After owning my D3 for less than three weeks, I have finally decided to dump it in favor of the Alpine W205 with blackbird Nav. The D3 is a decent unit in many areas but the area I needed it to be great in which is Navigation, it failed miserably. I will never bash the unit solely because of the navigation feature because there are many people on these threads who have no use for navigation and to those people I say you have a great unit. To the rest of us who rely heavily on navigation, you know the D3 is not to be trusted to route out of the driveway. If anyone is interested, i will do a comparison of the two and post my findings.

The grass may not be so much greener on the other side but if the navigation is reliable I am happy!

I am interested to know what exactly it was about the Navigation that you didn't like? Was it the interface of the maps, the accuracy, etc... The D3 is the first Navigation unit that I have used so I do not know how it rates among others. But from my use of it, it seemed ok. The Navigation although not 100% accurate all the time does do a pretty good job of taking you were you want to go. My complaint would be that should have a little bit better detailed maps.

I also reviewed the Alpine W205 with the blackbird add on and it seemed like a really nice combo. It just was a little too expensive by the time you put the two together. From what I have heard, Alpine makes the best Navigation. I would be interested in your review of the unit and it's features.

a guy on here acctually did his comparasion on the alpine with the blackbird.....he came to the conclusion that he preferred the d3 over the alpine any day...

I have never used a blackbird in a deck, but I have used it as a portable. Didn't like it as much as my D3 or Z1. Funky graphics and not very many POI

So what are the findings?

Installed my D3 on Friday, used it today, and I found out exactly what he's saying. I live in Northwest part of Greater phoenix and wanted to go somewhere in Scottsdale (East) and the Navi kept on telling me to get off freeway early to go local, I was like huh??? so I double checked to see if the "avoid freeway" thing was on, but it wasnt. Its hard to explain so I have a drawn map. Essentially, it'd rather you driving 15 miles local.

This can be avoid by changing the "prefered exit" prior to departure, which is no big deal i guess, just wish it had as good as a impression as its ipod interface, WHICH IS OMG SEXY!

Just curious, do you have it set to find the shortest route? Or the fastest route?

I am interested to know what exactly it was about the Navigation that you didn't like?

lightsout,

I like everything about the navigation (ie. controls, maps, user friendliness) except the process it uses to determine routes. There were many times when the navigation took me on a wild goose chase just to find a destination that was only a few miles up the road. There were also times when the unit would direct me off the road I was currently on only to place me back on the same road in the exact same spot which is absolutely dumb! People have suggested to play around with the route settings which I have done but still received the same results. The unit also lacks the ability to "avoid uturns"so whenever I missed my turn, the navigation would tell me to "make a u-turn" for the remainder of the trip! Why doesn't it have the smarts to forget a damn uturn and choose a another route based on the direction I am headed in? The navigation also has the tendency to want to route me through residential communities that has one way in and one way out!

I tested the D3 navigation side by side with my Garmin (purchased in 2006) & Verizon phone with VZ Navigator (purchased spring 2007) on multiple short and long trips and as expected the D3 could not measure up. By the way, I have the D3 set to show multiple routes and all I get are multiple routes that are way out of the way!

Installed my D3 on Friday, used it today, and I found out exactly what he's saying.

Ursus,

We are definitely not the only two who thinks the D3 navigation is seriously flawed. Check out the other posts.

http://avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php? ... light=duck

http://avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php? ... light=duck

http://avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php? ... ht=routing

a guy on here acctually did his comparasion on the alpine with the blackbird.....he came to the conclusion that he preferred the d3 over the alpine any day...

Over the weekend I think I found the thread you are referring to and from what I read, he compared the D3 with the Alpine W200. I am having the W205 installed.

fellas, I agree with what Ursus and the other gentleman said 100%. i owned the AVH-p7500dvd and Avic 9dvd units hooked together in the past..

not only was the processing faster on the older unit, but it didn't have these inaccurate and redundant directions

i too have had the nav system tell me to get off the current road only to get right back on it..

i too have had the navigation unit try to get me to go through tons of local roads when set on shortest, and far out rods when set on fastest... it appears the D3 is just not smart enough to find a balance between the two.

Also, I have had NUMEROUS situations where the D3 asked me to make a right turn, then a U turn, rather than have me just make a left in the first place... very dumb!!!!

Again, its not a matter of knowing how to use it, I've had pioneer nav systems for the past five years... and the D3 is by far the worst one regarding navigation!

I also agree that for minimal use of navigation, if one primarily usues the Xm, IPOD, DVD features, then for the price, its still a good unit!

THinking about giving this one to my wife, and purchasing the Avic Z2

Are you saying you want your wife to get lost now?

your the second person that Ive seen do this

Well I can say I have had a few let downs with the D3 Navigation as well. However, for the most part it has got me where I needed to be. I have never used any other type of Navigation so don't really know how to compare it to any others. Anyone know if the Z2 is any better?

all pioneer navigations are a let down!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?