Dude! Effing sell it already then!

 

I hate to be honest with YOU, but my unit works, and let me say this slowly for you, P-E-R-F-E-C-T-L-Y. All I'm living with is a great aftermarket headunit that lets me voice command my iPod, talk on my Bluetooth phone hands-free, plays AM/FM, HD radio, XM satellite, navigation and play movies WHILE I DRIVE!

 

If yours doesn't then get rid of it, burn it, throw it off a bridge, use it as a doorstop, WHATEVER! But quit acting so butthurt and stop whining about it!

 

Plenty of us have had either no problems or very little! The fact that your unit is so problematic incredibly enough doesn't mean that all of ours are.

 

Let it go! You sound like some X Box fanboy on the Playstation network!

 

Thank You! Some people do not deserve to have money...

 

You can go f* yourself dude. How about that? I paid GOOD money for this piece of junk, and it's none of your business.

 

it actually is my business, because of your retarded comments people are choosing other units, you are a dumbfuck you are the only one with the fucking issues, yet instead of calling Pioneer and telling them you bitch on here how it sucks, how you hate it and all the other fucking shit no one gives a fuck about. If you have a problem with it post it in problems and people MIGHT assist you, but dont go bitching and moaning and ruining all threads with this shit.

 

Actually dickhead, I have called Pioneer 8 times, reported them to the BBB and started a petition against them about this. I was on the phone with them today actually.

 

Thank you, sit down and shut up. Opinion given.

 

Why the fuck are you even in this forum?

 

report a company to BBB due to user stupidity, yes... they will take you seriously... if you did what you even claim

 

sit down shut the fuck up? wow... real original...

 

I am on this forum like the other thousands of users to put in their 2 cents, well everyone but you who keeps bitching like its the time of the month.

Pioneer has responded to my complaint twice. They called me immediately after I filed the complaint. They are still blaming it on a "bad cable" because they can't figure out the problem and don't want to try.

So me connecting my IPOD and it not working at bootup is my fault. Thanks, you're real helpful.

Talk about user stupidity, it's user stupidity to say I am the only one having problems with my unit. You must be blind.

then stop blaming the fucking unit, if pioneer says its the cable get it replaced, fuck dude figure it out... take a usb cable connect it to your computer and check if your ipod gets recognized by usb (doesnt have to actually be workable) if it recognizes it call pioneer and tell them... this can happen... nothing is perfect

This thing is still crap. Sorry to be honest with those people who are happy with it, but it still has MAJOR problems. You are just living with the problems if they don't bother you.

 

Before 2.0 update, the IPOD would just drop out completely and give the error message that it lost connection.

 

Now with 2.0, the friking thing half the time isn't even recognized at bootup. You have to unplug the cable and reconnect it to get it working. I have already reported Pioneer to the better business bureau and they have attempted to call me twice but I was not available at the phone.

 

Also what is with the stupid SD card not showing any titles on the main screen but showing them on the map screen, and the SD card starting over at the beginning every time? How could anyone think that is acceptable?

 

This product is poor, inferior, and the AVIC Z3 COMPLETELY destroys this thing in every single aspect. Even the Navigation sucks on this thing compared to the Z3.

 

Dude! Effing sell it already then!

 

I hate to be honest with YOU, but my unit works, and let me say this slowly for you, P-E-R-F-E-C-T-L-Y. All I'm living with is a great aftermarket headunit that lets me voice command my iPod, talk on my Bluetooth phone hands-free, plays AM/FM, HD radio, XM satellite, navigation and play movies WHILE I DRIVE!

 

If yours doesn't then get rid of it, burn it, throw it off a bridge, use it as a doorstop, WHATEVER! But quit acting so butthurt and stop whining about it!

 

Plenty of us have had either no problems or very little! The fact that your unit is so problematic incredibly enough doesn't mean that all of ours are.

 

Let it go! You sound like some X Box fanboy on the Playstation network!

 

Awesome, yours works. Stop posting in this forum then. You have no business in here.

I'll reply only to this post, as it was directed to me personally.

A.) A bit of an overreaction in my view. I hadn't asked YOU to stop posting here, just to quit whining about it like a 3 year old. Dealing with problems as an adult involves some give and take. Say what your problem is and ask nicely to see if anyone can help out. Someone may or may not do so. If the unit has become such a source of misery in your life, I am at a loss as to why you just don't return it. Now if you've modded it beyond the ability to do that, or bought it off some slack-ass on eBay and are also unable to do that - then you have no one but yourself (and I'm sure Pioneer in your mind) to blame.

B.) I was unaware that this forum existed for the exclusive reason of complaining about problems of the unit and nothing else. As I'm sure you would have to admit, MANY folks here are very happy with their given model of Pioneer headunit, whichever it may be. The fact that thousands of others with varying degrees of AV skill, technical knowledge, equipment variations, and willingness to help, make this forum the perfect place for ANYONE with a Pioneer headunit (working perfectly or not) to asist those that need it - in any one of hundreds of ways one might consider "help".

I'm sure I've pretty much wasted my time with this response. I can see by the way you've responded and conversed with others here, that you have a hard time elevating your position here above that of the average middle-school bully. Simply posting that the unit is "junk" does nothing but make you feel just a wee bit better. The unit obviously ISN'T junk to many hundreds of people. If yours is, I suggest asking nicely for help, or more logically, returning it ,purchasing another and posting NICE posts on whatever forum the lucky manufacturer happens to be.

Cheers,

Kev

Well my unit works great since the last update. There are some features I would like added but the unit does what it is supposed to every time with ZERO problems. Also I just returned from a 3500 mile trip to Idaho and the Navigation even worked going to 2 different back country hunting camps several miles off the paved roads.

I agree that those who are so unhappy with their unit that they can not seem to stay rational should get rid of them and go on to something else.

BTW the title of this Forum is "General:F-Series", not specific to problems like the next Forum titled "Problems/Troubleshooting: F-Series" so I see nothing wrong with posting positive comments here.

Just installed the F90bt...Bootup is still long but it is better from the last time I remember. It did reboot randomly so I will test it out tomorrow and report back.

2.0 is great.

bootup is significantly faster.

love how there is no more blue box.

everything "seems" smoother and faster.

great update.

I too much chime in on the fact that maybe the cable is not working. I have the same setup (F-700) and I lose my right channel at times when I use my iPod. randomly. So, either they have made some faulty cables or, there is something wrong with the unit.

I have the F900BT and I've been using 2.0 since the day it was released. For me, it has been SOLID. Almost all of the major bugs have been squashed. No more random reboots or i Pod connection drops. There are still a few features I would like to see in terms of the Navi, but nothing that is a show-stopper for me.

The only thing I notice is that sometimes when I start it up, the iPod never connects and it requires a restart of the unit to get it to show up in my AV Sources screen. That may very well be problem with my iPod though.

So to anyone considering purchasing this unit, I would now say it's ready for mass consumption. Despite some peoples' issues with seemingly defective units, a correctly-functioning F-series that is also installed correctly is WORTH EVERY PENNY.

Man I think the moderators need to do a better job controlling some of the flame wars, im not all that sensitive but seeing people get cussed out and having that fill up what should be a good thread on feedback for the 2.0 update, its just not cool.

I continue to have no further problems and those that were problems after first using the unit after I installed the update seemed to have corrected themselves.

I have a feeling the poor build quality of the Pioneer f series branded cables leaves a lot to be desired and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of those ipod issues stem from this cable.

If you compare the quality to those of the Apple ones, there is no comparison, nicely bundled into a single cable etc.

I would say anyone having ipod issues like drop outs etc, try the apple cable, if it continues return the cable, no harm done and you eliminated that as the possible issues. My iphone 3g didn't charge, and the steering wheel controls didnt work etc, those issues were fixed when i swapped out he cable for the composite one from apple. Just something to try.

Dude! Effing sell it already then!

 

I hate to be honest with YOU, but my unit works, and let me say this slowly for you, P-E-R-F-E-C-T-L-Y. All I'm living with is a great aftermarket headunit that lets me voice command my iPod, talk on my Bluetooth phone hands-free, plays AM/FM, HD radio, XM satellite, navigation and play movies WHILE I DRIVE!

 

If yours doesn't then get rid of it, burn it, throw it off a bridge, use it as a doorstop, WHATEVER! But quit acting so butthurt and stop whining about it!

 

Plenty of us have had either no problems or very little! The fact that your unit is so problematic incredibly enough doesn't mean that all of ours are.

 

Let it go! You sound like some X Box fanboy on the Playstation network!

 

Thank You! Some people do not deserve to have money...

 

You can go f* yourself dude. How about that? I paid GOOD money for this piece of junk, and it's none of your business.

 

you are a dumbfuck you are the only one with the fucking issues, .

 

RETARDED POST OF THE YEAR ALERT. I AM THE ONLY ONE WITH ISSUES. I guess that's why theres about 300 posts in this forum.

 

Yup, you are incredibly stupid, and yeah I hope you do feel bad because I have talked about 10 people out of buying this junk.

Considering others do NOT have the ipod issues you speak of at the severity and consistancy you do, I would say something is wrong with your ipod, the cable, or your head unit is defective.

To say this thing is a piece of junk when there are those who are happy with it, doesn't that say its unique to you, therefore not normal?

Do some troubleshooting, try a different ipod, try a different cable, if it still does it, have it serviced.

I mean its just as simple as that, if you need some hints for the ipod issue, post something in the troublehsooting forum, state the ipod model, firmware version, and what you tried to resolve this issue.

The ipod calbe could be lose, if you leave it plugged in all the time, the hot/cold could actually cause the connectors to lose touch with the plastic firming up in the cable, the ipod could be in sleep mode, and not properly woken up.

I mean seriously, you sound like someone who lost all hope, yet hasn't tried to fix the problem in a meaningful way, but yes it is much easier to bash a company and a product, then submit to user error or some other type of issue that could be fixed.

If every last person had that issue, and it was severe, then I would agree, but I don't have any of those issues now, so that tells me, you have some work to do.

Peace.

here are some of my observations with my 900BT...

A. My iPod, 30gig video classic 5th gen, works about 50% of the time on boot up. This might be due to the fact that I leave it connected in the glove box all the time, and its cold outside right now, sometimes below freezing, which might have something to do with it. We'll see if that changes in the summer. I'm gonna take my iPod to the apple store to see if it needs a firmware upgrade.

B. Bluetooth, I have a Palm Treo 700wx with the new version of mobile windows, sometimes it connects, sometimes it doesn't. I try to get it to manually connect from the head unit and from the phone, but it is stubborn, then occasionally it just recognizes the phone on its own while driving down the highway. When it is connected, the sound is flawless on both ends.

C. My contacts only show the last name, first name, multiple times for each number. I read that others can see whether its home, cell, office. I havent figured out why they can see this and I dont, can only assume that this is a phone specific problem. Or maybe my icons are too large, if there is an icon shrinker function or a way to show the names in a list, please let me know.

D. Clock is way to small, but i read that there is a hack to make this bigger, but I'm not much on messing with the thing cause I dont know what i'm doing. So I'll wait for the next firmware update and hope that its fixed.

E. Boot up time is palatable, see no major issues with a little wait. Since I didnt have the first version and moved right into a unit with the 2.0 installed when I bought it, I dont have anything to compare to.

F. The voice of Samantha is down right irritating and too computerized, to the point where I would rather leave it on Jason.

G. Dialing in the volume of the voice navigation takes some playing with, it should just be based on the speed of the vehicle instead of setting low and high limits. I'm still working on this one as I don't use the navi all that often cause I go to the same places over and over again.

H. In 3D mode the triangle icon for the car is WAY to big.

I. 3D mode is the only mode that the directional car icon points in the direction you are visually looking, they should make this for the 2D mode as well. My hand held unit does it, all you do is tap the compass icon on my handheld and it switches between true north and visual direction.

J. The EQ is too difficult to get where I want it, you should be able to independantly move each bar as opposed to having several of them move simultaneously, and for goodness sake, its a touch screen, i should be able to slide the bars up and down using the screen as opposed to pressing the selector buttons on the touch screen that move several at once, and not necisarily where I want them.

K. Presets should be listed on the main audio screen where the picture resides of the channel your listening to, thre is blank space there, they should use it, I shouldn't have to navigate to the preset screen, or press a button that says P so I can scroll throught tme till I find the one I want.

L. the mode button for XM works great, I added several of my favorite songs and they always pop up regardless of what channel the're on.

M. the ting sound that goes on everytime I use my steering wheel controls to raise or lower the volume, I haven't figured out to get this to go away yet.

N. the volume control knob is too shallow for my sausage fingers, too hard to grip and turn, thats why I use the steering wheel volume control

O. the light scheem, there should be more lights, its a waist to have a cool light set up if its only going to be in the upper left corner, they should put a couple more lights around the head unit just for show.

P. Voice recognition for the phone doesnt really work unless I say dial #######. Saying the name is useless, doesn't matter what name I say. But then again, I typically call the same people over and over again, so its not that big a deal. But it would be nice to say Call Jackies Cell, and actually have it work. My onstar system works flawlessly for this, don't know why this unit wouldnt.

I think that about sums it up for now, if I come accross any others I'll be sure to post back. And if i find that my iPod firmware update solves the boot up issue, I will post back as well. All should keep in mind that in no way do any of my observations detract from my like of this unit, I truly like it, and I would still buy it again knowing these issues hindsight. These are just things that I noticed that Pioneer might want to pay a little more attention too in the future. And if anyone knows how to correct any of these items in a simple way, please let me know, you can either PM me or point me to a post that is relative to my unit, the 900BT.

Thanks,

Be kind to your fellow posters, this is suppose to be an informative forum, thrashing each other doesn't help anyone, and it certainly doesnt solve anything.

Don

Here is what I have sent to Pioneer already after the 2.0 update... And I am going to send this post to Pioneer. Perhaps we should all post here AND send our thoughts to pioneer directly. I think the more we inundate them, the more they will listen.

*** Sometimes while on the map screen and after disconnecting from a Bluetooth call, audio does not resume! I have to go back to the audio source to get the audio to resume!

*** When placing a Bluetooth call, the box with the “hang-up†and volume control take a long time to show up! This is very annoying because if the "voice recognition" fails to correctly dial a phone number you have to take your eyes off the road, find your phone (which it is advertised that you can place a call when your phone is "buried in your bag"), open it, and manually end the misplaced call. If you don't get to it in time, then you end up with a very awkward return call from the recipient asking why you called and hung up on them. NOT what i would expect from a $1000 unit. If the box does show up, it sometimes takes a very long time for it to go away after the call has ended.

*** The navi voice is still obnoxiously loud when listening to USB or SD. No it is not the same volume as my music (as indicated in the manual)… it is LOUDER! And it shouldn’t be the same in the first place.

___________

Another bug that I have not sent to pioneer yet:

*** After receiving a text message on my NOKIA 6125, I am notified. Approximately every 5 minutes after that I get a text message notification regardless of whether I have actually received one or not. The unit also fails to notify me of every message I receive after the first one.

___________

The thing that upsets me is that in all the video advertisements on the Pioneer website, the unit works flawlessly and without any lags in performance. The consumer is in no way alerted to the fact that the scenes are edited to make the unit seem faster. It is one thing to sell a sub-par unit to the masses, but to advertise it as top-notch is a textbook definition of "deception."

My friends literally laugh at this unit.

Multiple times, by just starting this unit up and letting them test it out in a real world situation, I have turned countless people off to this unit who were previously seriously considering making the purchase.

After updating, when I browsed the map for destinations, and click the location circle, There was no information icon like there used to be. I could not find information on that point, put it in favorites or even set it as a destination. In another post, someone said he restored factory defaults because something on his system was not working. I tried this and it seems to have solved my issue. I wonder what doing this did.

Why not have a button on the map screen that brings up a navigation menu as well instead of having to go through all the menus. On this menu, they could put in things like Navigate to, add to faves, Display POIs, plot a course, set way point. If there is no room on the screen, they could put the 2d 3d thing in here as well instead of on the map.

It would also be nice to have an option to have current speed and speed limit on screen at all times, even when on the music screen. While at it, do it with the time as well. I would like a button to switch between destination view and current location view as well. Elevation is not important to me.

Compass is on screen but is useless in 2d mode as map is always north anyway.

I like the responsiveness of the map, but no lane guide, it doesn't say which side of the street destination is on so you can park in front etc.... pioneer should take some notes from rival navigators. Navigon 2120 is quite nice usability and features, tom tom has location and street add ins, garmin has driver information screens.

The navigator was a big reason for purchasing the unit. They should really make it more usable.

The best thing about the nave that I like above other Navs that I have used is that this one is fast. Moves fairly nicely on the screen. Destination plotting is quick, and recalculating routes is fast and good.

If you are deciding on a Nav, hope this helps.

I also hope they can add some of this into an update.

One other thing that no one has mentioned, it would be nice to be able to dimmer the display with my dash lights dimmer for night driving... it is quite bright at night and the line is already there for most factory systems.

I think my SD card loaded faster in ver 1.17, but more importantly... the bar on the side used to slide. I used to be able to drag it down to scroll through my music faster. It does not appear to do this any more. It is a problem when you have 1500+ music files to go through.

How do I restore the slide thing?

USB port does not recognise my 4 gig Scandisk Cruizer flash drive properly.

Aside from the boot speed, I think I have more issues with 2.0 than I did with 1.0

where do i get the 2.0 update file

Th update is available here

http://www.avic411.com/

At the top just bellow where it says "2.0 Update available"

Click "Download here"

Lots O Luck

1. Sirius integration. The preset buttons work like physical buttons. When programming a preset it doesn't show the station that was programmed on the preset (or that its programmed at all). So when I want to go back later and add a preset, I have to figure out what preset is not programmed and then go back to the station I want to program to the preset button and save it. Something I would expect with physical buttons. (presets are not even mentioned in the operational manual)

2. Nav guidance says "continue going straight" way too often.

3. VR data does not upload everytime.

4. Phone (iPhone 3G) just does not often connect at all for some reason.

5. Bluetooth quality is poor.

6. Arrow in maps is way too large in 3D.

7. 2D maps should have the option to point in the direction I am heading like the 3D maps.

8. iPod album art is grainy when made large.

9. Volume knob should work when on a call (not just the on screen buttons)

10. iPod should pause when on a call and not just mute.

11. EQ should have a professional mode so I can adjust each band individually.

12. MSNDirect usually does not update gas station names for some reason.

13. No FM radio station identification. Where (in my area) 107.7 would display "107.7 The Bone - Song name"

14. Display button for Sirius channel and programming data should have an alternate feature. Don't make me choose between artist, song or composer. Have one option that alternates between all three so I can see all information.

15. Scroll artist, composer and song information so when its truncated. So for example on Howard Stern, I don't just see "Paul McCartney" I see "Paul McCartney in Studio" scrolling.

Sorry to bump this thread - but wow - I love my F900 once again.

Ok - I've had the F900 since it first came out - had it installed back in July of 08 - lived with it - then the 1.7 update came out - wow - that was cool - unit much better (not perfect but noticably better) - I've finally applied the 2.0 update and the bluetooth update.

Despite some initial issues with my black berry pearl - now that I've updated that - my Bluetooth connectivity is consistently 1 minute and never drops - extremely stable - sound quality is perfect.

IPod interface remains unchanged which is great because that has always been trouble free and stable.

I'm not sure why people are whining about album art - some albums look great (ex audioslave album with the ocean on it - nirvana looks completely cool with the baby swimming..) and some look funky - mostly though they look fine.

hang in there Pioneer - and please keep the updates coming.

My opinion?

The 2.0 update was a huge leap forward, but the unit still behaves like a pre-release beta product.

We'll need plenty more updates for this thing to behave like what anyone else would consider a final release candidate.

A few people have mentioned... "for a $1200 product... or ..for a $1000 product...."

I would say that for a 500.00 product, it's not bad, not great, but not bad. I knew what to expect going into this, and I still wanted to stay at a certain price point. It's useable for me, so no big worries.

I wouldn't buy this at $1000+ ....

Since "The ol' Bat" left me in charge and alone, I can present myself as a new member of about a week, with the Pioneer F700BT installed for a little longer. There seems to be a lot of great information available. Thanks for all the work those who came before have done.

I had a question regarding the review in the head, or first post of this thread. It sates, "Also the destination is cleared out once you have arrived." I find this does not occur and gets to be a little irritating. I turn off the car and when I turn it on again, when the Nav system comes up, I get the last instruction as if I did not arrive.

I hope to do some of the mods, especially the 'delete route in the compass button' but, in the time until, other than going to the 'Delete Route' icon through the menus, any suggestions on why my route does not automatically delete upon arrival?

Glad this firmware update fixed all everyones audio problems however, Navigation is still an issue. My unit does not recognize HWY 249 in Tomball Texas however, it recognizes all other surrounding HWY'S. This is very frustrating as I travel 249 a lot and the unit wants me to take the side road next to the HWY we call them feeder roads. IfI get onto 249 the unit says stay right take next right - to get off the HWY. Again this is the only HWY I have found thus far where this is an issue. Pioneer sells the unit and I am not about to wait another year for a map or software upgrade. I am expecting a fix in the next couple weeks or I am going to take this back to the dealer in favor of another unit. Garmin units do not have this problem nor any other unit I have seen and tested. Yes I have notified tech support at Pioneer but no help yet. 249 is a main HWY around here for many years so this is not a new HWY. I hope others are checking out the HWY functionallity of the Navigation portion to see if there are other problems.

Huge improvement over previous software.

Still laggy at times, especially from the SD card, and the bluetooth can get wonky at times.

Got an F500BT for $200 including the amp and ipod cable.

Never used it with the previous firmware.

Impressions:

UI Pretty

Phone paired easily but then was semingly lost after reboot, but it just took longer than expected to find the phone.

Contacts transferred (TMO Shadow) easily .

Contacts UI is totally useless. I have multiple entries for each person with no indication what they are.

Video playback (divx AVI, 480p/30) is choppy and useless from SD.

Video playback from USB is very unreliable. Tried three thumb drives.

BT is OK. But not great. Takes a while to find the phone. OEM systems in both of my cars gets it on powerup and sound better. I wanted a good contacts solution, this is not it.

Map only oriented north...no option to change.

ipod integration is very good, IMHO.[*]

I picked this up because it was on crazy fire sale. Not sure if I will go for the permanent install. The killer for me is the lame contacts user interface and I could find no way to edit them. The BT in this unit is about what I'd expect after my last Pioneer BT enabled headunit: very flaky with a half-assed contacts implementation.

Yeah, what ianken said. (BTW, great deal you got on the unit!)

I did run with the previous fw, for a few hours. It was the sux. In that short amount of time, it crashed on me multiple times.

Since upgrading to 2.x, it's only locked up a couple times since I got it upgraded in March.

Things I think could be improved:

• [*:1e3x96nz]More consistent UI -- there are at least 4 different i/f's for controlling media playback, which makes the unit look like it was made by 4 different tech school graduates from 4 different countries:
  
  • [*:1e3x96nz]iPod control
    [*:1e3x96nz]Radio control
    [*:1e3x96nz]SD card playback
    [*:1e3x96nz]Video playback

[*:1e3x96nz]Boot time is still too long (yes, I know how long it was with 1.x, but it's still too long)

[*:1e3x96nz]"Back" button doesn't always go "back" -- it's more of an "up menu" button.

[*:1e3x96nz]No fast scan through songs. (e.g., I've got a song that's 1h10m long on my SD card, and if I'm only driving a few minutes, there's no way I'll ever hear the whole thing) Either a fast-fast-forward, or a scrollable position slider is needed.

[*:1e3x96nz]Display brightness should be a slider, not 10 +/- presses.

[*:1e3x96nz]No time remaining on SD card songs, just time into the song.

[*:1e3x96nz]SD card video playback is useless (echoing ianken, I know, but it really does!)

[*:1e3x96nz]Updating VR dictionary should be a background process, and not prevent you from doing anything except voice commands!

[*:1e3x96nz]VR works great with iPod, but sux with phone. (No matter who I say, it always tries to call AAA!)

[*:1e3x96nz]Button press registration can sometimes be really irritating; sometimes I can hit a button 3, 4, or 5 times, and then all of a sudden it will register 1, 2, or more of the presses. There may not be much that can be done about this -- it behaves like a basic Windows interrupt handler, and may not be in the AVIC sw, but the OS itself.

[*:1e3x96nz]Speed sensitive volume only controls the nav UI, not the music, and then when it does change it, it's either too loud or too soft. (My stock head unit would increase the volume a max of 6 dB, over the range from 30 MPH to 90 MPH -- just about enough to completely negate the wind noise with the sunroof open.)

That'll do it for now, I think.

Thank God for 3.0 coming soon