Jvc Kwnt810hdt Car Stereo 7inch Navigation Bluetooth Hd Radio

When you think about it, buying an aftermarket navigation/stereo for your car has to be one of the most important buying decisions one can make. Someone who considers doing that probably spends a lot of time in their car, and spends a lot of time listening to music in their car. They're likely replacing a stock or aging stereo, and they have high expectations - after all, it's not a cheap purchase. This was my thinking when I took to researching aftermarket nav/stereo units for my 2013 WRX. I didn't like the stock head unit, which lacked navigation and had limited stereo features. So I did plenty of research, and decided upon this JVC unit. I've been very happy with it.Some of the things that led me to the JVC were:- Clean, simple but nice looking interface and graphics. I didn't want anything too flashy, and other units that had "swipe" functionality worked so poorly. We're used to phones that swipe nice and smooth, but the swipe animation on head units I looked at was clunky and worked poorly.- Solid state hard drive - so it's quick. You press a button, it reacts instantaneously - like it should. No lag.- Ability to match the button back lighting with my car's dash lighting - I didn't want a red dash and a green stereo, I wanted it to look as stock as possible.- Great features - but honestly, most head units had these same features - Bluetooth connectivity, video playback, SD card slot, etc.I installed the unit myself, but I would not recommend doing so unless you're comfortable taking about the dash of your car, connecting about 20+ wires, etc. I personally love that stuff, and I trust myself to do it right more than I trust an installer.Now that I have owned and used the product for nearly a year, here are my thoughts...- The navigation voice talks too much. This is my biggest gripe. I read this from another reviewer and thought, "how bad could it be??" Well, it's bad enough that I turned the voice off. It will literally give you 4-5 alerts that an exit is upcoming, within a couple of miles of the exit. I don't need that much prompting.- The navigation will sometimes take a few minutes or more for it to seem to kick in. The map will be visible, and the red arrow indicating my car's location will be there, but it will not track my movement for a few minutes. Only once has this been an issue. Overall, it's just a minor annoyance.- I wish there were more options for changing the color/background for the AV graphics screen. There is only one - the standard blue look, which you cannot modify through the settings panel.- When connected via Bluetooth, the album art doesn't appear. I'm not sure if this is a limitation on the head unit's side, or my phone - but given my phone is very standard (iPhone), and I'm using a very mainstream music player (Spotify), it seems like it should work. Minor annoyance.Overall, I'm very happy with this unit and would recommend it to others. Compared to the other models I considered, some of which were more expensive, I feel this one has the best look and feel, and better performance.

And my darn return window is closed! I'm going to have to sell it at a fat loss on ebay. I've been bench testing this unit on my electronics workbench to make sure every thing worked as advertised before actually mounting the JVC into my truck. I updated its firmware to the latest version. Bluetooth with my iPhone 5 disconnects every few minutes. Cannot watch movies from iPhone 5 (even with the special and expensive USB cable). Also, this special "iPod" cable has the old 30-pin connector. You'll have to shell out $40 more to get the Thunderbolt adapter. And you still cannot watch movies from iPhone 5. You can hear the audio, but no video shows up on the JVC. And even with the GPS antenna attached, the JVC unit thinks it is in Chicago (I am in California!). I tried programming my "Home" into the navigation system of this unit. After 30 minutes of un-success trying to do this, and with all of the cumulative "stones of frustration" that have been tripping me up with this unit, I had to pop 4 Xanax and lie down. I beg you not to buy this unit if you have an iPhone 5. If you do buy it, please bench test it to make sure all of the features you expect to work actually do. And for heaven's sake, if you have even half of the issues I've had with this JVC, RETURN IT BEFORE THE 30 RETURN WINDOW CLOSES! I screwed around with this JVC hoping to get it to work for me and I made a $1000 dollar mistake in letting my return window expire. Now that I've written this review and re-read it for proofing, I need to go lie down again and take another handful of Xanax.*** EDIT: June 17th, 2013 ***I meant "Lightning" connector, not "Thunderbolt".If I had it all to do over again, I would have gone with Alpine. JVC & Kenwood are one in the same company, I do believe. I did try the Pioneer AVH-P8400BH, but updating its firmware was a total nightmare. You could only update the firmware via Bluetooth file transfer. I was able to transfer the update file, but the update process itself always failed.To be somewhat fair, if you read the fine-print on this JVC unit, it states that the iPhone 5 is incompatible with video playback due to Apple's new "Lightning" connector. I guess I missed reading that part. My bad.Also, GPS wasn't working due to my own fault. The attic in my house has radiant barriers. This was blocking the antenna's signal. So I stuck the GPS antenna out of a nearby window and the unit detected my true location.BUT.... the Bluetooth issue still remains. I've used every Bluetooth device I own to try to narrow down the JVC's disconnecting problem. I used my iPhone 5 (which has Bluetooth 4.0). I used my Nexus 7 (which has Bluetooth 3.0). I even used an old Bluetooth USB dongle (Bluetooth version 2.0) and a brand new USB dongle (BT 4.0) from my Windows 7 laptop. All with the same result. The JVC will pair just fine and play music for a minute or so and then abruptly disconnect / lose connectivity with my streaming devices.PS- This JVC unit uses Bluetooth version 2.1

its a nice radio but too expensive for what it really is, on the other hand i brought it to ecuador and i can't find any maps available for the gps function

I thought this stereo would be everything i wanted in a stereo. Specially for that kid of money and a 2012 model at that. When it said compatible with the iphones, i figured i would beable to stream videos and movies from youtube and netflix etc.. not thru the usb nor via bluetooth. I guess thats my bighest complain. I already knew the gps directions were not as good as a tom tom but i was told you could use the waze app which would habe been fine or even google maps, but it turns out that i cant even use those apps. Seems the 4 and 5 iphones are the only ones. I wish i would have gave thought of the year this unit was put out grrrrr. I am not sure if it would be worth the money to see if the lighting hdmi adapter will work with it, since i already paid to have the stereo put in.Other then those few complaints, i love the looks of this unit in my honda ridgeline, i love the sound and being able to watch movies, pandora and iheart..iHeartRadio is a big plus as i only get one radio station in for some unknown reason.If anyome can help me solve any of these issues i would greatly appreciate it. Id be happy if i could just mirror my phone to this stereo without forking out hundreds more dollars.I am very disappointed in JVC for not putting up any updates for this model. All the money that people pit out for this and they cant even keep us updated. I will update thos is i get any of this solved as it is a womderful din.