With all the bitching some people seem to have with these units, I thought I'd post my own experience, which so far has been a positive one. So here it is:

Before purchasing this unit I scoured the net for every review I could find. Much of it in this forum. I read all the positives & negatives about the f series, as well as all alternative units that did similar things including possibly installing a carputer instead. I will say, in defence to all the noobs that ask the same questions over & over again, that searching can sometimes be frustrating because there is sooo much info to sift through.

Anyway, I decided that despite the flaws of the f-series, they were flaws that I could live with. I got my 900bt at a decent price ($595 shipped from amazon w. 2.0 firware already installed) on friday, and it took me a total of maybe an hour & a half to install by myself, including the DVD bypass. I've only had it installed for 2 days, but so far, everything seems to work as it should. My old sony ericsson s710 cellphone synched just fine, navi works, radio works, all in all I am pretty happy so far.

Yes, it could be a bit quicker to boot up, and I wish my thumb drive would fit in the USB port better (seems to be difficult to plug in!), wish it had a built-in HDand wish some functions were easier/more intuitive, , but these are just minor annoyances.

Other than that, everything works! I really can't understand people wanting to sue pioneed and all that? I hate people that do nothing but complain all the time!

I've looked into some of the mods and may decide to install some of them at a later time. Who knows, I may get crazy and decide to make my own front end since it's based on CE (although I doubt it because I'm lazy & spend my entire day at work programming & would rather not do more of the same once I'm home).

 

Cliffnotes:

1. Happy customer

2. Middle finger extended to the AVIC-haters

Agree whole-heardely - glad you are pleased with the unit!

 

I think if more folks REALY researched this (and any other unit they were interested in) to see if it has what they REALLY want, then they would be a lot less haters out there.

 

The MOST important feature that this unit had was voice command for my iPod - that was truly the ONE thing it had to do well. From everything I saw, it did do that (with an occasional bobble here and there for sure) But to be able to just push ONE button and have access to ALL my thousands of songs, albums, playlists, etc. made it successfule right there.

 

Then the Bluetooth phone. Matched with my first phone I had flawlessly. Got an iPhone, and it matched flawlessly with that too. The fact that it also plays XM, HD radio, DVD's, navigation - all secondary but just as cool for me.

 

Folks that slam it for not being able to tell them what side of the street a given location is on the Navi, or complain because they can't instantly find one of six different phone numbers for the same contact, or any other random request can only blame themselves for not properly checking it out (or purchasing it somewhere they can't return it)

 

If I had purchased it and it didn't do what I REALLY needed it to do for me, then I would simply return it (providing it was supposed to do that in the first place, like VR for the iPod)

 

If somebody really needs a headunit to tell them what side of the street their final destination is on - then buy the headunit that tells you that, don't buy this one and then bash it!