So after a ton of misery getting it installed, the z110 is in. However I feel underwhelmed and even more so after looking at more and more 9140 shots. What am I missing here because it feels like the pioneer lacks that ooomph I thought I would feel.

Anyone have some new owner tips....

I owned a F90BT and liked the interface and loved the customization that was possible with hacking but hated the crappy blue tooth phone connections locking up and me having to reboot the unit and it was always a LONG boot up.

So I sold it and got a Kenwood DNX8120 and liked the speed at first, button presses were really fast and boot up was more respectable but the Garmin maps drove me nuts. I couldn't ever to get street names to appear on the map EVER. Multiple emails Garmin support and they finally told me they removed that from the latest update that my unit had and I was not happy. Every screen shot had street names on the map that I had seen and my unit couldn't do it. Also BIGGIE was every time I booted up the unit it was a good 90 seconds for the Garmin to find the satellites again. Every time the unit was off for more than two hours it had to find the damn satellites, over and over again.

So back to the z110bt and I'm overall very pleased. The speed is there FINALLY. Buttons react when pressed with out delay. Boot up is quick, Navi side works good. MSN finally works really well for me with the traffic flow overlay and accidents.

So I don't know what to tell you about the new Kenwood DNX9140 but I know the 8120 needed some damn help from my point of view.

Head over to the Kenwood forums and read about the issues the 9140 is having. The UI sucks. If you like navigating 4-5 screens just to make a phone call then go for it. I looked at both for awhile and the Z110 is a much better overall unit than the Kenwood.

Yea, I looked at both units as well and chose the pioneer because the interface looked a lot smarter with the way things were laid out workflow-wise. I have been extremely satisfied with my unit.

I can tell you first hand that the Z is the better unit then the 9140. I had a 9140 as of two weeks ago. The 9140 is a great unit but does suffer from some issues. Mainly it takes about six seconds to skip ipod tracks forward or backward. There is an issue with how the unit reads album art and that prevents tracks from skipping while the unit is trying to read the album art. Before the latest update for the unit, it would take up to about fifteen seconds before it would skip tracks. Also, as stated above, the UI is very unintuitive. It does take quite a bit of button pushes to get anything done on the screen. The Z is much better in this regard. Also video chapter markers for ipod are not supported on the 9140. This was an issue for me as they are supported on the F/X series and the Z series. The only thing that I feel the 9140 has over the Z is the way the voice recognition is laid out on the 9140. It is, in my opinion, laid out a little better on the 9140. I really think you should give the Z a little more time to get use to it. I think it will grow on you and you will enjoy it. If you do want to learn more about the 9140, head over to http://www.kenwoodforums.com

I would like to direct this mikegedge and enyone else that can comment on this.

I recently installed a Kenwood 7120 in my car that I got for a good price. After 3 weeks I have decided that it has to go!!! The fact that it doesn't show any street names like my old factory nav is driving me crazy. Unfortunately my factory nav broke so I was forced to upgrade.

I was fooled because every promo pic I saw of the unit showed a map that had street names labeled. To keep from being fooled again I want to hear the facts from actual users.

I am intrigued by the z110bt. Can you tell me about the map of this unit. Are your street names properly labeled? Is it hard drive or dvd based nav?

Thanks

It does but only about every other street. This seems to be the norm though with a lot of these in dash nav units as my DNX9140 and my 8120 were the same way. The F/X series on the other hand I believe is better with this. Its been a while sense I had my F90BT but I believe it had every street properly labeled.