Getting rid of Pioneer D3 for Alpine W205

[ML3504ME]

I have never used any other type of Navigation so don't really know how to compare it to any others.

 

lightsout,

 

That seems to be the pattern with folks on this board and others. If someone has never had Navi capabilities, the D3 is a godsend. However, most folks who are familiar with Navi's (ie. accuracy, avoidance, shortest vs fastest, rerouting, speed of calculation, etc) knows the Pioneer D3 falls way short of the competition.

 

I said it many times before and will say it once again, the D3 is an awesome unit if Navi is not a priority.

[shoman94]

One thing I do know...is that the D1 and D2 had better mapping..... Upgrading my D1 to the d3 mapping gave me the same mapping as the d3. They act exactly the same now....whereas before....D1/D2 was better at navigation.

[lightsout]

I have never used any other type of Navigation so don't really know how to compare it to any others.

 

lightsout,

 

That seems to be the pattern with folks on this board and others. If someone has never had Navi capabilities, the D3 is a godsend. However, most folks who are familiar with Navi's (ie. accuracy, avoidance, shortest vs fastest, rerouting, speed of calculation, etc) knows the Pioneer D3 falls way short of the competition.

 

I said it many times before and will say it once again, the D3 is an awesome unit if Navi is not a priority.

 

Well I do recall the installer who put in my D3, and apparently he is known to be one of the best in Ontario, telling me that Alpine has the best navigation systems. However, for me the price of the D3 was great and it had everything I was looking for. But if it were a situation where I needed to use the Navi allot, then I would invest more money into a better one.

[Sprawl]

I have never used any other type of Navigation so don't really know how to compare it to any others.

 

lightsout,

 

That seems to be the pattern with folks on this board and others. If someone has never had Navi capabilities, the D3 is a godsend. However, most folks who are familiar with Navi's (ie. accuracy, avoidance, shortest vs fastest, rerouting, speed of calculation, etc) knows the Pioneer D3 falls way short of the competition.

 

I said it many times before and will say it once again, the D3 is an awesome unit if Navi is not a priority.

 

I'm going to have to agree with this.

 

I LOVE the D3 and having the system all together in one beautifull package

 

But the navigation really sucks. LIke at points REally sucks. Navigation around Toronto with it, while gets me to the rigth location, isn't fast.

 

My old Navi unit was the Dell AXIM with NAvteq's software, and it was infinately times better featured. better route calculation, Faster route calculations, More views (2 3D and 2 2D), More details on screen (speed, distance, directions.

 

I think Pioneer needs to take a look at some other current Navi's to get an idea of what needs to be fixed.

[quickline23]

ive noticed mine takes u out and around the long way to get somewhere when u can just make a turn on a road and cut ur drive time down by 15 mins.

[Sprawl]

mine is a little to literal with "shortest distance" and "fastest route"

 

yes, in thoery taking downtown streets has the shortest KM's therefore quickest Time.

 

However going 5 min south to hit the free way cuts the route down by 1/2.

 

never once does it recommend this unless i'm basically on the highway already.

 

The software isn't good. I would highly recommend that Pioneer sticks to what it does best, Great hardware and leave the map programming to the mapping guys. Go to Navteq, Garmin or Tom Tom who make a living out of maping software

[WhiteBird00]

One thing I like about the Pioneer navigation is the text-to-speech capability. It is far better than my Garmin - the voice is clearer and the pronunciation is so much better it's like comparing a teacher to a redneck (no offense to rednecks ).

 

I have owned a Magellan, three Garmins, and now the Pioneer. Overall, I find the Pioneer isn't that bad. It has its faults but it also has some nice features. Its routing has been pretty bad sometimes but other times it has suggested better routes than my latest Garmin (2820). And you should see some of the ridiculous routes the Garmin has come up with on occasion.

[axxman]

I had the alpine w205 for 4 months and finally the blackbird 2 arrived in november. I sent the blackbird 2 back a week later, sold my alpine w205 and ordered a D3 and a tom tom go 920 portable.

 

Reasons I wanted the alpine setup:

I have a need for both portable and in dash. I travel a bit renting cars, so I needed a portable.

 

with an ipod, I like having the big screen, so the double din was a big draw.

 

imo, the blackbird was a bit overpriced when compared with other portables.

I paid 700, vs my tom tom 920.

as far as I could tell, alpine never released updated maps for the blackbird 1, and the blackbird 2 had no way to upgrade, when you connect it to your pc, it is just a memory card reader.

it was quite big and bulky for a portable, despite not offering better battery time compared to the tomtom.

as a portable unit, it was not worth 200 more than the tomtom, who updates their maps anually, plus there are vast support resources on the web for POIs map corrections etc.

 

for the W205, it was a disappointment from the start, if I had to do it all over again, I would have sent it back immediatly.

 

to start, the sound quality is not that good compared to my single din alpine I had before it. there isnt much adjustment, or equilizers either, that requires extra sound processors. If you want to hack it to enable making changes under way to the navigation, or to watch video, you have to buy a pac module. the pioneers has an easy hack.

 

ipod controls on the pioneer imo are better

xm is better on the pioneer, the xm icons actually display.

backgrounds and color schemes are easier to customize on the pioneer, even the color of the buttons.

the pioneer has a volume KNOB which I prefer.

the navigation is always with you.

the navigation is dvd based, pioneer seems to release new maps annually.

I know pioneer navigation has its issues, but most of the time I find it to be pretty accurate.

 

1 thing I liked better about the alpine was the dimmer was based on an ambient light sensor, which always kept it at a comfortable level, the pioneers needs to be hardwired into my car, I have yet to find the correct wire to tap into.

 

good luck with it, hope you have better results than I did.

[ML3504ME]

ipod controls on the pioneer imo are better

the navigation is always with you.

 

Axxman,

 

So far I have owned the Alpine W205 for about a week and can say without a doubt that I made the right choice by ditching the Pioneer AVIC D3. Despite the buzzing and humming from the speakers at low volume (this is an ongoing issue with the installers) I have enjoyed the unit.

 

What I did not like about the Pioneer AVIC D3.

 

1. I lost majority of the FM stations I once received using my factory system.

2. Although the navigation had some cool features, it completely sucked in the “routing†and operation department.

3. To fully utilize the Navigation, I had to leave the Nav disc in the slot.

4. The inability to “quickly†access songs via my 3,000+ IPod song selection. To hear Ziggy Marley I had to scroll through 3000+ songs to access the "Z's"

5. I could not get the Bluetooth to sync with my VX6800 Verizon phone.

 

 

Our reviews of the blackbird will be somewhat different because I never intended to use it as a portable device whereas you did hence why you compared it to another portable device, the Tom Tom. The blackbird works as expected when docked inside the W205 where it will stay.

 

I took a 16 hour road trip this past weekend so I became very familiar with the W205. I was only able to come up with a few quirks that I did not like.

 

1. The navigation routing is extremely accurate but the map graphics could be of higher detail.

2. Although the W205 has a cleaner sound than the D3, it lacks EQ and other audio controls that the D3 has.

3. My subwoofer did not seem to hit as hard as it once did with the D3 but this was remedied by turning up the gain on the amp.

 

Other than these three shortcomings, the W205 is a much more superior product. Now if only I could praise the shop who did the installs.

 

Axxxman I agree, there are more tweaks (ie. illumination color, backgrounds, EQ, etc) for the D3 than the W205.

[jaedee]

4. The inability to “quickly†access songs via my 3,000+ IPod song selection. To hear Ziggy Marley I had to scroll through 3000+ songs to access the "Z's"

You do know that you can scroll "up" with the D3, going from A back to Z with one button push?

[ML3504ME]

4. The inability to “quickly†access songs via my 3,000+ IPod song selection. To hear Ziggy Marley I had to scroll through 3000+ songs to access the "Z's"

You do know that you can scroll "up" with the D3, going from A back to Z with one button push?

 

 

Well that was a bad example so a better example would be searching for an artist with the first letter of "M". Up or down you still have to search through thousands and thousands of artist.

[axxman]

ML3504ME

 

Good luck, shame we both did not meet earlier, we could have just swapped all of our equipment with eachother since we both seem to be 180 degrees apart in our tastes. The BT function may be a verizon problem, if you search the forums it seems verizon blocks some of the verizon functions. I have a VX8550 which works fine with the hands free but the data functions such as moving the address book is blocked on all devices not just the avic d3.

 

Good luck finding an online support site as good as Avic411.com

 

cheers,

[mabbaticchio]

I agree that the D-3 does suffer from wacky routes and the best word I can use to describe it is 'stubborn'. It wants you to go the way it wants you to go. It will persistently try to make you go 'it's way' for miles even if you refuse to. I have learned to deal with it, but I must say, as far as the best GPS I ever had, it was TomTom by far. But truth be told, that one you have an in-dash unit, there is no going back to a suction cup on the windshield.

Maybe someday Pioneer will bless us with an awesome firmware update, but I am not holding my breath.

[ML3504ME]

Good luck finding an online support site as good as Avic411.com

 

cheers,

 

I couldn't agree with you more! This is an awesome site and why I still hang around here even though I am no longer a D3 owner is beyond me.