F series is Totaly Awesome!

[Ravage]

My F90bt arrived on Thursday after being lost by my works mailroom!

 

THE INSTALL:

So I installed it in around 3 to 4 hours. I wanted to finish it all in daylight, but it was 8pm before I was done.

 

The only pain point really was stripping the speaker cable wire as I didn't have a wire stripper. So all that took an hour.

 

I have a Nissan Rogue and it was pretty straight forward install. I bought a wire worm to help feed the cables and I totally recommend getting one as if I didn't have that there was no way I would be able to run everything.

 

Getting the microphone cable behind the dials was a pain because I didn't want to take them out so was a little bit of work almost an hour to complete for one feckin cable. Running the GPS cable to the far left of the car and running the USB cable were nice an easy.

 

The cables are a bit of a mess, but not too bad. I had to hook up the HD radio also and an antenna splitter and stuff, so it added to the volume of crap behind the dash. The great thing is, that in the Rogue there is loads of space behind the old unit so there was no hassle putting it all in there.

 

One hitch was that I was getting really bad radio reception, but it turned out I had to wire a power cable to my antenna, I just finished that and went for a drive and it was all good.

 

THE UNIT:

What can I say, but what the hell is everyone complaining about?!

 

This unit it rocks. Ok so it is not the fastest to boot to FULL functionality, but you get audio in 5 seconds. That's not bad, not bad at all. I don't use an IPod before you all start having a go at me, I am using HD Radio. So after about 5 seconds I get my last station. At 10 to 15 seconds I can change station.

 

At just over a minute I can view the map. If you are starting a new route it does suck a little, but once it's up and running it is awesome.

 

The whole can only view north in 2D was probably going to be something that pissed me off, but the 3D view is so good why bother having 2D at all? So I use 2D when no route and then 3D with a route. The gives me a good north view so I can see my surroundings and then 3D for directions.

 

I thought the button beeping feedback would be annoying, but not so bad. I'll probably tweak the files and make them 50% quieter. I'm also going to tweak to remove the green directional boxes when not in use also.

 

The unit is pretty easy to use, it hooked up to my AT&T Blackjack II on first go and copied all my contacts over fine. Voice recognition is ok, but I don't care for it much anyway, still prefer to use the screen. Not because it's bad though, just because I prefer it.

 

Bluetooth sound quality is good, the other people can hear me perfectly also. So really happy with that.

 

I installed the Text to Speech TTS voice also and it is amazing. I was so pleased and while the non tts voices sound better (because it's a real voice) the TTS voice is good. It even gives you the street name, though can sometimes be a little strange. 124th st comes out as "One, Twenty Four, T, H, Street", but this doesn't happen all the time.

 

The HD radio is real nice. I don't care much for XM and Sirius. I've used both for extended times in rental cars and don't like it much. So HD Radio is awesome. At first before I powered the antenna it was horrible, the signal kept cutting in and out, but now it works like a dream. It starts off in FM and then blends into HD. All works pretty well. The only issue I have with the HD radio is that the 1-6 prefixes don't store the names or frequencies, but then it's not such a big deal, most standard stereos don't either right, they just have 6 buttons, so hopefully they fix this with the latest update due out soon.

 

The sound quality of the unit is so much better the the stock radio and the HD quality just makes it even better,

 

Summary:

Sure it's not 100% perfect, but it is 90% of the way there. It can be slow to start up to 100% and even when it says it's finished it is really still working away. After a couple minutes it's perfect. I've had no problems while using on the road. Now I'm not saying it's bug free or that they are all fine and that the people who hate them don't have a leg to stand on, but my bluetooth works, I don't use an IPod.

 

For me it's perfect. I'll take some pictures at the weekend. It looks like it is a factory fit and blends into the car real nice. I'm really pleased and makes for a fantastic addition to my car's lack of GPS.

 

I'd recommend this to anyone and for $500 for the f90bt and just over $300 for the f700bt you would be a fool not to go for it over the competition.

[norcalmike]

Glad to hear it. My F90BT should be here anytime. I have a Kenwood DNX5120 right now. And it takes about a minute to get to full functionality and get a gps connection. I dont think the F90BT will be any worse and the Pioneer just seems more customizable. I love modding and making it my own and I think I'll like it better.

[Yettavr6]

Consider yourself lucky. It takes my unit a good full minute until i can change stations or anything, and its very slow to respond even then. It take about 2-3 minutes until the unit responds normally.

[tacomaboy]

Yours must be defective (in a good way) because mine and many others here sucks.

 

I would say mine is about 30% perfect at the moment. I still hold out hope for the magical 2nd update new with fairy dust.

 

I wonder why they went from 1000+ to 500 bucks so very quickly (/sarcasm).

 

Wish I had waited.

[michaelgates]

sounds like he drunk the kool-aid.

[bitman]

Glad to hear it. My F90BT should be here anytime. I have a Kenwood DNX5120 right now. And it takes about a minute to get to full functionality and get a gps connection. I dont think the F90BT will be any worse and the Pioneer just seems more customizable. I love modding and making it my own and I think I'll like it better.

 

how can your kenwood take 1 minute to get in the navigation screen???

 

in about 20 sec i can start to search for an address and create the route in my wifes car who has the dnx5220 (eu version)... this will take more then a minute before i can even get to the address search menu with my 900

[WeApOn]

Thanks for the info! I may be buying one, and this is hyping me up for it. Glad to hear it's not as bad as some people make it out to be.

 

One question-- can you search for a POI by a category? Like if you want to find a place to eat, or go to the movies, or a gas station?

[theorangeman]

Thanks for the info! I may be buying one, and this is hyping me up for it. Glad to hear it's not as bad as some people make it out to be.

 

One question-- can you search for a POI by a category? Like if you want to find a place to eat, or go to the movies, or a gas station?

 

Yes

[WeApOn]

Thanks alot. And you can do this WITHOUT using MSN direct, right?

 

Edit:

 

Found this while comparing between the Z3 and F90BT:

 

POI Categories by Brand Included

POI Shortcut Keys Yes

 

That was for the Z3, while the F90BT had nothing, meaning not included. What exactly are these features? Categories by brand sounds like the question i was asking above.

[Ravage]

Thanks alot. And you can do this WITHOUT using MSN direct, right?

 

That's right. MSN Direct adds Movie Listings, Full Prices, Weather (though you could just look out the window) and Traffic reports.

 

 

I've not activated my MSN Direct yet because for some reason MSNDirect.com fails to recognise my unit number, so I need to call them to activate it.

[BorisM]

POI Categories by Brand Included

POI Shortcut Keys Yes

 

That was for the Z3, while the F90BT had nothing, meaning not included. What exactly are these features? Categories by brand sounds like the question i was asking above.

 

F-series does not have brand icons out of the box (takes about 5 minutes to add). You can search for categories or brands though. Stock skin does not have buttons for "nearest gas station" or such, but that can also be easily hacked if you need it...

[norcalmike]

Glad to hear it. My F90BT should be here anytime. I have a Kenwood DNX5120 right now. And it takes about a minute to get to full functionality and get a gps connection. I dont think the F90BT will be any worse and the Pioneer just seems more customizable. I love modding and making it my own and I think I'll like it better.

 

how can your kenwood take 1 minute to get in the navigation screen???

 

in about 20 sec i can start to search for an address and create the route in my wifes car who has the dnx5220 (eu version)... this will take more then a minute before i can even get to the address search menu with my 900

 

I didn't say it took a minute to get to the navigation screen. I said it takes a minute on average and sometimes two to get a gps signal. The Kenwood isn't perfect either is what I meant. And to me even after reading this forum I am sure I will like the AVIC better.

[Ravage]

So by the time the Pioneer unit is powered up and running it already has locked the signal. So maybe it's not so bad in that respect.

 

I guess the iPod stuff is not too great, but after this weekend of using HD Radio I am loving it. You know you get extra stations too! Really sweet stuff.