I found myself driving my Toyota more these days but the stock radio in a 99 does not have MP3 playback compatibility so I decided alright, I need to get me a new radio with a AUX jack and iPOD hookup. So I browsed around and found a few different head units for under 200 bucks. I then find myself being spoiled by having a navi in my other car so was thinking of grabbing a portable GPS system as well because I thought I could save some bucks. I got a Bluetooth headset which annoys me when I have sunglasses on while driving so that's when I started looking into a in dash navi with the bells and whistles. That's when I came across this PIONEER navi. It has Bluetooth, it has MP3 playback, it was a NAVI and the price was very well reasonable, I figured buying a Bluetooth, mp3 head unit and a portable gps I minus well get me a ALL in 1 in dash. I did a whole lot of research in this head unit and decided to buy it. I bought this on the 13th of MAY 2010 and received it around the 17th. I installed plenty of radios in my life, but this was my first NAVI I ever installed with a Bluetooth. I grabbed a wire harness to make life easier, and I recommend getting a wire harness for your car. Being the first time I ever installed this system, I was able to get it done in less than a HOUR, it was SIMPLE, plug and play and wiring your GPS antenna and where you want your mic to come out for Bluetooth is at your preference. I wired my mic to the driver side top visor area and my gps antenna is on my dash board driver side corner. I also wired the ipod connect and AUX to come out of my glove box. I did all this in less than a hour and this was my first time, so of course I was a bit sketchy of the results, well, the GPS turns on right away, it was a little delay but it picked right up. I entered some addresses around my neighborhood to go around to see how quick or laggy it would be (I am from LA county) and it was perfect, turn by turn and SIMPLE. The best part about the NAVI I loved (not sure if all of them are like this, but my scion navi sure is not) is it would tell me to make a right at a quarter mile ahead, but when I get closer it says make the next right, that's the business I tell ya! I was also able to change the volume of the NAVI voice while having my radio on so I can hear how loud it will be over my music, loved that feature. Overall the NAVI part of it being a simple system, I rate it a 9 out of 10, the only weak points I found in the NAVI feature is the POI, there are not many to chose from. Now, to the Bluetooth, I had a really hard time connecting my berry to it at first, it kept saying connected, then terminated and connected and terminated and was annoying me for about 10 minutes. I read a lot of reviews about it having this problem so I decided to try to mess around with it a bit. What I did was I deleted my phone from the PIONEER Bluetooth setting and started the process over, this time I paired it from the PIONEER rather than the mobile phone and the PIONEER head unit picked up my phone and I paired them, entered the PW and bam, I didn't have that problem with Bluetooth anymore, of course by this time my friends were annoyed of me calling them to check my Bluetooth LOL. Luckily I was able to drive around and test it, everyone can hear me clear with my windows rolled up, they didn't even know I was on a headset, so I decided hmmm, let me try to drive with my window down and they told me they can still hear me clear but sounded like I was far from the headset, which is fine to me, so I said you know what, let me get on the freeway and have the window down and guess what? They said they can hear me, but it seems I am on speaker, so hey, that works out just fine right! Now for the big test, I was on the phone, doing a navi to a destination, and while I was on the phone having a full on conversation my GPS still talks to me and doesn't pause my conversation, I loved this. The Bluetooth part of this I will give a 8 out of 10 for me having trouble the first moments of getting dropped every time and finding the perfect place to set the mic. iPOD connect and AUX connect are awesome, I was able to control everything on the iPOD through the head unit but I was not able to control everything through the AUX port, I had to still scroll through my berry for the music to play through the speakers, but that is for every AUX port. As for the iPOD connect, it works miracles like they should, so connecting an outside source via iPOD or AUX, I give it a 10 out of 10, crisp and clear. Swapping from navi to other sources was cake which is a huge bonus for me. The only issue I had and was very disappointed with but can live with it was the MP3 playback, sure it plays it from a CD-R but it did not want to play my MP3 data I had saved on my DVD-R, my scion did this and NO IT DOES NOT HAVE DVD, everyone was telling me its because the NAVI don't play DVD but my stock scion does not play DVD either but was able to read my DVD-R datas MP3, that was the only bummer for me in this Navi. Other than that, I am happy with what I got, the price that was paid for it was well worth it for your basic Navi, Bluetooth, Music needs.Get more detail about Pioneer AVIC-U310BT 4.3-Inch In-Dash Navigation Receiver with CD Player and Bluetooth.
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