Pioneer Avh-P3100Dvd 5.8-Inch In-Dash Touchscreen Double-Din Dvd Multimedia A/V Receiver Right now

First off, I'm late to the party, so I won't repeat what you can find in the other reviews. I will say that I love this unit, despite some frustrations I have had (some of which were self-induced).

I lost the face plate for my previous head unit, a Pioneer DEH-P80MP. After searching eBay for a couple of weeks (where I bought the entire HU in the first place), I noticed that most faceplates were selling for more than $100 with shipping. Instead, I decided to suck up the difference and buy a new unit. After much searching, I decided to go with the AVH-P3100DVD, in part because of the price. (I have an older car so I didn't want to drop too much on a new stereo.)

After receiving the unit, there are three things I love about the 3100, even for Pioneer's "entry" DVD unit:
1. Basic control buttons on the left side of the unit. I don't know how reliable the touchscreens will be, but if it fails to work for some reason in the future, I can still control the source, volume, and track with mechanical buttons.
2. External USB port. When I was reading reviews before purchasing, some people complained about the front-facing USB port (e.g., lack of clean lines). I think it's great. I can pop in a USB drive and play music. Most of my trips are 1/2 hour or less commutes, so I tend to have 20-30 songs on a drive that I swap out frequently. The USB drive is a super-handy way to do this. Get one of the USB drives with a blue LED and it even matches the display...
3. The sound and picture quality are both good. When hooking up the unit, I was testing out the DVD with "Pirates of the Caribbean". The booming of the cannon fire and music made me think I was back in the theatre... only with a tiny screen.

Of course, even though I love the unit, people reading reviews often want to know what's "wrong" with it and, like anything, this unit could be better. Here are three things I wish were different:
1. The DVD set-up was a pain. I did not want to splice my emergency brake cable so I wanted to use a by-pass. (I know this is illegal, hence the parking brake switch, but I don't watch DVDs while driving...) The system was set-up, I had a bypass switch in place, and the receiver would play sound but no picture. Sometimes it would put up a warning message on the screen; usually it would be blank. After MUCH frustration, I found a small blurb in the manual about using the unit after driving. You have to switch the bypass from off to on to off again, then wait a couple of seconds and voila picture. My bad, perhaps, but it could have been more clear...
2. The normal display font is blocky and dated looking. Since the DVD player displays such good picture quality, why not smaller or different fonts?
3. To protect the touchscreen from greasy fingers, Pioneer includes a tiny, little touch pencil with the unit. I lost this in about 3 days.
4. You can load pictures, but if you load and use an image as a display, it "trumps" the DVD player. When I tried playing a DVD some time after loading my first picture, it was back to the same old sound-no picture problem I had on install (see #1). After toggling the bypass switch several times and realizing that wasn't the problem, it took me some time of trial-and-error testing before finding that I needed to turn off the image to show the DVD.

Note (neither good nor bad): I nearly shelled out $40 for the iPod connector. I decided not to buy this and glad I didn't waste the money. The iPod connector is only needed if you are planning to watch video from your iPod. Otherwise, you use your iPod charging cable to connect the iPod directly to the USB port. The 3100 detects it, and even puts a little iPod-like image on the touchscreen to control the song tracks.

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