Instead of just keeping my 6 disk stock unit and buying a separate Tom Tom or Garman portible navigation, I think I am just going to drop a few extra bucks and get an all in one head unit. What is a good, decent priced Navigation + DVD head unit?
Right now I was looking at the: Eclipse AVN5500 and the Kenwood Navigation package (KVT-617DVD + KNA-G510 ) Anyone familier with either one of those or recomend a better one?
One that had Bluetooth would be awsome as well, so would traffic re-routing. Any suggestions what would work nice in my new F150?

 

I have the Eclipse AVN5495 and love it. The Eclipse, Kenwood & Pioneer are all great units but I don't think you can beat the Eclipse as far as audio quality.

 

I am not a big fan of Kenwood myself however Eclipse is a very good brand. I use Eclipse in my own vehicle. Alpine makes some good DVD / nav systems. Pioneer is ok. They are getting more on the cheap side now though. Their lower end product is not very good in my opinion and their higher end product is taken by Alpine and Eclipse. I would say they are middle line in my opinion.

 

I agree - Eclipse or Alpine would be my first choice. Im not familiar with either lines models for '07 - but it shouldnt be hard to do a little research. Check www.alpine1.com and www.eclipse-web.com

Another line that really sparked my interest is Valor. While I was still buying electronics for an audio chain here in NE. they were just emerging as a new line. They now have a very broad line of in-dash A/V/Nav units that are priced very aggressive. The guys I used to work with are all very satisfied with the quality and reliability. They are a 'prime manufacturer' - meaning they own the manufacturing facilities - and produce models for other brand names. If you compare them with other brands you will see alot of similarities (I'll let you figure out what brands they make )

 

I have the kenwood ddx-6019 double din in dash dvd player. I have been very happy with it. I pulled it out of my 99 when it got wrecked but haven't had a chance to get it installed in my 2007 yet. I would think you would want this unit over the 617 because that is the singe din fold out model. The double dins look much nicer in our trucks. I have not had experience with kenwoods g510 navigation package yet, but I read enough good reviews about it to go ahead and order one for myself. I should have it some time this week. I do have the bluetooth kit for the stereo and found that it works pretty good. I only had it in for a week before my truck got totalled so I didn't get to play with it much though. I was not able to get my phone to upload it's contact list, but I think that was a Verizon limitation and not the units fault. Also, it is very easy to disable the video/nav lockout on the 6019 by simply grounding the parking brake wire. Some of the other units are more difficult.

I think that kenwood also now has a 7019 and 8019 available that have a couple more options like ipod video compatability if that interests you.

Finally, I don't think that you can go wrong with the Alpine or Eclipse units. They both usually produce very great quality stuff, I just got a better deal on the Kenwood and wanted to give you some feedback on it. Best of luck.

 

Hey 200Proof why is that Eclipse AVN5495 you love like a thousand bucks more than the other Eclipse I suggested? It seems to be like the same thing...Huh I just went on the Eclipse website and the one I suggested isn't even listed?

Yo Cln2po that "Valor Multimedia NVG-670WT" does look pretty sweet you can can it for just over a $grand$ and it even already has the Bluetooth installed... I am still going to research, but I am leaning towards this for the value. And of what I have read online people are pretty happy with it.

Also Beerstalker what does "double din " mean actually? Is it basically just a bigger head unit?

 

I believe the AVN5500 was last years model & has been replaced by the AVN5510. The main difference between the AVN5495 & the AVN5500 or AVN5510 is the 5495 has a 30 gig hard drive that serves 2 purposes: 1) the Nav is on the HD rather than DVD based so it's much faster, only takes 1 or 2 seconds to map a destination & less than a second to re-route if you miss a turn & you can play a DVD while in the Nav mode 2) the HD stores about 3,000 songs that can be downloaded to it - this is the main reason I went with this model - it's pretty awesome, I have every CD I own stored on the HD and you can group & arrange them all different ways and the playback is just as good as the source CD. The 5495 also has a memory stick drive to play MP3's & you can map a destination by phone number or business name which is pretty cool.

 

That is sweet, I don't think the Valor systems navigation works like that with the harddrive.

 

Pioneer makes a few. The new AVIC-D3 should be available in a few weeks or months.
Does a lot and it only lists for $1000.00.
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pn...264980,00.html

 

My wife has an Alpine DVD type unit in her Caravan. It has worked flawlessly for almost three years and I love it. I wanted to put a Nav unit into my Ranger but every unit I looked at forced me to compromise in one way or another. I was looking for a dependable unit with bluetooth capability. I personally would worry about using a hard drive type unit in an automotive environment. They're flakey enough in my den. A HD failure will immediately turn your $1500 radio into a brick. Think about it. Have you ever had a hd failure on your computer? Has your DVD drive ever bit the dust? I've lost several HD's but never a DVD. Now take that HD and put it in a car where the temp can vary between -10 and +120 and the humidity can be between 20% and 100%. My problem was that I was never able to find a DVD unit that was also bluetooth capable. I was leaning towards the Kenwood P-Nav6019 because it is bluetooth capable and it uses an SD card, not a HD. My only concern with it was the limited amount info you were going to be able to put on an SD card. I was willing to compromise utility for dependablility and was ready to buy. This new Pioneer unit sounds perfect. It's a DVD unit, a double Din, uses the latest Teleatlas maps and it's bluetooth capable. The price point is a bonus. It sounds perfect.

 

The kenwood GPS unit uses the SD card to update the infromation in the unit not to actually store everything, that memory is internal to the unit.

 

I don't own one so I can't confirm or deny so I'll accept your statement as fact. The only other problem I found with the P-Nav 6019 was finding a convenient but out of the way place to mount the second box. Any hints on that one? I don't like putting electronics in the mud zone.