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User Review w/pic and vid - Bluetooth Head Unit - Pioneer 7900bt |
po0p
Joined: Oct 08, 2002
Posts: 33
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I've read a few posts here and there about bt head units when I was doing my research on the DETAILS of user-friendliness of these things. I didn't find enough info for someone as picky as I am. I know through experience that Car Audio guys know how to make great audio playback equipment, but often slack off in refining the user interface or anything on the software-side. One day, as I was searching for reviews on the 7900bt, it hit me. All the B&M retailers carry this unit!
...So I walked into Best Buy with my Sony Ericsson W850 to test out the Pioneer 7900bt head unit with built-in A2DP and AVRCP support. Within a few minutes of snooping around the pioneer ui, I had my phone's name, "Chris's W850" scrolling on the head unit's display.
With a big grin on my face, I looked left, right, over my shoulder, pressed the walkman button, and then started playing DJ Kicks: Erland Oye. Like magic, my music was blaring out of the demo speakers with quality that was beyond my expectations. I was expecting the quality I got from pairing my old plantronics m3000 and a computer times two for the other ear. That's some low expectations. Even after reading some opinions saying "it's good, not great" - I thought maybe it'll sound like FM transmission JUNK. Not even close! It sounds way better than that FM crap! If you're on the ropes like i was, go out to your local store and test it out! You will be impressed. (I understand that with stereo headsets the discerning quality of a2dp will be much more apparent compared to car speakers.) Be warned though that if you have super high-end speakers, you might be able to EASILY notice the audio quality of a2dp stream vs a CD source.
I quickly tested the AVRCP fucntion of the head unit. It plays, pauses, stops, skips tracks just fine. It does not display the song titles, artists, or any sort of information on the screen - which is expected from what I've read. I think that's a limitation of bluetooth which applies across all brands. I was ok with that, I have my phone dash-mounted and have access to advanced navigation between albums, artists or playlists, or if I needed to be reminded what I'm listening to.
I tested a call too while I was there. And the music resumed after the call ended as it does with the standard hpm headset. Slick stuff.
So based on these reasons, I walked home with the Pioneer 7900bt:
-Having 4gb of music on me everywhere I go INCLUDING THE CAR without having to carry or invest in an ipod (which btw, with most head units on the market, also requires extra $$ cables and broken slow navigation through bazillion mp3s)
-No need for MP3CDs anymore. For people like me who keep one "current favorites" mp3cd in their head units...... don't you hate burning a full 700mb mp3 disc even though you just want to add an album or maybe just a song or two to an existing library and keep everything else? Wasteful! So you then find yourself waiting until you are tired of EVERYTHING on the current MP3CD before burning a brand new 700mb cd because it's more "worth it" now? Enter the convenience of flash memory!!
-My Playlists! Feel like listening to House? Indie? Hip hop? Or maybe you got your girl next to you and just wanna show her your love songs side. Load it up on the phone and drive - no need to navigate through a bunch of folders, skipping songs or disrupting your mood or drive. This is a functionality of the phone, not the head unit. But having the head unit lets me accomplish this.
-And being able to take calls hands-free. Not something I really cared for, but appreciate it once I actually used it a few times.
Ok so those are the main reasons why I bought the head unit. Let me get into the things I discovered after purchasing the head unit.
The mic is superb, I mounted it on the steering column in front of my gauges. I was concerned that my voice wasn't going to be heard through the droning of my exhaust. It's actually better at picking up my voice at a couple ft away from me, than my piece of #%@^ plantronics 640 is at 4 inches. I put my exhaust silencer back in to improve the quality a bit more. Echo cancellation is awesome. The combination of the mic and echo cancellation is a conversation that's much better than using the phone's mic and speakerphone function. Why is it much better? People can tell when they're on speakerphone most of the time, they can't tell I'm using the head unit.
Ringtones! The headunit pauses the streaming music, and is either silent while it shows the incoming caller id on the screen, or you can pick one of 3 ringtones. A standard electronic-sounding phone ring, an annoying beep that sounds like a smoke alarm, and an old-school MIDI-like melody ringtone.
I noticed that if you don't have a 1 or country code in front of the area code in your phone book entries, the head unit won't be able to match up the incoming call to your entries and display the name!!!! Perfect example of unrefined BS from Pioneer. My SE has common sense programmed in, and is fine with letting you enter in contacts without the country code. So the result I got was my phone showing who is calling, but my head unit just shows the full number. The fix? Go into all my contacts on the phone, add the country code, and retransfer to the picky pioneer head unit. That way the headunit will display the NAME of the incoming caller properly. At least the entire phone book transfer part is painless.
The head unit automatically connects to the phone whenever the car is turned on. That's a good thing, but it doesn't automatically play. And in order to play, it takes 4 movements/button presses to play!? It takes 2 for my phone, walkman button, and then play. Sticking to that method and ignoring the Pioneer crap.
If you CALL OUT from the HEADUNIT while bluetooth music is streaming, the connection between the phone and head unit gets messed up after the call ends. When you resume music playback, it comes out of the phone's speakers instead of through the head unit. This forced me to turn the phone off and back on and reconnect in order to resume playback through the car speakers.
***Calling out from the phone or answering a call from the head unit is fine!! Music resumes properly.
Sometimes music pauses. There's no static, no noise with A2DP, but I will get the occasional pause. Happens once every other car ride up to 1 second of pausing. No, it's not like cd players w/o shock protection, I can handle the phone just fine, wave it around and it won't cause the pausing. It will occur even if the phone is sitting tight in my pocket or on my dash mount. So far the only way I've been able to recreate the pause is by closing the slider which auto engages the keylock. Other than this, every occurance is random. This isn't a huge issue for me, but I'm just affirming the occurance with others' accounts of this happening.
Number tones don't work through the head unit. There's no way to dial numbers to navigate through automated menus. If you want to navigate through your voicemail menu, you have to press the numbers through the phone. I was hoping this was possible through the included remote (it has individual number buttons), but it's not. I thought this was just a result of another poor unrefined software/ui but my friend reminded me that his dual-din touch screen D3 isn't able to either, we realized that it's a limitation of bluetooth, not the headunit. Again not a huge issue for me since I have my phone in reach while I'm in my car.
---For all intents and purposes the head unit is fantastic: I no longer need to burn cds (actually, I have yet to insert anything into its virgin slot ), I can use my existing phone and mp3 player, I can edit my mobile player library AND car audio library at the same time with ease, use affordable 4gb media that I already have, be able to navigate through those songs without slow painful pioneer/alpine/etc software.
***********VIDEO***********
Basic functionality
http://youtube.com/watch?v=UkYpz4wer5M
***********VIDEO***********
[ This Message was edited by: po0p on 2007-06-28 12:48 ] | |
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carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
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Nice phone mount installation, nice head unit and very nice review!  Congrats on being the first to post an A2DP head unit review. 
I'm looking forward to (one day) getting the Sony MEX-BT5000 or cheaper MEX-BT2500 which I believe can list song titles and text messages on the head unit screen, though I have yet to see this proven. Song titles and caller ID are listed on the BT watch OLED display so it is possible to do.
BTW, I'm guessing that your car is a late-model Honda. Which model?
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If a man speaks in the woods and there's no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?
[ This Message was edited by: carkitter on 2007-06-28 08:06 ] |
batesie
Joined: Feb 13, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: London, UK
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nice tidy job. and its a great look too!
looks like a civic saloon to me? probably wrong!
Nice review by the way, i have been looking at A2DP head units myself recently 
[addsig] |
po0p
Joined: Oct 08, 2002
Posts: 33
PM |
thanks guys!
but Carkitter, you startled me a bit when you said the Sony could display song information. I thought I read that it couldn't. So I did a little search found this review on cnet
that says it can't. http://reviews.cnet.com/in-da[....]2500/4505-6729_7-32369072.html
However, the timemasters3 site does confirm that walkman watch lets you "see what track is playing on your watch face." Hm I'm not sure what the technical reasons are but I think it has something to do with being designed FOR SE walkman phones ONLY. While everything else out on the market (that can't display song info) is designed for generic a2dp/avrcp devices. Hmm.... we could be onto something here... Now SE just needs to get in touch with Sony Car Audio guys and get them to make a special walkman phone edition head unit. That would be the first and only Sony head unit worth buying. ..... yeah right haha 
but seriously..the sony bt2500 was something i looked at initially... it's a pretty great bargain for an a2dp solution, and it looks great - none of that ugly Xplod junk plastered over its face. But in the end I just wanted a bit more from my head unit.
Anyway, Carkitter's right, it's a Honda! But no, not a civic saloon!
It's a prelude.
[ This Message was edited by: po0p on 2007-06-28 12:51 ] |
carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
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...but Carkitter, you startled me a bit when you said the Sony could display song information. I thought I read that it couldn't. So I did a little search found this review on cnet
that says it can't. http://reviews.cnet.com/in-da[....]2500/4505-6729_7-32369072.html ...
Anyway, Carkitter's right, it's a Honda! But no, not a civic saloon!
It's a prelude.
You may be right - I looked around and certainly can't disprove your statement  MEX-BT2500 doesn't have the full range of features and MEX-BT5000 displays caller info, RDS, CD/MP3 track info, but I couldn't confirm A2DP track info  The review of the MEX-BT5000 on the site you linked to paired a Nokia which appeared on the head unit display as 'unknown'; I doubt A2DP track info would be available if the phone name is unavailable. Further on they paired a Samsung which showed the model number ok, but they didn't try the A2DP functionality with this phone OR with an  so I'm still left wondering.
Certainly there's no comparison between mic quality; your external mic is excellent, the Sony in-built solution is average. Gotta wonder why they did this when they could simply include a standard carkit mic in the package. 
I was gonna say Prelude but they're fairly rare and some Civic models are similar... Good choice, I'm saving up for one of those myself, having become too old/mature? to buy another VTEC Integra.
Edit: Instead of a  special edition head unit how about an Xplod branded phone to add to the Cybershot, Bravia, Walkman lines? 
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If a man speaks in the woods and there's no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?
[ This Message was edited by: carkitter on 2007-06-29 12:30 ] |
Aware
Joined: Jun 24, 2006
Posts: > 500
From: Oxon, UK
PM |
Carkitter, MEX-BT5000 does not show A2DP info.....
Have tried it with K800i/P990i(it's in a customer's MR2 SW20 Turbo), plays fine, just no info.....
....caller number appears on call, I should be able to check over this weekend if it displays caller ID(it's coming back from ECU tuning/rolling road), will let you know asap....
Xplod series.....you may be on to something there!
 p990i(r6d), n82-1(20.0.062) * treat people as you expect to be treated! * a-zott platinum/tttt in ~3 years...  rip expanded call lists! |
carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
PM |
Hmmm... shame
Yeah I noticed that car and head unit here when researching yesterday. Very cool.
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SE and Vodafone sponsor Motorsport in OZ
If a man speaks in the woods and there's no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?
[ This Message was edited by: carkitter on 2007-06-29 13:15 ] |
Jdukey
Joined: Sep 22, 2007
Posts: 1
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It is possible to send music track, artist etc information using the AVRCP profile, but it is only available in AVRCP v1.3 (and later presumably). I'm guessing that the watch has that version, but the phone would need to support it too. I have no idea which phones do/don't.
James |
carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
PM |
Aha! The plot thickens. Parrot MK6100 also has AVRCP v1.3
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carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
PM |
Found this statement on the website, at the bottom of the BT watch page:
"Track title will only work on Symbian phones with software release MR-E or later and on Java phones with software release MR-5 or later."
Edit: "Track title display is not supported with the following phone models: K610, K618, K790, K800, K818, M600, P990, V630, W710, W830, W850, W950, W958, Z610, Z710"
I wonder if a firmware update would cure this???
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[ This Message was edited by: carkitter on 2007-10-20 23:50 ] | |
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Posted: 2007-06-27 23:37
p990i(r6d), n82-1(20.0.062)
