The big upgrade for Pioneers this year is full Maestro support, it's a very cool system and more and more vehicles are being added to support it via iData. I played with the JBL unit quite a bit at CES, and it is nice. It is aimed at the entry consumer market with a basic audio feature set (as shown at the show at least). Dual pre-outs, no SXM or HD Radio support. It is a nice clean GUI and fast for what it is. One feature dual phone families with like is it allows you to hot swap between Carplay and Android Auto - no need to toggle it in a menu. Pioneer has better support for that this year, but still requires a manual change, so better but not perfect
The JBL is as small a screen as you can go and still use AA as it's been explained to me. 6.5" is the cutoff, that is why you don't see it on more 6" models from Pioneer, Kenwood etc - those are usually 6.1 or 6.2" sizes.
The Pioneers are still a way more advanced unit audio wise, interface wise etc. And Kenwood is looking much much better this year too with their new GUI and screens.
Loosing mirror link is not a big deal in my market, support by phones was very poor and generally was more of a pain than a feature.. More the phone makers problem than Pioneer or anyone else IMO.
It's great to see more brands getting into the Carplay and interface market as that helps drive innovation and new features etc.
As for the capacitive touch screen - it's by far the coolest looking screen type IMO, but doesn't work with gloves well... I was very happy with the Pioneer Cap/Res screens we saw on the 4100-7100 last year and as far as I know they are the same this year for the NEX-X200 models.
New NEX units now 8200 instead of 8100.
in NEX Series
Posted
The big upgrade for Pioneers this year is full Maestro support, it's a very cool system and more and more vehicles are being added to support it via iData. I played with the JBL unit quite a bit at CES, and it is nice. It is aimed at the entry consumer market with a basic audio feature set (as shown at the show at least). Dual pre-outs, no SXM or HD Radio support. It is a nice clean GUI and fast for what it is. One feature dual phone families with like is it allows you to hot swap between Carplay and Android Auto - no need to toggle it in a menu. Pioneer has better support for that this year, but still requires a manual change, so better but not perfect
The JBL is as small a screen as you can go and still use AA as it's been explained to me. 6.5" is the cutoff, that is why you don't see it on more 6" models from Pioneer, Kenwood etc - those are usually 6.1 or 6.2" sizes.
The Pioneers are still a way more advanced unit audio wise, interface wise etc. And Kenwood is looking much much better this year too with their new GUI and screens.
Loosing mirror link is not a big deal in my market, support by phones was very poor and generally was more of a pain than a feature.. More the phone makers problem than Pioneer or anyone else IMO.
It's great to see more brands getting into the Carplay and interface market as that helps drive innovation and new features etc.
As for the capacitive touch screen - it's by far the coolest looking screen type IMO, but doesn't work with gloves well... I was very happy with the Pioneer Cap/Res screens we saw on the 4100-7100 last year and as far as I know they are the same this year for the NEX-X200 models.