Pioneer Navigation System

Overall Rating
 3 of 5

Value Rating
 3 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 1.00 votes

Price Paid:  $1700.00 from Tweeters

Year / Model Reviewed:
2005 AVICD1

Strengths:
Comes in handy for traveling in unfamiliar territory. Nice overal alternative to factory navigation systems

Weaknesses:
Mapping is often inaccurately scaled in my area. Routing often illogical. Mapping extremely outdated. Tehre are roads that have been changed in my area since 2002 but have not been changed on the mapping CD.

Summary:
An ok system with some strengths and some flaws

Price Paid:  $1300.00

Year / Model Reviewed:
 2002

Strengths:
Very fast auto re-routing. Very fast destination chooser. Very clear, detailed maps with multiple zoom in/out levels controlled by toggle swithch. Voice commands. Loads of features. Very accurate. DVD covers US and Canada.

Weaknesses:
Maybe some more voice commands.

Summary:
The Pioneer AVIC9DVD navigation system is really the best I've seen. Very fast mapping and calculations. Very logical route selection: it chooses the fastest routes that I would normally choose myself. Gives distance to next turn (checkpoint) with highway exit number and name. Gives distance to final destination. Very precise. Clear map and clear sounding directions. Voice control feature. Loads of features. Can watch DVD's on my Pioneer AVD W6010 monitor with very nice, crisp, clear widescreen picture. RGB, S-video, and RCA outputs.

Similar Products Used:
Copilot 2002 for notebook.

Price Paid:  $0.00

Year / Model Reviewed:
 2001 AVIC-9DVD

Strengths:
Fast route and re-route calculation; excellent graphics; ample POI data, option for CUE traffic radio (not evaluated); PC Card (CF) interface for address storage and updates; voice recognition for pre-entered addresses

Weaknesses:
There are several: 1 - Route selection is poor and inefficient more than 25% of the time. The AVIC-9DVD will attempt to route or re-route the driver distances of three to five miles to a destination or waypoint, when the correct route selection should be a mile or less. In more than one instance, driving no more that 800 feet straight ahead would put you at the next waypoint, yet the AVIC instructs the driver to make several illogical turns to drive five times the "correct" distance to get the same point. The map data itself, supplied by Navigation Technologies, seems quite accurate (the map graphics display all streets properly), so the process by which the AVIC decides on selecting the route is what is poorly implemented, especially for something at this hefty price point. There are several user options which allegedly allow the driver to tailor their route selection preferences, such as Fastest Route, Shortest Route, Avoid Freeways, etc. None of the combinations matter in terms of improving the routing inefficiencies, and the Shortest Route command seems to be often ignored in favor of choosing only the most major of side roads, making the choise the Not So Shortest Rou

Summary:
The Pioneer AVIC-9DVD is a feature-rich product that suffers in the most critical area, mainly the logic its'' routing software uses (or doesn''t use!)

Similar Products Used:
2000 BMW 740i Cd-Based Navigation System (Alpine-based, I believe, with map data also from Navigation Technologies) Graphically, the BMW system is inferior, with a smaller screen and coarser graphi

Price Paid:  $2400.00

Year / Model Reviewed:
 99 Linc Navigator

Strengths:
DVD map software that uses GTD map along with NavTech maps, Voice recognition capabilities and routing and rerouting speed and graphics due to the twin 32 bit processors, it also can find addresses via business phone numbers much like the Alpine NVE852A DVD navigation system. This system is recommended for the advance GPS car navigation system users, not for beginners!

Weaknesses:
The cost of the Pioneer AVIC 9DVD is not for the average consumers, the systems I put in my vehicle cost over $6,500.00 not including labor. But the Nav system alone is over $2,000.00 and you will need to buy an additional display monitor, the cheapest you can get away with is probably around $3,000.00. I installed a multiple 6 disc DVD changer along with the Pioneer AVX P73000DVD head display unit with the AVMP8000R. Great system but the cost is not so great. System map software does not inform you which side of the street the address is on, the Alpine, Magellan and Visteon system does. Pioneer AVIC 9DVD does not offer the Off-Road Navigation software like the Magellan and Visteon.
System is not as user friendly as the Magellan, Visteon and Alpine units, it will take sometime to learn how to navigate with the system due to the extra features it offers.

Summary:
The new Pioneer AVIC 9DVD navigation system is one of the best navigation systems currently available. I was very impress with the twin 32 bit processor speed, 1 DVD disc holds coast-to-coast U.S maps. The voice recognition works well and the rerouting is lightning fast. The system has GDT map software so it will route you to areas that is not currently available through NavTech maps alone. The graphics is great, the "Drivers View" display map software is one of the best I seen.
Over all, I feel currently this system is the best available in the market today.

Similar Products Used:
Alpine NVE 851A DVD Navigation system, and the Old Pioneer AVIC 505 C/D Navigation along with the Magellan 750M system, which utilizes a hard drive and the Visteon NavMate C/D navigation system.
The system is very impressive! Comparing it to the Alpine, Magellan, Visteon navigation systems, it does pretty much everything the other navigation systems has to offer, but the Pioneer AVIC 9DVD system offers it at a much faster speed for routing and rerouting and can utilize voice recognition commands for routing along with the additional map data base coverage utilizing the GTD maps along with the NavTech maps that other Navigation systems currently does not utilize except Denso Navigation system.