i too am considering the d3. for those who have already pulled the trigger on it, did you consider the new kenwood dnx7100? it's got Garmin application software and NAVTEQ database built in on an SD card, bigger screen, tilt screen options with pretty much all the same features as the d3 for slightly more in price. what do you guys think?
here's a link to specs on the kenwood.
http://www.cardomain.com/item/KENDNX7100
thanks.
Yes, I am considering the DNX7100 also. I heard it has the flash based navigation, meaning you can use cd/dvd and navi without disc swapping. I am also trying to find out how else this compares to the D3.
I found it for $1200 so its almost in the same price range but I can't find additional info on it.
DECISIONS 
word. i hear it's already getting released as we speak. just trying to do some research on it to narrow down the glaring pros and cons. d3 vs. dnx7100 soon to be installed in my...2004 SS 350z!! great minds think alike!!
Yeah Nolaz! I was saving up for that supercharger for my Z but...
Anyway, this DNX7100 looks real nice. I am seriously considering this one after looking at that link you sent. The built in nav is a real good feature. It even has a built in usb hookup and IPOD connection without the addon you will need for the D3. 
Looks good so far. Waiting on some negative reviews on it, if any.
tick tock....which one will pose a bigger problem for bypass....whichever one gets solved first will probably be the one that will sell first.
Be sure to try one hands one first. I have the DDX-6019 and
- ipod integration is horrible
- zero decent options for the backgrounds and no graphics
- interface is not intuitive and difficult to navigate
Hopefully they changed it all from my model, which is why I have a D3 on order
Be sure to try one hands one first. I have the DDX-6019 and
- ipod integration is horrible
- zero decent options for the backgrounds and no graphics
- interface is not intuitive and difficult to navigate
Hopefully they changed it all from my model, which is why I have a D3 on order
I'm very surprised to hear your review. I didn't hear you say anything about the Garmin navigation, which I expect is simple to use, and accurate...I've had many Garmin units, and they're a breeze to use right out of the box.
As far as the Ipod control, I played w/my neighbors Z1, and the Ipod interface is absolutely inexcusably awful...when you scroll by artists, you get 8 at a time, and have to go to another page....yawn....I was going to hook up either the Kenwood, or the Pioneer through A/V inputs, so you can scroll on the Ipod itself, or do the blue wire mod on the Pioneer for Ipod control.
As far as the background, I hear everyone make a big deal out of that, but what should matter is the audio, navigation, bluetooth, satellite, simplicity of interface, and user functions....at least that's my .02cents.
DNX7100: Approximately 6 million points of interest (POI)
Pioneer D3: 12 million points of interest (POI)
When you travel and want to get sth, which unit is sweeter ?
A built-in navi memory with 50% less POI unit ? or a FULLY DETAILED unit even with phone number?
To me, I rather want a FULLY DETAILED database unit.
Im confused. Both brand are audibly the same between Pioneer and Kenwood except for FM radio where Pioneer wins. You mentioned bluetooth...How is that with the Kenwood??? GARBAGE. What do mean Satellite? The pioneer gets both sat radio brands so I dont really understand that point unless you were voting for that HD radio thingy that nobody buys. Interface and functionality are defintitely better on the Z1 because of the hard drive. Did I miss your point other than the slow ipod control? If so, buy a D3
I'm very surprised to hear your review. I didn't hear you say anything about the Garmin navigation, which I expect is simple to use, and accurate...I've had many Garmin units, and they're a breeze to use right out of the box.
As far as the Ipod control, I played w/my neighbors Z1, and the Ipod interface is absolutely inexcusably awful...when you scroll by artists, you get 8 at a time, and have to go to another page....yawn....I was going to hook up either the Kenwood, or the Pioneer through A/V inputs, so you can scroll on the Ipod itself, or do the blue wire mod on the Pioneer for Ipod control.
As far as the background, I hear everyone make a big deal out of that, but what should matter is the audio, navigation, bluetooth, satellite, simplicity of interface, and user functions....at least that's my .02cents.
Definetely on the fence about this one now. The Points of Interest issue and the price are swaying me towards the D3 but the features of the Kenwood are nice. Damn. I need a beer.
Also, just wondering, the specs for the Kenwood state that the sceen is aHigh-Definition Active Matrix Color TFT Panel. Is this the same as the D3 as for the High Definition factor? Or does the Kenwood have a better screen. I know it's a larger screen but just wondering about the HighDef.
I do not have the navigation attached to my 6019.
The bluetooth module is average. I have a motorola Q and it works OK, but none of the advanced functions work. Such as moving my phone book to the unit. Some people say I don't sound clear.
The pre-outs are only 2 volt on my unit.
Im confused. Both brand are audibly the same between Pioneer and Kenwood except for FM radio where Pioneer wins. You mentioned bluetooth...How is that with the Kenwood??? GARBAGE. What do mean Satellite? The pioneer gets both sat radio brands so I dont really understand that point unless you were voting for that HD radio thingy that nobody buys. Interface and functionality are defintitely better on the Z1 because of the hard drive. Did I miss your point other than the slow ipod control? If so, buy a D3
I'm very surprised to hear your review. I didn't hear you say anything about the Garmin navigation, which I expect is simple to use, and accurate...I've had many Garmin units, and they're a breeze to use right out of the box.
As far as the Ipod control, I played w/my neighbors Z1, and the Ipod interface is absolutely inexcusably awful...when you scroll by artists, you get 8 at a time, and have to go to another page....yawn....I was going to hook up either the Kenwood, or the Pioneer through A/V inputs, so you can scroll on the Ipod itself, or do the blue wire mod on the Pioneer for Ipod control.
As far as the background, I hear everyone make a big deal out of that, but what should matter is the audio, navigation, bluetooth, satellite, simplicity of interface, and user functions....at least that's my .02cents.
yes, you missed my point...I wasn't giving a review...I was merely stating that I don't understand the big concern with backgrounds, and I listed the things that I thought were important..i.e. nav, bt, sat, ease of use, etc...
as Arthur said, "this is a tough room."
My bad. I thought you meant you could get one deck that was the best at all those features. Sorry
jMy bad. I thought you meant you could get one deck that was the best at all those features. Sorry
To be completely honest, if I DID think that I could get one deck that was the best at all those features, I'd have bought it by now. I spend most of my research time on this forum, even though it's dedicated to only one of the brands I'm considering..because I can't find another forum w/more knowlegeable people....I'm reading about the upcoming Alpine IVA-W205, with new Blackbird/the Kenwood DNX7100/even the one din JVC-KDNX5000. Time is on my side because the harnesses aren't out for my ride, although I"m hoping that a certain someone on this forum, from Ft Lauderdale, will get me through the install without a harness.
What to do?
For those still considering the kenwood dnx7100, found a link that shows the ipod interface. Looks pretty sweet...
Album covers are pretty cool. Looks like its easier to access your playlists, artist, genre, ect. from the D3 as the buttons for each are on the screen though
i think HD wouldn't be an obvious advantage to Kenwood. Come on, a 7" screen, how many pixels is the unit going to output on a 7"? a DVD movie is already sufficent, and ur not staring at the thing for ur enjoyment in ur car while u drive or park. U do those at home. the Car multimedia function is for those who going for long trip, have passengers and have them watch something while taking the long trip. HD or not, it's not big of a difference at all IMO
powa
for me a 7 inch screen is more the .9inches more than the d3... i personally love the D3 i jus want text to speech and for it to look like its supposed to be there
this is why the z1 and dnx7100 and even the new eclipse units (5100 and 6100) all are going with a 7 inch screen and buttons on the bottom...
to me this is a big difference
for those that comparing D3 and this DNX7100 unit, price difference is almost like 700 bucks, how can you compare them? consider D3 is less than half the price to kenwood unit with that many functions.
for those that comparing D3 and this DNX7100 unit, price difference is almost like 700 bucks, how can you compare them? consider D3 is less than half the price to kenwood unit with that many functions.
You make a good point with the MSRP difference on these units. The only reason I even compared them is because I caught a kenwood unit for $1199 so I decided to kick out the extra $250...for the differences in the unit, I think it'll be worth the $250. If I did not find the deal and it was the $700 difference, it would be the D3 without a doubt.
Damn I was completely in the dark about the Kenwood dnx7100.. I might've jumped the gun with the D3 a bit too early. Not being able to navigate through the iPod videos on the unit is a real bummer. I wanted HD radio too..
is the 7100 a bypassable unit? There doesn't seem to be much public buzz on it out there yet...
If it's anything like any of the other kenwood systems, just grounding the parking brake should bypass.
I got a PM suggesting I get a 7100, and I didn't know anything about it before. I went to Kenwood's site, and if they want to sell a lot of them... they definitely don't show it with their site. All they have is some ghey picture of a sunset on the unit, and that's pretty much it. No pics of the menus or audio playback... nothing you would ACTUALLY see on the screen. This is really bad for their business. I threw out the idea cuz I figured I wasn't going to buy anything that I didn't know what it looked like... especially the GPS setup.
Now... I see some pictures of the unit, and I hear it uses Garmin NAV... and I'm curious. I checked out the pictures, and the iPod thing looks *pretty* good... I wouldn't go to AWESOME, though. But, then I look at the GPS pictures, and they seem to be REALLY simplistic. Like, to the point that it's bad. I don't mean "simple to use" I mean "empty and devoid of all the useful stuff Pioneer has." I know Garmin is all like "yay... we're #1 in the industry," but having what looks like a map in crayon on a 7" screen and being used to my AVIC-N2, the look of the GPS on this kenwood left something to be desired. In Kenwood/Garmin's defense, I've never had a Garmin, so I checked w/ a buddy that owns two, and he said that the Kenwood looks just like his two garmins... and he loves both his garmins. Maybe I just have bad taste... or maybe my buddy doesn't know a good product cuz he's never seen anything other than his two Garmins... The world may never know.
Anyway... On with my long post:
Two separate people said that a) this new kenwood uses flash (like camera cards) memory, and 
it only has 1/2 the number of POIs as the Pioneer. These two comments can be intermingled... If it uses flash memory, and I can load in REALLY detailed maps of my local area (with phone numbers), I'll take 6million POIs within 200 miles of my house over 12 million POIs across the whole nation any day. Also, there are a lot of areas around where I live that are new developments that were empty fields a year ago. When I'm at a new mall around here... my GPS shows me driving around in the middle of a field... so forget about trying to get there from somewhere else using a POI or address search. If I could download new maps onto an SD card (I'd buy a 4GB card if I had to) and be SURE that I could get ANYWHERE, I think it'd be a HUGE improvement over the NAV disks that Pioneer has... and Pioneer's disks are EXPENSIVE to upgrade/replace.
Tell me what you guys think...
I have been a long time GPS/nav user. I have also been a long time Garmin owner and I bought a pretty big chunk of their stock a few years ago. I currently have a bunch of Garmin handhelds and StreetPilots and 2 Nuvis (360 and 660). It would appear that I will likely be biased in favor of Garmin from the outset but quite honestly they need to work on their user interface (UI). It sucks! So when Kenwood touts that they use Garmin I just cringe even though it will help my investment.
Garmin really needs to update their interface. They have dumbed down the UI so that you can’t do much of anything in an intuitive way. The company that smokes Garmin in UI is definitely TomTom. You can customize so many different areas but Garmin forces you to use what they provide you even if it sucks!
I have ordered a D3 and hope it will be decent. Some of the things I probably won’t like about is why doesn’t it (and Garmin) use the option of just inputting my zip code to start my address search? From looking at the manuals for both, there is NO OPTION for using a QWERTY style keyboard. The ABCDE style keyboard is so lame and if anyone is even a SLOW typist they can input an address more quickly.
Garmin also does a crappy job with detours. TomTom gives you an option of how far you want to detour such as a few hundred yards, a mile or so or maybe even 3 miles. Garmin just really needs to wake up and get with the program.
Now something I haven’t seen documented for either the Kenwood with Garmin nav or the Pioneer is the option for custom POIs. If it were to be an option, Kenwood would make it easier to input them using the memory card interface rather than burn a CD each time. On my TomToms it is very easy to setup custom POIs and then add them to my devices. I subscribe to services that give me the location of all red-light cameras, speed traps, etc.
This is one area where the in-dash nav companies really need to step it up. They are way behind the portable navs in this area. So while I seriously considered the Kenwood I decided to pass based on my past frustration with idiotic things Garmin does with respect to the UI. I could tolerate it on an ultra-portable unit but day in and out it would drive me crazy. The nav in my Acura is better to use most of the time than my Nuvi even though it is 2 years older than my Nuvi.
I could go on and on about my gripe with the Garmin interface but what is the point? If you are a rank beginner, it is like having training wheels you can't ever remove and later they get in the way. TomTom gives you the option of the stupid NOOB interface or the more advanced I want to do it all interface. Garmin doesn't think enough of you to let you make your own choices.
Ultimately it was the Crutchfield deal that had me dive in. The free camera and discount coupon meant I bought a full featured in dash system for less than I paid for my Nuvi 360 when it came out with a set of European maps.
I don’t care if I may have to swap DVDs on occasion. I’ll use the video source an input from a Zune or iPod rather than play a DVD. I have a lot of foreign movies that the lame DVD player wouldn’t read anyway since they aren’t zone 1 and I haven’t heard of a hack to make most of these region free anyway.