The best tool for the person who has no idea where they're going
Written: Apr 21 '02
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: So much better than a Thomas Guide, voice commands, DVD playback, address book
Cons: Freeway-surface street confusion, strange glitches, laborious data entry
The Bottom Line: It fulfills any possible use you can come up with, and coupled with the right hardware, turns any car into a powerful mapping, entertainment and communication resource.
|
|
|
| rsung's Full Review: Pioneer AVIC-90DVD Car DVD Player |
This probably says it all: when I'm not driving my own car, I have no idea where I'm going. Is that a good thing? Probably not, but then again, it's a testament to how useful this machine is.
The AVIC9-DVD is Pioneer's newest DVD-based navigation system. The first question I think most people ask: yes, it does play DVD's, and it does it pretty well. But it is so much more than that. First, it operates on a DVD-ROM system, which encompasses the 48 continental states, along with Vancouver and Toronto. It not only includes all the streets in the country, but also a decent bag of points of interest. These POI's range from golf courses to schools to malls to restaurants. It's a fabulous feature, and it really expedites trying to enter an address.
Unfortunately, entering and address can be a laborious and frustrating exercise. If you have the exact address, complete with a North/South/East/West prefix, and the St/Ave/Blvd/Rd/Cres suffix, it's not too bad, but if someone just gave you the street number and the abbreviated street name, you could really be up the creek.
Fortunately, Pioneer enabled the machine to find an address by cross street as well. It doesn't solve all your problems (for instance, if a street has numerous parts, such as North of South, it could still be a real pain).
That said, once you do have the address in, the machine works terrifically. It calls out turns, based on whether you're on the freeway or surface streets, between 7/10 of a mile to 2/10 of a mile. Audible prompts temporarily mute the radio or music to call out directions. Route options include avoiding freeways, the "shortest" route by distance, avoiding toll roads, avoiding ferries, and detours of various distances, from one mile to 50.
All of these options can be initiated by the excellent voice recognition technology. This clearly puts the Pioneer unit ahead of any nav system out there, whether installed by a car manufacturer, or an aftermarket machine. Not only will it understand default commands like "Home" (the user-programmed home location) or "Avoid Freeway". No, the most impressive is its ability to match your voice commands to user-defined address book entries. Want to go to your buddy's house? Hit the voice recognition button and say his name as you've listed it in the address book. It's a far safer alternative than trying to type his name in while you're rolling down the road at 75 mph.
That said, the routing could use a freshening. I often find the AVIC9-DVD routing me along strange freeway routes when a quick exit would suffice. The unit clearly prefers to use freeways wherever possible. It may have something to do with the default freeway-street speed settings, and I plan to fiddle with it further.
More concerning, the unit has begun to show strange signs of "confusion". Once and a while, it will freeze, providing no directions for sometimes up to 2 minutes. It will revert to working perfectly after that, but why is it locking up? Another time, all the maps were covered in a bizarre checkerboard and test-screen pattern. A day later, no problems. Are gremlins perverting my machine at night?
Given my gripes, it might seem like I'm dissatisfied with the unit. Nothing could be further from the truth. It has totally changed the way I drive, from long drives turned into rolling movie night, to getting around a city you've never seen before like you've lived there for years. Even in your home city, it allows you to find the nearest freeway entrance when the usual one is under construction, or gives you turn-by-turn directions to the swanky new hotspot that's impossible to find by normal means. Perhaps most importantly, it takes all the guesswork out of finding directions. Frankly, it's a safety feature. No more peering at dark street signs, and back to focusing on the task at hand, namely, driving safely.
I cannot recommend this unit enough to anyone willing to shell out the dough. Once you get a handle on how the thing works, it's a snap to use, the address-entry interface notwithstanding. If you spend time in the car, you could use an AVIC9-DVD.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
rsung
|
|
Member: Michael Sung
Reviews written: 26
Trusted by: 4 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.