avic d3 vs. kenwood dnx7100

[whtcrxghst]

Album covers are pretty cool. Looks like its easier to access your playlists, artist, genre, ect. from the D3 as the buttons for each are on the screen though

[powa]

i think HD wouldn't be an obvious advantage to Kenwood. Come on, a 7" screen, how many pixels is the unit going to output on a 7"? a DVD movie is already sufficent, and ur not staring at the thing for ur enjoyment in ur car while u drive or park. U do those at home. the Car multimedia function is for those who going for long trip, have passengers and have them watch something while taking the long trip. HD or not, it's not big of a difference at all IMO

[bobby121687]

powa

 

for me a 7 inch screen is more the .9inches more than the d3... i personally love the D3 i jus want text to speech and for it to look like its supposed to be there

 

this is why the z1 and dnx7100 and even the new eclipse units (5100 and 6100) all are going with a 7 inch screen and buttons on the bottom...

 

to me this is a big difference

[powa]

for those that comparing D3 and this DNX7100 unit, price difference is almost like 700 bucks, how can you compare them? consider D3 is less than half the price to kenwood unit with that many functions.

[silkjones]

for those that comparing D3 and this DNX7100 unit, price difference is almost like 700 bucks, how can you compare them? consider D3 is less than half the price to kenwood unit with that many functions.

 

You make a good point with the MSRP difference on these units. The only reason I even compared them is because I caught a kenwood unit for $1199 so I decided to kick out the extra $250...for the differences in the unit, I think it'll be worth the $250. If I did not find the deal and it was the $700 difference, it would be the D3 without a doubt.

[djczar]

Damn I was completely in the dark about the Kenwood dnx7100.. I might've jumped the gun with the D3 a bit too early. Not being able to navigate through the iPod videos on the unit is a real bummer. I wanted HD radio too..

[Nosifer]

is the 7100 a bypassable unit? There doesn't seem to be much public buzz on it out there yet...

[cntrylvr79]

If it's anything like any of the other kenwood systems, just grounding the parking brake should bypass.

[DrPhantum]

I got a PM suggesting I get a 7100, and I didn't know anything about it before. I went to Kenwood's site, and if they want to sell a lot of them... they definitely don't show it with their site. All they have is some ghey picture of a sunset on the unit, and that's pretty much it. No pics of the menus or audio playback... nothing you would ACTUALLY see on the screen. This is really bad for their business. I threw out the idea cuz I figured I wasn't going to buy anything that I didn't know what it looked like... especially the GPS setup.

 

Now... I see some pictures of the unit, and I hear it uses Garmin NAV... and I'm curious. I checked out the pictures, and the iPod thing looks *pretty* good... I wouldn't go to AWESOME, though. But, then I look at the GPS pictures, and they seem to be REALLY simplistic. Like, to the point that it's bad. I don't mean "simple to use" I mean "empty and devoid of all the useful stuff Pioneer has." I know Garmin is all like "yay... we're #1 in the industry," but having what looks like a map in crayon on a 7" screen and being used to my AVIC-N2, the look of the GPS on this kenwood left something to be desired. In Kenwood/Garmin's defense, I've never had a Garmin, so I checked w/ a buddy that owns two, and he said that the Kenwood looks just like his two garmins... and he loves both his garmins. Maybe I just have bad taste... or maybe my buddy doesn't know a good product cuz he's never seen anything other than his two Garmins... The world may never know.

 

 

Anyway... On with my long post:

 

Two separate people said that a) this new kenwood uses flash (like camera cards) memory, and it only has 1/2 the number of POIs as the Pioneer. These two comments can be intermingled... If it uses flash memory, and I can load in REALLY detailed maps of my local area (with phone numbers), I'll take 6million POIs within 200 miles of my house over 12 million POIs across the whole nation any day. Also, there are a lot of areas around where I live that are new developments that were empty fields a year ago. When I'm at a new mall around here... my GPS shows me driving around in the middle of a field... so forget about trying to get there from somewhere else using a POI or address search. If I could download new maps onto an SD card (I'd buy a 4GB card if I had to) and be SURE that I could get ANYWHERE, I think it'd be a HUGE improvement over the NAV disks that Pioneer has... and Pioneer's disks are EXPENSIVE to upgrade/replace.

 

Tell me what you guys think...

[Taz]

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.

 

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.

 

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. 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.

 

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.

[mrebean]

update this thread once you have spent a little time w/ the d3 and comapre the navigation to the garmin's. i am interested to get your opinion since you seem like a seasoned navigation user.

[Guest]

Interesting reading....I'll say one thing about TomTom.....if you've ever tried to deal w/their tech support, I'd rather watch grass grow than go through that process again. I bought my sister a TomTom Go 700, with a cell phone that they recommended....she still can't get the bluetooth to work, and they are virtually unreachable for help.

[DrPhantum]

On the note of custom POIs, that IS something that Pioneer can do. At least if I understand what you mean by custom POI.

 

I have an AVIC-N2, and this is what I WAS and WAS NOT able to do:

 

A new mall opened near me, and it used to be just empty space along the highway. The first time I went there, I WAS able to sit in the parking lot, and assign MY EXACT LOCATION as a POI that I could guided to from anywhere, as if it was my HOME location...

 

I WAS NOT able to update the roads that lead to the mall, so while I knew from my "breadcrumbs" (the little white dots that follow my car on the overhead map) where the road was, there was just a star in the middle of emptiness right off of the highway. Getting guided there was simple... getting there was hard. I might as well have parked my car on the moon, set the POI, and then came back... My nav had no idea what roads to take, and undoubtedly, every time I try to get there, my NAV makes a trip for me, but I never get there. It'll say "you have arrived at your destination," and I'll be on a back road somewhere nearby, and I can SEE the mall... but cannot see the roads I'm supposed to take to get there.

 

 

Anyway... A long story longer... I think that Taz hit the nail square on the head when he said that portable units are ahead of in-dash. I think a HUGE selling point for any in-dash NAV would be the ability to download maps or POIs, and burn your own disk. Kenwood has it started if you can put maps on a SD card. And if you CAN'T update your maps (I don't know the facts), then it's a total waste having the crappy UI and having no upgradability. It's possible that the sole reason that garmin's look so plain is so that they are easily upgraded. ...?

 

Personally, I've never seen the point in the only choice for the user is two double-layer DVDs for navigation. Why not download an .iso file with maps of your local area on it, and burn it to DVD? I don't leave my state... but I get lost in it a lot. Even if the manufacturer didn't like the idea of people burning their own dvd maps... the SD thing is still a good idea. The problem is that SD cards are way more expensive/GB, but they're reusable. I

 

I don't know... I feel like I'm talking in circles. Tell me what you guys think.

 

D3 w/ a better interface, or Kenwood w/ Garmin & updatability?

[kn12369]

yes, i'm consider getting the kenwood also, bigger screen, full control on the video Ipod. I'm getting it for 1200 end of the month.. anyone need it let me know. You can email @ kn12369@yahoo.com

[Taz]

Interesting reading....I'll say one thing about TomTom.....if you've ever tried to deal w/their tech support, I'd rather watch grass grow than go through that process again. I bought my sister a TomTom Go 700, with a cell phone that they recommended....she still can't get the bluetooth to work, and they are virtually unreachable for help.

 

TomTom (TT) tech support does suck. Garmins has continually fallen as well. This isn't to excuse TT's but in Europe it is better than here. Difference is I have never really needed TT's tech support whereas I have had 2 Nuvis turn into electronic bricks. DO NOT use the online updated IF you have a Garmin Nuvi. If something affects your update the Garmin will likely not recover. After the first one I learned my lesson. I then backed up my Nuvi to my PC before doing the update. I then downloaded all the files locally to my PC. When the update failed I was able to recover from my PC hard drive since I could still see the Nuvi as a HD on my PC.

 

Something TT has that works quite well is POI alert. This is where the nav unit will alert you with a special tone of any POIs you've set up in advance to be alerted too. For example I have setup all the red light cameras in my area to have an alert when I get within 250 yards or so of them. When I travel in Europe I have it setup to warn me of all the photo radar systems.

 

Ideally what I'd like to see is BT integration with my phone to a real-time database that could update my nav unit as frequently as I deemed necessary. Other users could then put in a speed trap they saw that day into a real-time database and I could download it to my nav unit.

 

The way TT handles custom POIs is I can define them on my computer and then download them all to my TT including a graphic image that I want displayed with them. I can also share them with anyone else I want. I have little images depicting redlight cameras and speed traps with various speeds on them. I can then sort and organize to my heart's content on how I want them displayed. By default TT REMEMBERS the categories I use most and puts them at the top of my list. It dynamically re-arranges them as I use them. I don't have to scroll past 10 other categories to get to the ones I want to use the most just because they may start with the letter "S" or some stupid way Garmin organized them.

 

I can have a huge number of custom POI categories and a huge number of POIs within each category. For example when I travel in Europe, I have a POI category just setup for cheap fuel places and one for ATMs that don't shaft me on ATM fees. In the US I have POIs setup for all the Acura, Toyota, BMW, etc. dealers listed under each name of manufacturer. I do that with motorcycle dealers as well. I have a custom POI category for just my customers as well. Think of it as a custom folder structure on a PC that I can organize as I wish.

 

The Garmins do no bread crumbs from what I've seen on the car navs or the Nuvis. My Acura Nav (apparently an Alpine) does and so do the TT's I have.

 

While I am not a huge fan of DVDs, at least with 2 full DVDs there should be a lot of data for the D3. A good POI database is essential to me. I haven't seen the file structure on the Pioneer yet but it might be possible to hack it and maybe update POIs but I don't know and I am not familiar enough with it to see. All they are, are just little database tables. If they aren't encrypted it shouldn't be too hard to decipher. Maybe someone has already done this. If so then it might be possible to make your POI categories and then update the disc image. This is all speculation on my part at this point. If someone has any info to this effect please direct me there.

 

As it is now I update the POIs on my TT frequently because it is quick and easy and not so often on my Garmin as it is more of a PITA. Maybe you like to golf, it is a simple matter to setup a custom POI category of golf courses and then share the info with your friends if you have a TT. You can email the POIs files and images quite easily and then add them to your TT. If you do Garmin's POI loader, it tends to wipe out what you already had when it over writes everything so you better keep whatever you loaded. On the TT you can see it as a drive and then drag and drop or use something like POI editor (great program) that will automatically keep your POIs updated with any services you might use.

 

So with the limited amount of POIs and no real easy way to update them it appears, the D3 is a better choice for me than the Kenwood. I don't need HD radio either so no big plus there. There is almost no info on Kenwood's site and if you download their flyer there is nothing about the 7100. If nothing else the introduction of the D3 is going to put downward price pressure on all the other nav units because I haven't seen another unit that offer the bang for the buck the D3 does especially at this price point. I had considered the more expensive Pioneers but they don't really offer any more than what I will really use on the D3. I can live with feeding the DVDs for the nav system and use an external DiVX source for my vids. If the interface is better than the Garmin's then it will be a great option for me. If not CF has a 30 day money back policy. Almost no risk here to give it a try.

 

If the unit is a POS, I'll glady report my findings. I've used nav systems for way too long it seems so I tend to be intolerant of glaring screw-ups by the companies that make them.