Hi guys,

I spotted the AVIC F series head units a while back and stumbled across this forum while looking for reviews on the units/system. This was all before the 2.0 update, and there were a lot of unhappy customers, and complaints.

I'm a fairly technical person when it comes to computers, and the ability to fully customize the AVIC F series units is highly appealing to me, however I also want something that's easy to use after all the customization is done with.

I've been eying the AVIC F 900BT unit (amazon.com has a pretty absurd deal on it in my opinion) and I wanted to ask the owners of these units some questions:

1) How good is the navigation system? It's funny how many of the reviews of the AVIC F series simply neglect to mention anything about the nav system itself. Most review sites I see highly reccomend garmin units, how does this system compare?

2) My understanding is that the voice recognition system in the AVIC F series doesn't work with the navigation system. If this is true, how difficult is it to enter in destinations? Is it something I'll find tedious, or does it have something like an auto complete system which will make a best guess as to what your typing in?

3) How accurate is the navigation? Am I going to pass an exit before it tells me to turn left? And if I do will it come up with an alternate route?

4) Where did you place the mic that comes with the AVIC unit? If I buy one of these units I'll be installing it in a Toyota MR2 Spyder convertable. This leaves few options in terms of where to place a microphone.

5) Is the lack of a IR remote a huge deal? The alpine headunit I have now came with a remote which I almost never use.

6) Do you think the system is worth the money post 2.0 update?

Personally I like alot of the features I've seen but there are way too many conflicting user opinions to make a solid decision on a peice of equipment which costs so much. So I'd greatly appriciate any replies to these questions and thanks for your time.

Hi jerros,

I'd like to answer some of your questions. I've only had my F-90BT for about a month now but I'll tell you my impressions.

1) The navigation system works great. I haven't had a problem with it yet. It has a setting for Fastest, Shortest or Scenic route. You cal also turn off U-Turns, Toll Roads, Unpaved Roads and more. The only problem I've found so far is that sometimes it will route you in an odd direction due to the u-turn "penalty" (which you can change). I live on the west side of a very wide 2-lane street. If I approach from the north (on the east side of the street) the navigation unit thinks that there is a median, so it routes me up to an intersection and then has me make a u-turn. This is the route I usually take as it's the shortest, I just don't make the u-turn since there isn't a median. So if the navigation system has to make a choice, it will route me up another street rather than make a u-turn. No big deal really, just an oddity.

The POI system is useful. I recently went on a 4 hour drive and my wife wanted to stop at Sonic for a drink. I was able to find the nearest Sonic along the route I was taking. It found me a Sonic about .5 miles off the highway and routed me there.

2) The voice recognition system does not work with the navigation but it is very easy to select a new route. As you input your destination it will grey out letters on the keyboard if it doesn't find a match. After a certain point it will give you a list to choose from. For example. when I route to Union Ct I first enter the city. Then I type the U and the N, it then gives me 2 choices, Union Ct. and Union St. Very simple.

3) The navigation is very accurate (I've only experienced navigating with good GPS signal). It will tell you a couple times that your exit is approaching, including once at .25 miles and once 400ft before your exit. I'm not sure if the Garmin does this but I really like that when you're on the highway getting ready to exit (say onto the on ramp of another highway) it will show you the lanes of the highway and highlight which lanes you can be in and still exit correctly.

4) I placed my microphone on the stack (to the left of the driver). I've also seen people on the forums route them to the left of the steering wheel. This might be the best choice for you.

5) The lack of a remote isn't really noticeable. If you really don't want to reach down to the unit you can always install steering wheel controls.

6) The unit is defiantly worth the money, it does a lot for how much you have to pay for it. It still boots sort of slow, although it is now bearable. Also, I wish Pioneer would continue to correct the unresponsiveness of the touch screen. I don't understand how Apple can develop such a good touch screen in the I-Phones and Pioneer can release a product with such an unresponsive touch screen. Nonetheless, it gets the job done.

I hope this helps. Let us know if you have any more questions.

1.) I love the navigation. It is real straightforward and easy to understand. I actually prefer it to the overly simplistic Garmin navigation. I think Garmin is great by the way, but I actually prefer the pioneer. Voice guidance tends to talk too much, but that is OK.

3.) It has been very accurate with turns. It quickly re-routes you if you miss a turn. I don't think that it is a precise as the Garmin when it comes to bringing you right up to someones' driveway, but close enough.

4.) I have my mic right on top of my steering wheel column. Works perfectly.

6.) I am very happy with my f-90bt. On a scale of 1-10 it would be a 9. Great customization possibilities! There are a few minor annoyances.. I really am not impressed with the dvd playback, but that wouldn't stop me from recommending the unit to a friend.

There are a load of great features on the f-series, and I personally find everything very easy to use. I got my refurbed Avic for under $400 and I would say that its totally worth it.

Personally I love Garmin. They make great units.

As far as which brand brings you "right to the driveway"... this is a product of the mapping software so it's not a Garmin vs Tom Tom vs. Pioneer... it's actually Teleatlas vs Navteq. At my last house people with the $99 no-name Christmas Special would be brought to our driveway while those with the $400+ Garmin were taken or three houses down on the otherside of the road just because of the map data supplied by one company for that area wasn't as precise as the other.

My F90BT hasn't shown up yet but I played with the F900BT at the local Circuit City and did not notice any problems with the responsiveness of the screen... but then again I was only screwing with it for 15 minutes.

I've chosen the Pioneer over the Alpine, Kenwood and Eclipse due to price, options, and tweakablity... although I am a bit bummed about the USB being no good for a HDD, but I have decided to purchase an iPod classic to act as a HDD of sorts. Plus I'll be able to take it to my wifes Sentra with the Rockford Fosgate with AUX IN on the front.

My $.02

Where did you buy the refurbed avic? Just curious because i haven't seen any refurbed f-serires units.

1) How good is the navigation system? It's funny how many of the reviews of the AVIC F series simply neglect to mention anything about the nav system itself. Most review sites I see highly reccomend garmin units, how does this system compare?

Navi software is iGO 8.0. Internally, it is probably THE most powerful navigational software on the market today. Unfortunately, default Pioneer skin hides most of the features of the software. Fortunately, you can usually reuse code from existing iGO skins to expose them.

2) My understanding is that the voice recognition system in the AVIC F series doesn't work with the navigation system. If this is true, how difficult is it to enter in destinations? Is it something I'll find tedious, or does it have something like an auto complete system which will make a best guess as to what your typing in?

There's a smart keyboard (keys disappear except for the ones that will match city/street in the target area) so input is easy. Until voice recognition makes another leap forward, probably easier than trying to get the unit to recognize some odd street name...

3) How accurate is the navigation? Am I going to pass an exit before it tells me to turn left? And if I do will it come up with an alternate route?

Haven't had it route me past an exit so far. Route recalculation is automatic (of course you can turn it off).

Of course accuracy is mostly a function of maps, and TeleAtlas maps are, IMHO, not quite as good as Navteq for North America, but useable.

4) Where did you place the mic that comes with the AVIC unit? If I buy one of these units I'll be installing it in a Toyota MR2 Spyder convertable. This leaves few options in terms of where to place a microphone.

I have it on the steering column, behind the wheel, and it seems to work fine.

5) Is the lack of a IR remote a huge deal? The alpine headunit I have now came with a remote which I almost never use.

I use a steering wheel controls adapter, so it's not much of an issue for me...

6) Do you think the system is worth the money post 2.0 update?

If you get a good deal and have use for several features, probably yes...

Where did you buy the refurbed avic? Just curious because i haven't seen any refurbed f-serires units.

I got my f90bt from ebay back when they had the %30 off with Microsoft Live Cashback.. plus %10 through ebay. Ended up costing me under $400. Music First Hq was the vendor. I didn't even know it was a refurb until after I bought it(small print at the bottom of the ebay page), so I ended up buying a SquareTrade 2 year warranty. It looks like they don't have any navigation systems for sale right now, just headphones.

http://www.hifiaudioonline.com/inc/sdetail/7562

I found this refurb, which is $2 more than the one I got from MusicFirstHQ.

Thanks for all the replies guys. I hope this topic isn't dead yet because I do have one more question.

I went down to Circuit City & gave the 900bt a once over. Everything I could test seemed to work great, but the mic wasn't set up for the unit so voice commands wouldn't work, and I couldn't really get a feel for how that aspect of the headunit worked and what options were available.

Is there some sort of refrence on the net you all use to know what options there are for voice commands? Or is that all contained in the manual? Most hardware manufacturers allow you to download item's manuals on the net but I didn't see that option on pioneers website for the avic units.

I'm really liking the idea of being able to say "Play artist" and have it go off, but I'd also like to know if there was a voice option for selecting a specific play list, randomizing, repeating and the like.

You can find the manual in pdf format online here...http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Products/Navigation/In-Dash/AVIC-F900BT?tab=D

Starting on Page 148 of that pdf document it outlines ALL of the Voice commands available for the F900BT

Hope this helps.

You can find the manual in pdf format online here...http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Products/Navigation/In-Dash/AVIC-F900BT?tab=D

 

Starting on Page 148 of that pdf document it outlines ALL of the Voice commands available for the F900BT

 

Hope this helps.

Well looks like I earned the dunce award for missing that on their website .

Thanks for the info, I greatly appricate it.

- Jerros