Man... this is getting on my nerves, don't really know what to do. My order of a F900BT has been delayed until 30/06, at least. Besides the apparent incapability of delivering, the long boot time bothers me a lot. I keep getting in and out of the car all day long, and if everytime I have to wait for 1.5 min, I'll soon get aggravated. Also, I'm a little wary of the idea that new firmware will reduce those boot times... If a computer takes a long time to do soemthing, that's usually because it cannot cope with the load.

 

Reading all this, I'm clearly considering other options, all of them more expensive, but apparently a surer bet:

 

Kenwood 8220BT, ugly interface but apparently quite good at all the rest;

 

Clarion MAX983HD, only for 08/2008. Very, very, nice interface, based on the MAX973HD. Clarion has also made some of the closer to true hifi HU I know of;

 

Alpine IVA-W502R + NVE-099 + PXA-H100 + KTX-100 + KCE-300BT + KCE-422i. The number of components is laughable and would complicate installation, but it does offer so much more than any of the others. Further, lots of boxes usually means decentralisation. For example, the separate nav unit of this thing has its own 64bit processor. I don't think it gets in the way of the boot process of the HU.

 

I have an old Blaupunkt RGN-08 attached to an old Blaupunkt RDM 127 New York in my wife's A4 and you can do whatever you want with the radio until the nav unit boots (20 seconds at most, anyway), and imediately when you turn the key.

 

Also my also old factory PCM1 system in my car boots to radio instantly, starts playing a cd in the changer in about 5 seconds after and boots to nav in about 15 seconds.

 

If I then jump to a thing that boots after 1.5 minutes, that's a major downgrade....

 

Oh, well, now what to do?

 

Your thoughts will be appreciated....

Try to have a little faith in the firmware update. Even with a computer that is slow to boot can be tweaked with a few settings. For example, if you go into a computer's bios and turn off quick boot, that can increase startup time by a few seconds as you watch it count every byte of memory it has. Next you could try increasing the virtual memory on your PC a couple of gigs to get a hefty performance decrease. ;o)

 

They may even change the order at which certain programs boot up. For instance, most people do not intend to start their car simply to use their phone threw their car setup. I myself would be happy to have the ability to listen and tune my Sirius Radio so I can be on my way, let the Bluetooth sync with the phone later. This would allow items like the NAV to boot faster on startup. Is it really a problem that you cannot talk to your unit right when it starts up? How about have that feature load after you have the ability to type in NAV destinations so you can start driving.

 

Those are just a few things I believe could increase boot time. Now just add a few firmware fixes to swap the compass around so it won't point south in 2D all the time, fix voice sync so it will not say "3,5", etc. They could at least do that much without touching the hardware, so I believe a firmware update could do wonders.

 

Your other options do sound sweet, but if you can wait a couple more days Pioneer will straighten it out due to bad publicity alone. I've been driving with a hole in the dash for about three weeks now awaiting my 900bt, so I can relate.