avic d3 vs. kenwood dnx7100

[GreenDrazi]

I’m going to buy the Kenwood DNX 7100 over the Pioneer Z2. The Kenwood is much more media friendly which is very important to me. It can play a DVD-R loaded with mp3's (who needs an iPod?). As a minimum, I’ll be adding an external HD filled with mp3's or I may even add a carpc to play lossless music files.

[zoomzoom]

I'm returning my D3 for either a DNX7100 or KVT819DVD. Not too sure yet if I should go for the double or single din.

 

My dilemma is:

 

DNX7100

-Navigation

-No external box

 

KVT819DVD

-Single din so less conspicuous

-Cheaper

-Can remove face plate to make it less attractive also

-Still can show time during DVD playback (dnx won't show while fullscreen afaik..and neither can the D3)

 

So basically its security (or less conspicuous) vs. Navigation.

 

Been racking my brain trying to figure this one out .

[dutnguye]

i finally decided on the dnx7100 because i found it for cheap and it just looks better than the d3. Will soon order bluetooth, has anyone use the kca bt 100 yet?

[scrupul0us]

i dont understand all the conspicuous talk about the D3... its just a screen people... if you are so paranoid about a double din navi system then cover it with a cloth when you park your car... and more so have it placed on your insurance

 

i wouldn't settle for a single DIN b/c i was afraid it would get jacked

 

as my fiance would say... cars are for driving... dont make it so nice that you cant drive it and enjoy it

[zoomzoom]

i dont understand all the conspicuous talk about the D3... its just a screen people... if you are so paranoid about a double din navi system then cover it with a cloth when you park your car... and more so have it placed on your insurance

 

i wouldn't settle for a single DIN b/c i was afraid it would get jacked

 

as my fiance would say... cars are for driving... dont make it so nice that you cant drive it and enjoy it

 

Been there and done that with the cloth..actually I used a towel. Being less conspicuous is just ONE reason why I returned my D3. The D3's file browsing system wasnt up to par compared to kenwood's. I've had a person ask me what I was covering with the towel and from there on out I knew it's more a magnet than a preventive measure to put a towel draped on my dash.

 

Anyway, I feel more comfortable walking away from my car with a single din unit than I would a double din in terms of security goes. If you don't have a problem with a double din, thats all you.

[savvyav]

I’m going to buy the Kenwood DNX 7100 over the Pioneer Z2. The Kenwood is much more media friendly which is very important to me. It can play a DVD-R loaded with mp3's (who needs an iPod?). As a minimum, I’ll be adding an external HD filled with mp3's or I may even add a carpc to play lossless music files.

 

I have had my N-1, well the day it came out. I can tell you the nav (pioneer as a whole, current run included) has it's draw backs! Nothing worse than missing a turn off and being re routed in circles (you tend to clue in on the 3rd left turn, or second u-turn you are promted to do!)

The DVDs over time just get beat up, which causes issues (not being read, taking longer to read, or if you plain forget to re set your area!) Lack of updates even in a major metro area Socal LA/OC makes even short trips painful, not to mention being 1k miles away looking for an address of a hotel (might as well bring a laptop with a GPS ant and topo map)

Last biggest issue as this is in an off road vehicle (have to leave N1 closed so it wont destroy itself...again 4th unit) Even going to the Z-1or2 with 2 din screen leaves not only no info of major roads (bread crumbs suck out in the boonies) but bouncing around and dirt kills the dvd playback. I guess the harddrive in the "Z" series would fail over time as well.

I have been looking to replace this for AWHILE, and after many re hashes, no real improvments, i'm thinking time to try a Kenwood (7100.)

 

All i'd add is a small car pc to run google earth for real time topo maps, music, video storage, tapped in via usb and composite in for video!

[ufd108]

I have a Z1 and am considering selling it to get the Kenwood. I purchased a navigation system primarily for navigation. I'm a sales engineer and have to find customers in areas I don't know. As far as I'm concerned the audio in either Pioneer or Kenwood are excellent, and certainly good enough for me. But having switched from Garmin portable GPS to the Pioneer I can't believe how bad the Pioneer navigation is. To me, after the basic routing algorithms, the most important navi function is detour routing. After years of using Garmins I could not believe that Pioneer wouldn't let you detour by road or by distance. In my Garmin when I got stuck behind an accident I could say "detour by 1/2 mile" or "don't take this particular road" but my $2000 Z1 won't do either of these. Besides the poor bluetooth implementation and embarrassingly bad iPod interface the navigation is just bad.

 

Anybody want to buy a used Z1? I would gladly sell mine to buy a Garmin-based Kenwood.

[brianl]

I just installed the Kenwood 7100 in my 02 Silverado, I have not had any of the other units, I purchased this for the nav because of the garmin software and being able to upgrade free with the sd card slot. I have used it a couple times and it works great just like my nuvi 350, but the 7100 has a few more options in routing.

[qtn2x]

A lot of people have written reviews on the Kenwood DNX7100 and have given many pros and cons. I'm surprised that no one has ever mentioned anything about the speed the unit lists mp3s files off of a DVD or CD media. I personally own this unit and love everything about the unit, except for one thing, which I think is a dumb design. Going through a list of songs on a CD/DVD media is very painful and slow especially when you have more than 50 songs in a folder. Keep in mind that I only filled up 1/5 the capacity of the DVD media. When you press "FOLD" to tell the unit to display a list of folders and songs, the unit would display the first 5 songs (songs 1-5) on the screen (which is perfectly fine), and if you want to see the next 5 songs (songs 6-10) you would have to press the scroll down (downward triangular shape) button, BUT here's the catch. Instead of displaying the next 5 songs instantly all at once (like all other units I've tested), it displays ONE by ONE and the lag time between each is about 0.2 to 1 sec. In other words, it would display song 6..lag..song 7...lag...8...9...10 etc. Imagine you have to go through a list of 100 songs or more, it could be frustrating. What frustrated me the most is that a big name like Kenwood would design a bad feature like this, a very frequently used feature to those who listens to mp3s off of a burned media. I know there're ways around of not having to use this feature, like breaking down the list of songs into folders, use ipods, or usb drive (list of songs is much faster, btw), but I still want to be able to quickly navigate through a list of songs on a burned media since this is what I use a lot, and I'm sure other people too. I had to make sure this is not a faulty unit therefore I called up Kenwood and crutchfield and they confirmed that this is the nature of the unit. I still didn't believe that because I still gave Kenwood the benefit of a doubt. So, I went to an electronic store called Audiotronics to test out the DNX7100 display unit they had there and only to find out that it did the same thing. I put the same mp3 disc into other displayed units (such as Alpine, Pioneer, even Jensen) at Audiotronics and I was able to navigate through the list of songs quicly and easily, and I was wondering to myself..why not Kenwood? I still love this unit as a whole, especially the navigation and usb read, therefore I'm going to keep it and will play most mp3s off of an ipod or a usb drive instead. I know I might be a little too picky and some people might find this to be normal, but to me being able to navigate through a list of songs on a media quickly is important, especially when u fill up the DVD+/-R with 4gb worth of mp3s.

 

I have no doubt that Kenwood can design it better, I'm sure it can do anything, I'm just trying to figure out as to why it was designed like that.

I'm hoping the reasons it's reading slow is due to:

1) it uses enhanced graphics/animation to display each song

2) it extracts all ID3 tags and other info of the song right then instead of only obtaining it when playing the song.

So, I'm hoping that I can turn off those 2 options somewhere to make it list the file names faster, but I haven't found the option yet.

 

If anyone who owns the unit can find a solution to this or find better way of burning the MP3s, please let us know.

 

~qtn2x

[archiea]

I was on the fence regarding this for a while. I heard consistantly good things about the kenwood's navigation while hearing consistantly mediocre things about the nav in the pioneer. The SD ememory was another plus regarding the DVD swap.

 

However...

 

Reviewing how I planned to use such a device, here's was my criteria:

 

1) I have no steering controls for the radio, so having a physical dial for the volume (as in the D3) vs molded buttons or touchscreen was a plus.

 

2) I was planning on using the ipod 99% of the time vs the CD, so the DVD swapping became moot, while the numberof points of interest became a benefit (the D3 has more)

 

3) the ipod connection on the Kenwood consists of a USB connection to the ipod AND an analog connection for the audio.... so the usb connection is just for control while the analog audio is for the sound. The D3 has a clean ipod cable and thats it, so probably also a cleaner sound.

 

4) Customizable UI on the D3 helps the unit look more stock. Also, the UI is a bit more cleaner... less bevels and grads on buttons. I swear, who set in stone that aftermarket car stereo units UI were supposed to look like Windows shareware MP3 software with tasteless skins!?!?! the current "style" on graphic design are flat fields of color.... the bevels and grads are so 1998...as in Windows '98.

 

5)The d3 was cheaper with similar if not same features overall.

 

6) navigation wise, its important that I know where I am on the map.. that takes priority over POI or much else. I have maps, i can see where i want to go.. but getting where my location is at present is the main requirement that I have. The kenwood is superior here.. it offers a more accurate GPS, along with easier controls, However, the D3 can still navigate... so I saw it as not being the best navigator, but a good one slong with an incredible value regarding the extrea features.

 

7) there were a whole log more reviews for the D3 as well as support out there.

 

I hope this helps.....

[qtn2x]

Does anyone know how to let DNX7100 display album art when playing mp3s from a USB flash drive? I used both windows media and Tag&Rename to edit ID3 tags with embedded album art but it still says "no photo" when playing the mp3 file. If you have the unit and got it to display please let me know.

 

Thanks,

 

qtn2x

[FF2MOE]

I have been a long time GPS/nav user. I have also been a long time Garmin owner and I bought a pretty big chunk of their stock a few years ago. I currently have a bunch of Garmin handhelds and StreetPilots and 2 Nuvis (360 and 660). It would appear that I will likely be biased in favor of Garmin from the outset but quite honestly they need to work on their user interface (UI). It sucks! So when Kenwood touts that they use Garmin I just cringe even though it will help my investment.

 

Garmin really needs to update their interface. They have dumbed down the UI so that you can’t do much of anything in an intuitive way. The company that smokes Garmin in UI is definitely TomTom. You can customize so many different areas but Garmin forces you to use what they provide you even if it sucks!

 

I have ordered a D3 and hope it will be decent. Some of the things I probably won’t like about is why doesn’t it (and Garmin) use the option of just inputting my zip code to start my address search? From looking at the manuals for both, there is NO OPTION for using a QWERTY style keyboard. The ABCDE style keyboard is so lame and if anyone is even a SLOW typist they can input an address more quickly.

 

 

Actually the DNX7100 DOES give you an option for regular keyboard or QWERTY keyboard

 

 

Garmin also does a crappy job with detours. TomTom gives you an option of how far you want to detour such as a few hundred yards, a mile or so or maybe even 3 miles. Garmin just really needs to wake up and get with the program.

 

The DNX7100 does give you options for distance to detours.

 

 

Now something I haven’t seen documented for either the Kenwood with Garmin nav or the Pioneer is the option for custom POIs. If it were to be an option, Kenwood would make it easier to input them using the memory card interface rather than burn a CD each time.

 

SD CARD is how you input custom POI for the DNX7100

 

On my TomToms it is very easy to setup custom POIs and then add them to my devices. I subscribe to services that give me the location of all red-light cameras, speed traps, etc.

 

I had the site(s) but I lost them, can you PM or post the sites forums...I need to add some POI's, Cameras, etc...to my DNX7100

 

 

This is one area where the in-dash nav companies really need to step it up. They are way behind the portable navs in this area. So while I seriously considered the Kenwood I decided to pass based on my past frustration with idiotic things Garmin does with respect to the UI. I could tolerate it on an ultra-portable unit but day in and out it would drive me crazy. The nav in my Acura is better to use most of the time than my Nuvi even though it is 2 years older than my Nuvi.

 

I could go on and on about my gripe with the Garmin interface but what is the point? If you are a rank beginner, it is like having training wheels you can't ever remove and later they get in the way. TomTom gives you the option of the stupid NOOB interface or the more advanced I want to do it all interface. Garmin doesn't think enough of you to let you make your own choices.

 

Ultimately it was the Crutchfield deal that had me dive in. The free camera and discount coupon meant I bought a full featured in dash system for less than I paid for my Nuvi 360 when it came out with a set of European maps.

 

I don’t care if I may have to swap DVDs on occasion. I’ll use the video source an input from a Zune or iPod rather than play a DVD. I have a lot of foreign movies that the lame DVD player wouldn’t read anyway since they aren’t zone 1 and I haven’t heard of a hack to make most of these region free anyway.

 

 

Added my personal experience with MY DNX7100 to your post above....