important to you, be sure to test the bluetooth audio streaming before committing to this unit. It does fine as a bluetooth phone headset but bluetooth audio streaming does not work with Android phones. The installer and I spent nearly an hour trying to to make it work with both my Evo and his Droid X before giving up and calling Pioneer tech support. Pioneer tech support says they are aware of the problem and are working on a firmware update to fix it, no estimated delivery date -- would have been nice to know that before installing!
However, if you have an iPhone it interfaces very well with the iPod cable, good controls for the iPhone and also has software to control Pandora from the unit.
Some people have complained that they don't like the Nav user interface, I find it fine. It's not bad, just different from what Garmin, Tom-Tom, etc use.
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