Installed my Pioneer Avic-F900BT
11-14-2008, 04:44 PM
#1
Installed my Pioneer Avic-F900BT
Just wanted to give you guys my take on the Pioneer Avic-F900BT unit.
I was hesitant to buy it because of some of the negative reviews to not so great reviews that some folks have given it. Basically, the biggest complaint is that it takes long to boot and the bluetooth is not accurate.
Firstly, I paid $740 for the unit which I thought was a pretty good deal. I bought this unit to replace my Pioneer Premier AVH-P6500DVD. I also bought the IPOD cable for it which ran me $50.
The install took about 2 hours simply because I was unsure of where to install the bluetooth mic and the navi antenna piece. I ended up running the mic and the IPOD cable into my cubby hole and I ran the nav antenna up the passenger side sill and laid it flat on the dash on the passenger side. Its not where I wanted it but I wasn't willing to cut any part of the dash to run the cable and I was still able to get it to look clean.
Now, to the good stuff. This unit is amazing.
The bluetooth is very clear and works with my horrible phone, LG Chocolate, which my Acura's have always had a bit of trouble with so I was pleasantly surprised..
The NAV, ditto, very accurate, and calculate faster than my TomTom.
The sound, I must say, i'm in love with. I thought my Premier 6500dvd unit was decent, but this really makes it look bad. I have it hooked up to my JL Audio stealth box which contains to 12" subs and JL components all the way around. These are powered by JL Slash series amps (i forget which). My JL's are hitting really crisp and tight, just the way I like it. Although it only has a 3band parametric eq built in, it still has plenty of customizable options. I am very picky about the sound in my car and this unit certainly did not dissapoint me.
An added bonus is that the unit is very clean looking, the screen is bright and I don't have to press hard on the screen at all to make it do what I want. It sits flush on the dash which my 6500 never did, so I really like that.
I upgraded the firmware to the 2.0 version as soon as the unit was installed. The upgrade including the bluetooth and TTS upgrade took about 11 minutes. Once that was complete, the boot time on the unit decreased drastically. I would say the unit is prob running within a minute. Music within about 15-25 seconds depending on the source. The only thing that take a bit of time is the IPOD VR indexing/Cataloging.
The only feature that I cannot take advantage of is the speed sensor for the nav. Reason being, I didn't connect the cable. Firstly, I'm never goign to use that, secondly, I didnt' want to tap into my tach wire to get that function to work.
One con of the unit is that since its a double din screen unit, it cannot be removed from the car. So it will always be there and available to prying eyes. In my case, it lives in the garage like 99% of the time, so I should be ok. I also don't take the car to bad neighborhoods or public malls or places where it may attract attention.
All, in all, I'm extremely pleased and would recommend this unit and best of all, it only cost me about $40 more than the non DVD version.
If anyone wants pics, I can post em up as soon as it stops raining and I can pull my car out for some shots. Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions.
Wil
I was hesitant to buy it because of some of the negative reviews to not so great reviews that some folks have given it. Basically, the biggest complaint is that it takes long to boot and the bluetooth is not accurate.
Firstly, I paid $740 for the unit which I thought was a pretty good deal. I bought this unit to replace my Pioneer Premier AVH-P6500DVD. I also bought the IPOD cable for it which ran me $50.
The install took about 2 hours simply because I was unsure of where to install the bluetooth mic and the navi antenna piece. I ended up running the mic and the IPOD cable into my cubby hole and I ran the nav antenna up the passenger side sill and laid it flat on the dash on the passenger side. Its not where I wanted it but I wasn't willing to cut any part of the dash to run the cable and I was still able to get it to look clean.
Now, to the good stuff. This unit is amazing.
The bluetooth is very clear and works with my horrible phone, LG Chocolate, which my Acura's have always had a bit of trouble with so I was pleasantly surprised..
The NAV, ditto, very accurate, and calculate faster than my TomTom.
The sound, I must say, i'm in love with. I thought my Premier 6500dvd unit was decent, but this really makes it look bad. I have it hooked up to my JL Audio stealth box which contains to 12" subs and JL components all the way around. These are powered by JL Slash series amps (i forget which). My JL's are hitting really crisp and tight, just the way I like it. Although it only has a 3band parametric eq built in, it still has plenty of customizable options. I am very picky about the sound in my car and this unit certainly did not dissapoint me.
An added bonus is that the unit is very clean looking, the screen is bright and I don't have to press hard on the screen at all to make it do what I want. It sits flush on the dash which my 6500 never did, so I really like that.
I upgraded the firmware to the 2.0 version as soon as the unit was installed. The upgrade including the bluetooth and TTS upgrade took about 11 minutes. Once that was complete, the boot time on the unit decreased drastically. I would say the unit is prob running within a minute. Music within about 15-25 seconds depending on the source. The only thing that take a bit of time is the IPOD VR indexing/Cataloging.
The only feature that I cannot take advantage of is the speed sensor for the nav. Reason being, I didn't connect the cable. Firstly, I'm never goign to use that, secondly, I didnt' want to tap into my tach wire to get that function to work.
One con of the unit is that since its a double din screen unit, it cannot be removed from the car. So it will always be there and available to prying eyes. In my case, it lives in the garage like 99% of the time, so I should be ok. I also don't take the car to bad neighborhoods or public malls or places where it may attract attention.
All, in all, I'm extremely pleased and would recommend this unit and best of all, it only cost me about $40 more than the non DVD version.
If anyone wants pics, I can post em up as soon as it stops raining and I can pull my car out for some shots. Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions.
Wil
11-14-2008, 10:51 PM
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Glad you like the 900. I had the Permier F90 and I was less than satisfied with it. The upgrade did help a lot but I just couldn't wrap my head around the slow speed and VR updates. I ended up selling mine and went for a single din deck in my Civic. For the Z however, I got the new JVC KW-NX7000 just today! Its freakin' rad.
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