Was at the local strip mall over the weekend for odd and ends and figured I would stop into Ultimate Electronics just to see if MAYBE they had the D3 to play with...

They did, cool!!!

Well, I started to play around with it and it seemed VERY "crippled":

Couldn't change backgrounds

Couldn't go into demo mode

Couldn't get to pretty much any of the menu settings

I asked the guy what the deal was... He said they are not allowed to put the DVD into the slot since someone could steal it... Okay, that was a reasonable answer, I asked, could you go get it... No, he said... And, pretty much just stood there staring at me...

Also, he said that there was no way for them to hook up the parking brake sensor so he said a lot of those things are "locked out" when you are not in park...

I am thinking to myself, they can't insert the DVD and they can't perform the bypass on their display board???

Weird...

Well, a slightly more helpful guy came over and pretty much said the same thing the other guy said...

Then he asked if I wanted to buy it... I told him I wanted to do some competitive shopping first...

He immediately said that they do match Crutchfield's online pricing... I did not ask this... He offered that info...

He also said later this year they will be releasing the Z3 which will be a combination of the Z2 and D3 for around $1,600.00...

Anyway, it was nice to see the actual unit and play with the multi-color buttons... You can actually make the buttons "black" (RGB 000), I thought that was kind of cool... That was about the only feature I could get to work...

Now that I have actually seen the unit, I will be purchasing it from Crutchfield...

Later,

Mark

The Z3 sounds cool, but at $1600.00 its a bit too rich for my blood. Heck, I'll probably be holding off a couple fo months for even the D3 just to make sure my finances are in place.

Quite well educated salesmen. Especially since there is a demo mode and a way to lock the nav disk in the unit for display purposes

OR you do what I did at work and burn a backup disc. Put that in. and Lock the drive.

Not to mention the fact that he thinks that a Z3 will be coming out later this year when a Z2 hasn't even come out yet.

Yeah... It was quite the anti-climactic and under-whelming experience...

I was glad I actually got to see the physical unit and at least play with SOME of the features, hands-on...

Even if they totally matched the Crutchfield price (which I doubt they really could with the no tax and all that) I would be weary to buy it from them simply due to the poor support...

Mark

ya because the z3 exist

It does I have one sitting in the parking lot next to my car. Not bad looking, but a little too small for me.... Oh wait that's a BMW Z3 not a pioneer. Oh well.