update this thread once you have spent a little time w/ the d3 and comapre the navigation to the garmin's. i am interested to get your opinion since you seem like a seasoned navigation user.

Interesting reading....I'll say one thing about TomTom.....if you've ever tried to deal w/their tech support, I'd rather watch grass grow than go through that process again. I bought my sister a TomTom Go 700, with a cell phone that they recommended....she still can't get the bluetooth to work, and they are virtually unreachable for help.

On the note of custom POIs, that IS something that Pioneer can do. At least if I understand what you mean by custom POI.

I have an AVIC-N2, and this is what I WAS and WAS NOT able to do:

A new mall opened near me, and it used to be just empty space along the highway. The first time I went there, I WAS able to sit in the parking lot, and assign MY EXACT LOCATION as a POI that I could guided to from anywhere, as if it was my HOME location...

I WAS NOT able to update the roads that lead to the mall, so while I knew from my "breadcrumbs" (the little white dots that follow my car on the overhead map) where the road was, there was just a star in the middle of emptiness right off of the highway. Getting guided there was simple... getting there was hard. I might as well have parked my car on the moon, set the POI, and then came back... My nav had no idea what roads to take, and undoubtedly, every time I try to get there, my NAV makes a trip for me, but I never get there. It'll say "you have arrived at your destination," and I'll be on a back road somewhere nearby, and I can SEE the mall... but cannot see the roads I'm supposed to take to get there.

Anyway... A long story longer... I think that Taz hit the nail square on the head when he said that portable units are ahead of in-dash. I think a HUGE selling point for any in-dash NAV would be the ability to download maps or POIs, and burn your own disk. Kenwood has it started if you can put maps on a SD card. And if you CAN'T update your maps (I don't know the facts), then it's a total waste having the crappy UI and having no upgradability. It's possible that the sole reason that garmin's look so plain is so that they are easily upgraded. ...?

Personally, I've never seen the point in the only choice for the user is two double-layer DVDs for navigation. Why not download an .iso file with maps of your local area on it, and burn it to DVD? I don't leave my state... but I get lost in it a lot. Even if the manufacturer didn't like the idea of people burning their own dvd maps... the SD thing is still a good idea. The problem is that SD cards are way more expensive/GB, but they're reusable. I

I don't know... I feel like I'm talking in circles. Tell me what you guys think.

D3 w/ a better interface, or Kenwood w/ Garmin & updatability?

yes, i'm consider getting the kenwood also, bigger screen, full control on the video Ipod. I'm getting it for 1200 end of the month.. anyone need it let me know. You can email @ [email protected]

Interesting reading....I'll say one thing about TomTom.....if you've ever tried to deal w/their tech support, I'd rather watch grass grow than go through that process again. I bought my sister a TomTom Go 700, with a cell phone that they recommended....she still can't get the bluetooth to work, and they are virtually unreachable for help.

TomTom (TT) tech support does suck. Garmins has continually fallen as well. This isn't to excuse TT's but in Europe it is better than here. Difference is I have never really needed TT's tech support whereas I have had 2 Nuvis turn into electronic bricks. DO NOT use the online updated IF you have a Garmin Nuvi. If something affects your update the Garmin will likely not recover. After the first one I learned my lesson. I then backed up my Nuvi to my PC before doing the update. I then downloaded all the files locally to my PC. When the update failed I was able to recover from my PC hard drive since I could still see the Nuvi as a HD on my PC.

Something TT has that works quite well is POI alert. This is where the nav unit will alert you with a special tone of any POIs you've set up in advance to be alerted too. For example I have setup all the red light cameras in my area to have an alert when I get within 250 yards or so of them. When I travel in Europe I have it setup to warn me of all the photo radar systems.

Ideally what I'd like to see is BT integration with my phone to a real-time database that could update my nav unit as frequently as I deemed necessary. Other users could then put in a speed trap they saw that day into a real-time database and I could download it to my nav unit.

The way TT handles custom POIs is I can define them on my computer and then download them all to my TT including a graphic image that I want displayed with them. I can also share them with anyone else I want. I have little images depicting redlight cameras and speed traps with various speeds on them. I can then sort and organize to my heart's content on how I want them displayed. By default TT REMEMBERS the categories I use most and puts them at the top of my list. It dynamically re-arranges them as I use them. I don't have to scroll past 10 other categories to get to the ones I want to use the most just because they may start with the letter "S" or some stupid way Garmin organized them.

I can have a huge number of custom POI categories and a huge number of POIs within each category. For example when I travel in Europe, I have a POI category just setup for cheap fuel places and one for ATMs that don't shaft me on ATM fees. In the US I have POIs setup for all the Acura, Toyota, BMW, etc. dealers listed under each name of manufacturer. I do that with motorcycle dealers as well. I have a custom POI category for just my customers as well. Think of it as a custom folder structure on a PC that I can organize as I wish.

The Garmins do no bread crumbs from what I've seen on the car navs or the Nuvis. My Acura Nav (apparently an Alpine) does and so do the TT's I have.

While I am not a huge fan of DVDs, at least with 2 full DVDs there should be a lot of data for the D3. A good POI database is essential to me. I haven't seen the file structure on the Pioneer yet but it might be possible to hack it and maybe update POIs but I don't know and I am not familiar enough with it to see. All they are, are just little database tables. If they aren't encrypted it shouldn't be too hard to decipher. Maybe someone has already done this. If so then it might be possible to make your POI categories and then update the disc image. This is all speculation on my part at this point. If someone has any info to this effect please direct me there.

As it is now I update the POIs on my TT frequently because it is quick and easy and not so often on my Garmin as it is more of a PITA. Maybe you like to golf, it is a simple matter to setup a custom POI category of golf courses and then share the info with your friends if you have a TT. You can email the POIs files and images quite easily and then add them to your TT. If you do Garmin's POI loader, it tends to wipe out what you already had when it over writes everything so you better keep whatever you loaded. On the TT you can see it as a drive and then drag and drop or use something like POI editor (great program) that will automatically keep your POIs updated with any services you might use.

So with the limited amount of POIs and no real easy way to update them it appears, the D3 is a better choice for me than the Kenwood. I don't need HD radio either so no big plus there. There is almost no info on Kenwood's site and if you download their flyer there is nothing about the 7100. If nothing else the introduction of the D3 is going to put downward price pressure on all the other nav units because I haven't seen another unit that offer the bang for the buck the D3 does especially at this price point. I had considered the more expensive Pioneers but they don't really offer any more than what I will really use on the D3. I can live with feeding the DVDs for the nav system and use an external DiVX source for my vids. If the interface is better than the Garmin's then it will be a great option for me. If not CF has a 30 day money back policy. Almost no risk here to give it a try.

If the unit is a POS, I'll glady report my findings. I've used nav systems for way too long it seems so I tend to be intolerant of glaring screw-ups by the companies that make them.

One thing that has me concerned about the D3 is that while is has 12 million POI, when you put in a name, the output list is not sorted by distance. So when I put in Starbucks, or BurgerKing, or whatever, they are sorted by the street name. Most of the other Nav systems I have seen sort by distance, which seems a lot more useful. Not sure what the Kenwood does.

I have an N2 (w/ N3 software), and I have circumvented that problem by first putting in the city, then the name of the POI... or searching the "vicinity" through the various pre-sorted groups (gas station, bank, etc).

I'd be nearly sure that all the Pioneer NAVs work in this way.

Hope that helps at least a little.

That does help some. Part of the problem though is that I am in Orange County, CA, which is very dense, and has a huge number of cities very close together. So it's not unusual for the closest whatever to be in another city. The by vicinity pick does exactly what we need, but it doesn't let you filter by name. If I get the D3, I would end up using that. It's just too bad they don't do that same ordering in the POI pick. My Honda Nav even has an arrow pointing the direction of the POI in addition to the distance in case you don't want to backtrack. You can also constrain to "Along the Route" if you are taking a trip. I'm looking for something like that for my Mazda. Otherwise, the D3 would be an easy choice for me. And I may still end up getting one.

Not sorting by distance annoys me too, and I'm glad to see someone else say they hate the ABCDE keyboard!!! I was just thinking how I wish Pioneer gave the option of a QWERTY keyboard, especially after getting a PDA phone and realizing I can input text with the onscreen QWERTY keyboard (which is very tiny) at maybe 10x the speed of the ABCDE keyboard.

IMO, flash memory would be more reliable and faster than DVD. You never have to worry about moving parts or optical pickups wearing out. With the Garmin-based navigation, is it possible to copy extremely detailed maps of just the places I plan to travel to, or is it pretty much what they give you is all you have? I guess what I'm getting at, is the 6M POI's, is that just how many you can fit on an SD card at a time, or is that ALL that's available to you ever? I have never used a handheld navigation so I have no idea how they work. Also, does Garmin have the option of a QWERTY onscreen keyboard?

Also, I have heard the iPod interface on this and also the DDX7019 is hugely improved from last year. They are now USB iPod control, and I believe it's no longer even limited to iPods. I read one review that says if you want to get to about 2/3 through a huge list, just click in the 2/3 position on the scroll bar and instantly you're there. Unfortunately, I don't think it's compatible with old 3rd and 4th gen iPods, but since the USB works with anything, I'd probably just get a USB hard drive for a quarter the cost per GB.

The Garmin handhelds I have used only have ABCD keyboard layouts also. I use QWERTY on my Honda Nav.

The Z1/2 are switchable to QWERTY

The Z1/2 are switchable to QWERTY

Yet another reason that I'm considering spending twice as much on more features I don't need.

Too bad the Z1/Z2 don't use upgrade disks, or else you could flash an N- or D- series radio w/ the QWERTY-friendly software.

One thing that has me concerned about the D3 is that while is has 12 million POI, when you put in a name, the output list is not sorted by distance. So when I put in Starbucks, or BurgerKing, or whatever, they are sorted by the street name. Most of the other Nav systems I have seen sort by distance, which seems a lot more useful. Not sure what the Kenwood does.

OMG, I didn't know that it wouldn't sort by distance. This is a MAJOR problem for me. What were they thinking? So no arrow or nothing to indicate where the POI is relative to your position? This makes POIs worthless on the interstate as you don't know if you are coming toward them or you would have to backtrack to get to them.

Nobody had a D3 in stock to play with when I ordered. Anybody know if the Kenwood has this issue as well? I can't deal with a non QWERTY keyboard as well as no POI sort by distance. How they hell can I know which street is closer to me in a city I am not familiar with????

I use vicinity search when on the highway or in an unfamiliar area. Looks for stuff within like five miles and tells you the distance. If you hit the little map button next to it, it shows you on a map where it is.

And not that its really important, but I have Starbucks selected as a POI overlay so there is a little starbucks coffee cup wherever they are. I just touch the starbucks logo, hit the checkered flag, and it takes me there. Most nav systems will not find starbucks anywhere near that easily. I do the same thing with my bank, a couple different gas station companies, and a few restaurants. Makes it really easy to navigate to businesses I frequent when traveling for work, which is alot

Yeah, vicinity search works fine if you're traveling and not looking for any place specific, just wanting to find a fast food restaurant or hotel for example.

What kills a lot of time for me is if I'm looking for a specific address or specific place in the city I'm currently in. I have to dig through a list that's NOT sorted by distance. You can narrow it down by city before entering the POI, but that's an extra step which is time consuming thanks to the non-QWERTY keyboard. It should definitely sort by distance which sounds like it would be really, really simple for their programmers to do.

Maybe if we all write to Pioneer, they'll listen? Anyone happen to know an email address for someone in charge of software development of the nav systems? I would like to ask for POI's sorted by distance (or configurable sort that is remembered until you change it), QWERTY keyboard, and a less important feature I would like is adjustable clock size. I envision it being something like the clock has 3 sizes: Small (what it is now), Medium, Large. Tapping on the clock cycles through the sizes.

yeah, and while you're at it, get Tony Bennett's email, and tell him what songs you 'd like him to sing.

I'm considering returning my D3 for the DNX7100 to crutchfield.....

The things that make me unhappy with the D3 are:

1. It doesn't play MPEGs and is picky with what files it will play (must be avi with DX50 attribute from what I've found personally).

2. Doesn't list the files on a DVD data CD like Kenwoods do which make it easier to pick a music video rather than view each one.

3. 6.1 inch screen

This is my first navigation device and it totally impressed me with how accurate it was in finding addresses and directions. I haven't used a garmin product before so I hope I'm not taking a step down in that department.

Other than that, I love the D3 for what it is and the value. I'm waiting for a local dealer to get the DNX7100 so I can play with the interface. I still have about 2 1/2 weeks to figure it out.

zoomzoom:

If you return the D3, do you know if you have to also return the "free" stuff that came with it such as the camera, cables, etc?

I am also considering making this move. I got the camera, install kits, and other pioneer stuff with the deal and I am wondering how this will work.

Any idea before I call CF?

Yeah, you'd have to return it all.

I've been happy with my DNX7100. I don't have bluetooth or XM so I couldn't give you any info on that. I plan to get bluetooth soon. I hear the call quality is good.

I’m going to buy the Kenwood DNX 7100 over the Pioneer Z2. The Kenwood is much more media friendly which is very important to me. It can play a DVD-R loaded with mp3's (who needs an iPod?). As a minimum, I’ll be adding an external HD filled with mp3's or I may even add a carpc to play lossless music files.

I'm returning my D3 for either a DNX7100 or KVT819DVD. Not too sure yet if I should go for the double or single din.

My dilemma is:

DNX7100

-Navigation

-No external box

KVT819DVD

-Single din so less conspicuous

-Cheaper

-Can remove face plate to make it less attractive also

-Still can show time during DVD playback (dnx won't show while fullscreen afaik..and neither can the D3)

So basically its security (or less conspicuous) vs. Navigation.

Been racking my brain trying to figure this one out .

i finally decided on the dnx7100 because i found it for cheap and it just looks better than the d3. Will soon order bluetooth, has anyone use the kca bt 100 yet?

i dont understand all the conspicuous talk about the D3... its just a screen people... if you are so paranoid about a double din navi system then cover it with a cloth when you park your car... and more so have it placed on your insurance

i wouldn't settle for a single DIN b/c i was afraid it would get jacked

as my fiance would say... cars are for driving... dont make it so nice that you cant drive it and enjoy it

i dont understand all the conspicuous talk about the D3... its just a screen people... if you are so paranoid about a double din navi system then cover it with a cloth when you park your car... and more so have it placed on your insurance

 

i wouldn't settle for a single DIN b/c i was afraid it would get jacked

 

as my fiance would say... cars are for driving... dont make it so nice that you cant drive it and enjoy it

Been there and done that with the cloth..actually I used a towel. Being less conspicuous is just ONE reason why I returned my D3. The D3's file browsing system wasnt up to par compared to kenwood's. I've had a person ask me what I was covering with the towel and from there on out I knew it's more a magnet than a preventive measure to put a towel draped on my dash.

Anyway, I feel more comfortable walking away from my car with a single din unit than I would a double din in terms of security goes. If you don't have a problem with a double din, thats all you.