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Folks I hate to say this but Pioneer cares about selling... like I said before start complaining to the Attorney Generals in your states if enough people do then Pioneer will have to change the standards of releasing. We were all hyped up about this release, but like I said sounds like to me they have no R&D group to test and research these issues. I have found calling them does nothing. Sorry but looks like we have been had again.

 

Or we could just stop buying. Why is everyones 1st reaction to sue?

 

And I think you are complaining about the lack of QA, not R&D. R&D are the propeller heads that come up with this stuff in the first place :D

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I have a f900bt installed it 3 days ago and so far it has locked up in the middle of a phone call, the unit is slow to boot up and in navigation, there is no volume control for the touch beep and if i turn it off it still beeps. The tts voice does not recognize 90% of what I say and the voice i hear has the same distortion in it and no it is not a ground loop problem. Ive been an installer for 15 years and the noise is in the unit. The touch screen is not responsive even after several calibrations I still end up hitting the buttons a couple times before it sees it. The screen is to small and the buttons on the navigation screen are hard to press while driving at interstate speeds. I have a ipod nano and I like the way it presents the information and controls on the screen I just dont like having to unplug the ipod and reconnecting it when the unit says it has lost communication with ipod, usually every 3-4 times the unit boots up. I like the MSN direct feature that is nice to have when looking for cheaper gas prices. The volume knob is hard to adjust almost to stiff, Im used to reaching over with one finger and spinning it on my Nseries I had before. I know its new and I hope Pioneer has firmware update available to fix alot of the bugs in it, I would think twice before jumping right into buying this first version. Im sure just like the z series and d's and n's well see an F900 or 901 or 902 or god knows what version is next.

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I sent this list to my dealer and he in turn posted it on internal tech sites and emailed it to his Pioneer rep this morning. Thought I would share it with you guys seeing as how you are the ONLY forum who actually share my pain.

 

PROS AND CONS FOR AVIC F900BT

 

PROS:

 

PHONEBOOK TRANSFER: Very fast and extremely convenient for importing of phone contacts.

 

CUSTOMIZABLE SPLASH SCREEN: Very cool to add your images via SD or USB for the splash screen, Would be much improved if the unit offered a resizing photo option as there is a specific size your photo needs to be for it to be optimized by the unit.

 

ILLUMINI COLOR: A very cool option that allows you to customize the color of the illuminated buttons on the nav control deck.

 

BLUETOOTH VOICE RECOGNITION (Calls): The unit is able to recognize most contacts and dial them with efficiency and accuracy.

 

3D MAP DISPLAY: The ability to switch between a 2D and 3D map environment is really helpful for navigating terrain and metropolitan areas.

 

IPOD CONTROL: In a virtual clone of the ipod interface, the ability to control most functions of your ipod from the unit screen is very positive.

 

 

 

 

CONS:

 

PHONEBOOK TRANSFER AND IPOD LISTING: The unit seems to alphabetize everything. The ipod interface is all alphabetized which ruins the original track listing of albums and podcasts. The same goes for the phonebook transfer option. No matter how you have your Contacts displayed on your phone, the unit insists on listing last name first.

 

NO VOICE MUTING DURING NAVIGATION: Earlier AVIC units offered an option that allowed you to either mute the AV source, fade the AV source or simply play over the AV source during navigation routes. This time around, your AV source be it ipod, fm radio, or CD is cut off completely during navigation. Extremely annoying for your average motorist.

 

LOADUP SCREEN: The unit take approximately 2-3 minutes for full startup upon ignition of the vehicle. This is completely unacceptable. Past unit bootups were anywhere from 25 seconds to a minute. My dealer brought up an excellent point. Anyone with a rear mounted camera has to wait the full 3 minutes for their camera to be accessible so they can back out of their parking space. This pretty much renders a camera pointless.

 

MALFUNCTIONING KEY TONE MUTE: The unit gives you the option to turn off the beep when you press a key. However, it only works sparingly. Most buttons and interfaces will still beep even if you have the mute feature on.

 

MSN DIRECT: This seems like a cool feature, but it only works for approximate regions. For instance it gives you the option for Los Angeles, but anything in the surrounding region such as Pomona, Orange County, or the Inland Empire is inaccessible. More often than not MSN DIRECT displays (No Data Found for Your Area)

 

PHONE CALL DISPLAY SCREEN: During a phone call, a black rectangular screen appears that tracks your call progress. This is fine and all, but the screen is obtrusive and freezes the entire unit. It reverts to the map screen in the background and no other feature is available to you while the call is in progress. Also any number it does not recognize from your contacts lists it as UNKNOWN, it would be nice if it just displayed the number dialed. The manual acknowledges this as if it's normal and we shouldn't expect to be multitasking.

 

LACK OF VOICE CONTROL FOR NAVIGATION: This was extremely puzzling to me. You can control Bluetooth phone and ipod with voice but you can't control navigation. It's the primary function of the unit and was deprived of this feature making it inconvenient and dangerous to access your touchscreen while mobile or having to park and reroute.

 

 

 

FREEZES AND NAVIGATION DISPLAYS: The unit will constantly freeze and then catch up a few seconds later. Also switching between 2D display and 3D display is hit and miss. The button is not very responsive. Occassionally while you track along with your arrow, the map will stop but the arrow will proceed right off the screen, only to catch up a few seconds later. Sometimes it does not catch up at all and the route has to be cancelled and then input again. This seems to have been temporarily solved after fiddling with display settings.

 

OVERALL SLUGGISHNESS: The entire interface is very slow and plodding. Sometimes when you press a button for a feature you will hear a beep but the menu won't turn over until about 10 seconds later. Switching between modes and menus is also very slow and non responsive.

 

VIDEO PLAYBACK ON IPOD: Any video no matter how big or small on the ipod takes a minumum of 6 minutes to boot up and play. I have tested this option thoroughly and it is the same between a 3 minute video and a 2 hour movie. Also the title screen and artist screen always displays UNKNOWN.

 

IPOD STARTUP AND REBOOTING: Very hit and miss here. Sometimes after starting the car again, the ipod will snap right to life and play where it left off, but more often that not, it requires you disconnect and reconnect the cable before the PIONEER logo appears on the ipod screen and you are ready to go.

 

TURN BY TURN DIRECTIONS: This might be a personal preference but this unit seems to update you every 5 seconds on your route about where to turn, what lane to stay in, and where to enter/exit a freeway. I know that is the goal to guide you, but it feels like the thing is chattering to you the entire route and that is extremely annoying.

 

IPOD USAGE WARNING SCREEN AND REBOOTING: Upon booting up your ipod, a screen appears that says IPOD USE MAY BE LIMITED AT THIS TIME. This screen does not vanish for approximately 8 minutes and then it displays something about the Voice Recognition Data either loading correctly or incorrectly. This is horribly confusing and halts most operation.

 

BLUETOOTH CALL QUALITY: I have made about 15 calls with my Handsfree unit and only 3 of those calls were coherent and clear. Other call complaints were: Soft voice, wind tunnel sound while in motion, choppy and erratic reception, distortion, etc. The entire point of Bluetooth is for premiere handsfree technology. When a thousand dollar unit cannot duplicate the call quality of a hundred dollar earpiece, then something is very wrong. It was a real laugh/cry moment when I got through to Pioneer Tech Support (after 20 minutes) and the tech said "I can barely hear you, your voice is garbled and erratic." And I screamed back "I'M TALKING TO YOU ON A PIONEER UNIT YOU HAPLESS TECHNO WEENIE!" That happens when I pay 1200 bucks for a brick with pretty colors.

 

GENERAL MAP DISPLAYS: When the map is on and you have no route plotted, Two green boxes remain on the display. A long green rectangular one on the top and a large green square in the top left where the turn by turn icon usually is. When I am simply viewing the map with no route plotted, I want these boxes gone and there is no way to do this.

 

NO OPERATIONS MANUAL SHIPPED: As I understand it this unit went out with no operation manual included, leaving the consumer to download and print it. The manual is a total of 192 pages and is an immense burden to have to print out. Calls to Pioneer revealed that you could purchase a manual for $19.29 and wait the 4-6 weeks backorder. Unacceptable.

 

 

I understand that this is an unofficial beta test of the unit, but I also understand that this product was rushed out to market. It feels unfinished,untested and with a complete lack of user satisfaction. After visiting several public forums I have found these problems are shared by all users of the F900BT not some, ALL. We are all desperately awaiting Pioneer to issue a solution expediently.

 

 

Mat

 

:twisted::twisted::evil::evil::x:x:?:(:(

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Model: F90BT

Devices Connected: HD Radio, Sirius, PAC-Audio SWI/CAN

AV Source (if playing) during issue: iPod

Action that caused the issue (pressed button, search, etc): Plugging in the iPod

Was GPS routing? (yes/no) no

Was BlueTooth active? If yes, what device? yes, iPhone

Anything else you would like to add:

 

My iPod worked fine with the F90BT yesterday, fully loaded up the catalog for VR, etc. Now whenever my iPod is plugged in the F90BT goes in to endless reboot ... I never get to the home screen unless the iPod is out.

 

[edit] I seemed to have remedied this issue (at least this time) by resetting the head unit and taking the ipod back to iTunes to resynchronize it. [/edit]

 

A couple of side notes ... the PAC-Audio steering wheel interface programmed successfully for my '02 Audi A6. I can volume up/down and track up/down, but the F90BT won't listen to the preset up/down for the radio, sirius, or iPod. The PAC sees it just fine, but it's like the F90BT is ignoring those signals. Is anyone else getting steering wheel controls to work on preset up/down?

 

I've got the HD Radio module, when my antenna is plugged in to the module I get noisy analog stations and mediocre reception for HD. When my antenna is plugged directly into the head unit I get great analog station reception (but of course no HD). Advice?

 

I signed up for MSN Direct earlier today. The F90BT shows it's active and full signal strength, at least half the time i look at it (where's the antenna for this by the way?), however I don't seem to be getting any info, like gas, movies, weather (even worldwide), etc.... At other times, in the same spot on my driveway I get zero signal strength ... which leads me back to the question of where exactly is this antenna ... is it getting the signal from my FM antenna? What if I'm using HD Radio? Does it have a receiver built into the GPS?

 

Anyone else experiencing this crap?

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the illumination doesn't switch automatically at all on my 90BT. it will even boot up night mode after i push the reset switch. + power on and off with the headlights. Z1-f90 same wiring and it doesn't work with the F90.

 

My '02 Audi doesn't even seem to feed me an illumination/dimmer wire anymore ... it did in my '01 A4, but they moved to CAN-BUS for this one, and no one's making adapters to get VSS or illumination off the CAN-BUS.

 

Stupid computers.

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I've got the HD Radio module, when my antenna is plugged in to the module I get noisy analog stations and mediocre reception for HD. When my antenna is plugged directly into the head unit I get great analog station reception (but of course no HD). Advice?

 

http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Product/ ... =12040UV44

 

MSN disrect receiver is in the head unit. it feeds off of the car antenna.

If you hook the antenna up to the HD rec. the MSN direct antenna gets virtually no signal.

 

Split your antenna to HD and head unit. Problem solved.

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I placed my order with Al-Eds retail store, and after seeing all these issues, I am debating on getting my money back(not sure if I can, I paid in cash) and waiting for the Azentek CPC-1000. If you don't know what it is, I will just tell you it is the end all be all of headunits, and google the name for proof. They estimate a release in august of 2008 so you might as well wait. If the al-eds guy sees this post could you please tell me if there is any way I can get my money back? To everyone else out there wait for the Azentek, you may not of heard of them yet, but they will be everywhere after August.

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I placed my order with Al-Eds retail store, and after seeing all these issues, I am debating on getting my money back(not sure if I can, I paid in cash) and waiting for the Azentek CPC-1000. If you don't know what it is, I will just tell you it is the end all be all of headunits, and google the name for proof. They estimate a release in august of 2008 so you might as well wait. If the al-eds guy sees this post could you please tell me if there is any way I can get my money back? To everyone else out there wait for the Azentek, you may not of heard of them yet, but they will be everywhere after August.

You do realize that the MSRP on the Azentek is almost 2.5 times the MSRP of the highest tier F-series, right? You can't really make a comparison between the two. Most people on the market and looking to buy an F series unit aren't looking to spend that much.

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Model: F90BT

Devices Connected: HD Radio, Sirius, PAC-Audio SWI/CAN

AV Source (if playing) during issue: iPod

Action that caused the issue (pressed button, search, etc): Plugging in the iPod

Was GPS routing? (yes/no) no

Was BlueTooth active? If yes, what device? yes, iPhone

Anything else you would like to add:

 

My iPod worked fine with the F90BT yesterday, fully loaded up the catalog for VR, etc. Now whenever my iPod is plugged in the F90BT goes in to endless reboot ... I never get to the home screen unless the iPod is out.

 

[edit] I seemed to have remedied this issue (at least this time) by resetting the head unit and taking the ipod back to iTunes to resynchronize it. [/edit]

 

A couple of side notes ... the PAC-Audio steering wheel interface programmed successfully for my '02 Audi A6. I can volume up/down and track up/down, but the F90BT won't listen to the preset up/down for the radio, sirius, or iPod. The PAC sees it just fine, but it's like the F90BT is ignoring those signals. Is anyone else getting steering wheel controls to work on preset up/down?

 

I've got the HD Radio module, when my antenna is plugged in to the module I get noisy analog stations and mediocre reception for HD. When my antenna is plugged directly into the head unit I get great analog station reception (but of course no HD). Advice?

 

I signed up for MSN Direct earlier today. The F90BT shows it's active and full signal strength, at least half the time i look at it (where's the antenna for this by the way?), however I don't seem to be getting any info, like gas, movies, weather (even worldwide), etc.... At other times, in the same spot on my driveway I get zero signal strength ... which leads me back to the question of where exactly is this antenna ... is it getting the signal from my FM antenna? What if I'm using HD Radio? Does it have a receiver built into the GPS?

 

Anyone else experiencing this crap?

 

I have the same issue with th presets , WTF

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Best price for the Avic-F90BT is $984.00 from Al-Eds.com. Best price for Azentek Atlas CPC-1000 $2300.00 http://www.rvsupplywarehouse.com/produc ... m/pid/3957. Comes to 2.34 times the price. Look at what you get, I don't need to list the features of the Avic, because you already should know them all, if you don't they are listed on Pioneer's web site. All the problems with the unit are listed in this forum. And from what I can tell, they won't be fixed until the next gen Avic units, just like the D series, the F series will never be done correctly. Now let's talk about Azentek: starting with the features, let's see, 3sec boot time for the built in bios audio, and maximum wait time on vista boot up is 3 min. Once vista is up the possibilities are limitless. As for future software support, look at any windows operating system support. Let's just agree that the features are limitless. So you can have an avic for approx 42% of the price of an Azentek, with less than 1% of the features and benefits of the Azentek. I would say it is worth the price, because you will never have the urge to buy anything else. Look at all these people that buy the Z D and N series Avic units and are upgrading/downgrading to the F series, and will probably upgrade to another unit in the future. Nothing can beat the Azentek, if you have to save your money for a month to a year, then do it, because what you are buying is hardware, and basic software that is quite advanced. I'll stop ranting, and let you do the research and make your own decision, when you do, there is nothing else out there that will satisfy your needs like the Azentek will

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