I'm in the midst of buying one or the other... I've heard a lot of bad things about the F90 in comparrison to the AVIC-z3..

 

In my opinion the F90BT looks a lot more up to date, esp with the msn direct & IPOD Album art shown on the screen. Am I wrong or is their a specific reason it's so much cheaper than the Z3 on the pioneer website? I hardly doubt the difference is the harddrive? Someone please enlighten me which one is a better product and why.

Best thing to do is goto Pioneer's website and do a comparison between the two. However, here is what I think the main strengths between the two are...

 

AVIC-Z3: Bigger 7" screen, can import custom pictures to put on screen, has more picture adjustment controls, has a built in hard drive that can store music (no need to keep cds handy), looks to have a more advance navigation, is xm traffic ready, and you can get optional remote control.

 

F90BT: Can customize the button colors, has more music playing options (DVD, CD, USB, SD), bluetooth is built in, has Ipod capability without buying an external box, has a USB and SD slots, has 4 volts preouts, and has a 2 year warranty.

 

Hope that this helps. In my case, the Hard Disk drive is what I love the most and it will be very tough to go back to one that does not have one.