Official 2.0 Firmware Opinion/Results Thread

[diaftia]

1. Sirius integration. The preset buttons work like physical buttons. When programming a preset it doesn't show the station that was programmed on the preset (or that its programmed at all). So when I want to go back later and add a preset, I have to figure out what preset is not programmed and then go back to the station I want to program to the preset button and save it. Something I would expect with physical buttons. (presets are not even mentioned in the operational manual)

2. Nav guidance says "continue going straight" way too often.

3. VR data does not upload everytime.

4. Phone (iPhone 3G) just does not often connect at all for some reason.

5. Bluetooth quality is poor.

6. Arrow in maps is way too large in 3D.

7. 2D maps should have the option to point in the direction I am heading like the 3D maps.

8. iPod album art is grainy when made large.

9. Volume knob should work when on a call (not just the on screen buttons)

10. iPod should pause when on a call and not just mute.

11. EQ should have a professional mode so I can adjust each band individually.

12. MSNDirect usually does not update gas station names for some reason.

13. No FM radio station identification. Where (in my area) 107.7 would display "107.7 The Bone - Song name"

14. Display button for Sirius channel and programming data should have an alternate feature. Don't make me choose between artist, song or composer. Have one option that alternates between all three so I can see all information.

15. Scroll artist, composer and song information so when its truncated. So for example on Howard Stern, I don't just see "Paul McCartney" I see "Paul McCartney in Studio" scrolling.

[chriso]

Sorry to bump this thread - but wow - I love my F900 once again.


Ok - I've had the F900 since it first came out - had it installed back in July of 08 - lived with it - then the 1.7 update came out - wow - that was cool - unit much better (not perfect but noticably better) - I've finally applied the 2.0 update and the bluetooth update.

Despite some initial issues with my black berry pearl - now that I've updated that - my Bluetooth connectivity is consistently 1 minute and never drops - extremely stable - sound quality is perfect.

IPod interface remains unchanged which is great because that has always been trouble free and stable.

I'm not sure why people are whining about album art - some albums look great (ex audioslave album with the ocean on it - nirvana looks completely cool with the baby swimming..) and some look funky - mostly though they look fine.

hang in there Pioneer - and please keep the updates coming.

[mattlach]

My opinion?

The 2.0 update was a huge leap forward, but the unit still behaves like a pre-release beta product.

We'll need plenty more updates for this thing to behave like what anyone else would consider a final release candidate.

[PeterUbers]

A few people have mentioned... "for a $1200 product... or ..for a $1000 product...."

I would say that for a 500.00 product, it's not bad, not great, but not bad. I knew what to expect going into this, and I still wanted to stay at a certain price point. It's useable for me, so no big worries.

I wouldn't buy this at $1000+ ....

[gbm01]

Since "The ol' Bat" left me in charge and alone, I can present myself as a new member of about a week, with the Pioneer F700BT installed for a little longer. There seems to be a lot of great information available. Thanks for all the work those who came before have done.

I had a question regarding the review in the head, or first post of this thread. It sates, "Also the destination is cleared out once you have arrived." I find this does not occur and gets to be a little irritating. I turn off the car and when I turn it on again, when the Nav system comes up, I get the last instruction as if I did not arrive.

I hope to do some of the mods, especially the 'delete route in the compass button' but, in the time until, other than going to the 'Delete Route' icon through the menus, any suggestions on why my route does not automatically delete upon arrival?

[rmatusek]

Glad this firmware update fixed all everyones audio problems however, Navigation is still an issue. My unit does not recognize HWY 249 in Tomball Texas however, it recognizes all other surrounding HWY'S. This is very frustrating as I travel 249 a lot and the unit wants me to take the side road next to the HWY we call them feeder roads. IfI get onto 249 the unit says stay right take next right - to get off the HWY. Again this is the only HWY I have found thus far where this is an issue. Pioneer sells the unit and I am not about to wait another year for a map or software upgrade. I am expecting a fix in the next couple weeks or I am going to take this back to the dealer in favor of another unit. Garmin units do not have this problem nor any other unit I have seen and tested. Yes I have notified tech support at Pioneer but no help yet. 249 is a main HWY around here for many years so this is not a new HWY. I hope others are checking out the HWY functionallity of the Navigation portion to see if there are other problems.

[akatsuki...]

Huge improvement over previous software.

Still laggy at times, especially from the SD card, and the bluetooth can get wonky at times.

[ianken]

Got an F500BT for $200 including the amp and ipod cable.

Never used it with the previous firmware.

Impressions:

UI Pretty
Phone paired easily but then was semingly lost after reboot, but it just took longer than expected to find the phone.
Contacts transferred (TMO Shadow) easily .
Contacts UI is totally useless. I have multiple entries for each person with no indication what they are.
Video playback (divx AVI, 480p/30) is choppy and useless from SD.
Video playback from USB is very unreliable. Tried three thumb drives.
BT is OK. But not great. Takes a while to find the phone. OEM systems in both of my cars gets it on powerup and sound better. I wanted a good contacts solution, this is not it.
Map only oriented north...no option to change.
ipod integration is very good, IMHO.[*]

I picked this up because it was on crazy fire sale. Not sure if I will go for the permanent install. The killer for me is the lame contacts user interface and I could find no way to edit them. The BT in this unit is about what I'd expect after my last Pioneer BT enabled headunit: very flaky with a half-assed contacts implementation.

[Alphaman]

Yeah, what ianken said. (BTW, great deal you got on the unit!)

I did run with the previous fw, for a few hours. It was the sux. In that short amount of time, it crashed on me multiple times.

Since upgrading to 2.x, it's only locked up a couple times since I got it upgraded in March.

Things I think could be improved:

• More consistent UI -- there are at least 4 different i/f's for controlling media playback, which makes the unit look like it was made by 4 different tech school graduates from 4 different countries:
  
  • iPod control
  • Radio control
  • SD card playback
  • Video playback
• Boot time is still too long (yes, I know how long it was with 1.x, but it's still too long)
• "Back" button doesn't always go "back" -- it's more of an "up menu" button.
• No fast scan through songs. (e.g., I've got a song that's 1h10m long on my SD card, and if I'm only driving a few minutes, there's no way I'll ever hear the whole thing) Either a fast-fast-forward, or a scrollable position slider is needed.
• Display brightness should be a slider, not 10 +/- presses.
• No time remaining on SD card songs, just time into the song.
• SD card video playback is useless (echoing ianken, I know, but it really does!)
• Updating VR dictionary should be a background process, and not prevent you from doing anything except voice commands!
• VR works great with iPod, but sux with phone. (No matter who I say, it always tries to call AAA!)
• Button press registration can sometimes be really irritating; sometimes I can hit a button 3, 4, or 5 times, and then all of a sudden it will register 1, 2, or more of the presses. There may not be much that can be done about this -- it behaves like a basic Windows interrupt handler, and may not be in the AVIC sw, but the OS itself.
• Speed sensitive volume only controls the nav UI, not the music, and then when it does change it, it's either too loud or too soft. (My stock head unit would increase the volume a max of 6 dB, over the range from 30 MPH to 90 MPH -- just about enough to completely negate the wind noise with the sunroof open.)

That'll do it for now, I think.

[DeeX]

Thank God for 3.0 coming soon

[joyboxjeff]

"Contact names are displayed for incoming calls - Great!"

mattlach & gaucho posted threads saying that their incoming calls displayed only numbers. I'm having the same issue on 2.006. I verified that all the people who have called are in my contacts database, but when I receive a call I see only their number, not their name.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Jeff