Pioneer AVIC-D3 In-Dash GPS Navigation System with DVD Player

I purchased this unit 2-3 years ago--can't remember exactly, but it was when it first came out. Which was my first mistake (wait until it's been out for a while and read reviews). Second mistake was purchasing the bluetooth wireless phone component. DO NOT BUY THIS.

What's good:
- GPS is fine
- XM is fine, as was Sirius
- Radio is fine
- Ipod is OK--scrolling is kind of a pain, but overall works pretty well

What's lousy:
- bluetooth phone. I used this thing for a year before my friends finally told they could never understand a word I said on the highway. I went back several times and had things remounted and microphones put in different places and it's still awful. I wound up buying a headset, which, having spent over $200 for the bluetooth phone install, was highly annoying.
- backup camera. This went back. Very inaccurate in terms of depth perception. I almost hit something behind me thinking it was about 15 feet away when it was actually more like 3 feet. At least I got my money back!
- display. For some reason, I don't get full illumination during the day until about 8 minutes after I've been driving. This is a new problem. The guys at Car Toys (who are VERY familiar with my face now) don't know why.

I was just told that Pioneer, along with most everyone else, has switched to Parrot for their bluetooth phone interface and the Garmin for the GPS. Pioneer, if you are reading this, you should give me a flipping refund for the bluetooth P.O.S.!! As it stands now, I will never purchase or recommend another Pioneer product for any vehicle. I also could never get Pioneer on the phone for any problems I had.

Best advice: Try Kenwood.

I purchased this from a dealer in January, 2009, who installed it very well. 2.0 firmware out of the box. The unit has some good points, however, the bottom line is that it is mostly annoying.

PROS;
1.) It generally works, sooner or later. The integrated functionality with bluetooth, iPod, DVD, GPS is nice.
2.) iPod functionality is much like the real iPod interface using the touchscreen.

CONS: This unit is slow. The touchscreen is slow, sometimes pauses for a long time. The unit reminds me of when Microsoft came out with Windows ME when pentiuum first hit the streets: Flaky and slow and it gets confused about once a day. . . needs a Ctrl/Alt/Delete key to reboot it seems

The GPS is slow. Slow. Forget a rear camera because it takes much too long to boot. My wife has a Magellian which is much better as it announces street names and is faster and gets it right more often. Being new to Houston, it is tempting to borrow her Magellian just to not have to put up with this (garmen) contraption.

The voice recognition is poor. It misses more than it get it right.

My biggest complaint are the FONTS (Pioneer are you listening!?) I replaced a nice clock in the dash and because the fonts are soo small and some baby-blue color, I frequently have to have a passenger tell me what time it is, much less the GPS info. Annoying is an understatement.

Bluetooth is also annoying. The volume is all over the place some days. The fidelity of the voices coming through the car speakers is very shrill and cannot be adjusted, even though the other audio is OK.

If I thought the dealer would give me a refund this late in the game, I would. There has GOT to be something better out there --reader, you probably want to shop around- I wish someone had warned me. . .

Great product, but I give Pioneer a big FAIL with updating this product. It seems like they just used this product as a filler between two major releases. If the software on this unit was updated, this would be a GGRREEAATT buy!

This system is a good radio/cd player but unfortunately that's it.

I bought it for Sirius sat. radio and navigation.

The navigation is very inaccurate, the cheap portable units at Target can run circles around it though you'll be the one going in circles if you rely on this navigation. It never takes you the same way twice, even on a round trip. And the routes it chooses are never the optimal. It loses me or shows me 100 yards to the side of the road on a clear day. Finally it will often not tell me I need to turn until I am on top of the turn. If you don't watch it the voice warning will come too late and you're past your turn.

With Sirius you get an awful display. You can see the channel, the artist, the album, OR the song. It has a huge display but can't show the same information as my cheap plug in unit that I got for free years ago. Since Sirius can transmit all of that info it is ridiculous that Pioneer couldn't do the little programming it'd take to be a good sat. radio.

I couldn't be much more disappointed with this. I wouldn't buy it knowing what I know now for half of what I paid. Look at a Kenwood with Garmin navigation and avoid this unit at all costs.

A true home run of a product. But it is really worth $99,999? I think not. Would put this kind of money into a new 911 and pocket the savings!

i just got my avic d3 and have no idea where to start for installtion.. can someone help please?

Inexpensive, easy to use, great features. Far superior to my wife's OEM Lexus in-dash Nav. The iPod adapter is a must.

Why I like it:
1. Very Inexpensive.
2. Bluetooth Integration. ND-BT200, works great with this set. I was even able to upload my phone book to the unit, so I don't have to go to my phone every time.
3. Rear-View Camera integration. I got the camera custom for GM SUVs. Works great, very crisp and clear view. It even has its own gain at night so things don't appear dark, even in complete darkness, though I believe that comes from the camera itself, not the D3.
4. I was able to add a 12-Disc CD-Changer for about $150, so I don't need to remove the Nav DVD from the head-unit each time.
5. Using an adapter for my 2005 Denali I was able to keep my steering wheel controls for volume, Source Select, etc.....I lost OnStar though I never used it.
6. To use a few more features, I added a steering wheel remote control CD-SR1 (recommended for AVIC-Z1/Z2), but I added it anyway. Lo and Behold, it works like a charm. Bought this online for $15 shipped.

Why I don't like it (sometimes):
1. It tells me I have reached my destination about 100~200 feet before I reach it, always, every time, compared to the portable el-cheapo models that are off only by 5 feet or less.
2. It doesn't always take the fastest or the shortest route. If I ask it to give me more than one options, the optimal choice is in the list, but its not D3's first choice. So, I have to select it myself. Of course, these are the destinations I used for testing the unit, when I already know how to get there just to see what route it takes me. :( No use, it doesn't take the most optimal route. It will get you there though, won't get lost.


3. When you first start the engine and start moving, the current location is off for about the first minute, and then it comes to corrects itself.

Overall, the unit is good enough for its price, the Z1 and Z2 are about $800 more. I was able to get the complete system installed Bluetooth, CD-Changer, steering wheel adapter, rear-vew camera and of course the D3 for about $1800. Not bad for an in dash Nav system.

Having used portable GPSs for years I was inclined to get a built in one but they were so expensive. Not anymore. I picked this AVIC-D3 up at Best Buy for $699 with INCLUDED bluetooth adaptor (typically cost $100 and up). The unit looks great in my '07 CR-V. Looks factory installed. The sound is great once you figure out how to use the equalizer. At first the bass was so vibrating that it sounded awful but once I figured out how to use it its great.

I bought the ipod adaptor ($30) and that is the best adaptor you can buy. I use my ipod with thousands of songs so I'll never need to put in a CD anymore. It lets me use the playlists, Artists, song, etc just like on the ipod. The drawback of this system is that it doesn't have a search feature so if you want to find say, "Madonna" there is a LOT of scrolling to find it. THey should have had letters to find something, like press "M" for all beginning with M. But if you organize your ipod by Genre, the search is much easier. You have to do that on itunes but well worth the time.

The Radio is wonderful, sounds good and picks up signals my other factory stereo did not.

The bluetooth works good. Although it syncs everytime I get into my car, it will not allow it to get my phonebook off of it so I have to dial from my phone but then put it down as I talk into the mic and the sound comes out of the speakers. Works very well and worth having since starting this summer in California, you must have a hands free unit otherwise risk getting a ticket.

Ok, now for Navigation. The screen is wonderful. The maps look good and the unit is very accuate "most of the time". The one thing this does not have is Text-To-Speech like my other portables have. But I have gotten used to it now as the screen is easy to see and follow and the voice announcements without the TTS works very good. I don't think this unit uses SIRF III gps receiver as it seems a bit slower picking it up once I get out of the garage but still works.

The DVD player works great. You must take out the NAV DVD in order to watch a DVD but the unit does have a memory to go by for areas you recently went to without the disc. I put in "I AM LEGEND" and the sound is incredible. Sounds like you are in a theater with surround.

A HONDA CRV with Nav costs close to $29,000. My basic CRV was only 20,500. With this unit and installation it was about $1100 including tax. Well worth it compared to STOCK GPS NAV systems. Now I feel like I'm driving a more expensive luxury vehicle and am very happy with my purchase.

Awesome product. Nav works good. Sound & Movie quality is Great! Bluetooth works amazing and calls are really clear.

The Pioneer AVIC-D3 is a great after market In-Dash GPS Navigation System. The multitude of features and additional accessories make this system a must have for mobile video/navigation enthusiasts. As with most "all-in-one" type technologies, it does take a while to get used to the interface and menus. Though once you become familiar with them, which doesn't take much time at all, you'll probably find yourself wanting to cruise around just for the heck of it. One slight annoying design flaw is "the system's single disc slot means that users will constantly have to switch between navigation discs and media sources to make the most of its many features." But if this is not of a particular concern to you, then you'll be generally satisfied with this product.

First off, if you plan to use the Navigation system heavily AND a CD/DVD heavily as well, think about it!

I bought this system in the last week and I was able to test it thoroughly this past weekend. It is a very good beginning of the line model and for the price it is going for, even with all the bells and whistles, it is a very good product. If you buy it at the current price from amazon you will get the AVIC-D3($594.95) the bluetooth($94.95) the iPod Cable($15.45) and the remote($13.80-if you need it, my package already included it) totaling for less than $720.

Paying $700 for hardware you get navigation, DVD playing capabilities (video plays only when the car is moving less than 10MPH-unless overridden), iPod integration, cell phone integration (handsfree mandatory in CA beginning summer 2008), you can also get satellite radio and traffic if you want. It is a very complete system and you can also expand it by installing head rest monitors or flip down monitors, rear-view camera, amplifiers, and then list can go on and on.

As far as comparing this product to others in the market...it has it's limitations. It isn't as complete as other systems could be, but the price makes those things be forgotten about.

Cons:
1) It has a limitation on the media loaded. You have one slot for CD/DVD/Navi, so if you want to have a DVD all the time inside your unit, then pretty much forget about Navigation. If you are going to use Navigation all the time, then maybe this system is not the one for you. If you have an iPod however, you can have plenty of music from there without the need for a CD (plus you can play your videos from the iPod too, however you need to manually select them).
In my case, I would like to have two DVD slots where I can get to keep the navigation disc inside and I can get an extra slot so I can put music videos to listen to (music from DVDs is much richer than from CDs or iPod) or have it free for a CD. Juggling discs isn't something I look forward to when I'm even starting my drive, even less if I was driving.

2) The screen size is smaller based on its big buttons (relatively speaking) and the CD slot which is visible. I am unsure what the others are in comparison, but seeing them side to side the AVIC-D3 seems to be dwarfed.

3) Programming and usage of the unit is not completely easy or intuitive. I have not been able to program the 150+ entries from my address book into the nav unit since my phone will only do one by one. The phone needs to be disconnected from the unit in order to do this

4) Lack of tilt feature. Some units allow some tilt so that the glare can be reduced. I am unsure of the tradeoff that exists (on the one hand it could brake and make it unusable, on the other, there's no tilt).

Pros:
1) Very affordable compared to others. With less than 700, I was able to purchase the system, the bluetooth, iPod connection, and a remote (which I don't know if I'll use, but it's there for now). Other systems (the next one up) went for much more, two times more than this one.

2) Although some of the more intricate programming is, well, more intricate and hard, most things are very easy to get to. You'll get how to program your cell phone and once you have done it once, you really don't need to do it. Playing a DVD, CD, out of the iPod, radio (even programming the stations) isn't hard. Using the navi is very intuitive, keep pressing the Menu button if you need to do something and press Map if you need to get back to the map.

3) Has everything you need, or most of it anyway.

4) Expandable. You can have other screens connected to it, amplifiers, camera, satellite radio (XM & Sirius). I am unsure whether you can have HD Radio or if a DVD changer is currently available or if it will be available, but a DVD changer would be a great addition for the system.

In short:

I have the system and it works for me, it has what I need at an affordable price with expandability. At this current time, I would say I would buy it again, although I would look to see if there was a possibility to get one with 2 discs for a comparable, or even a little more expensive.

I would NOT get it if:
I had long drives to difficult locations where I don't know where I'm going and I was carrying kids who would be watching DVDs.

Hope this helps getting you the best system for you!

Product looks is not even covered by pioneer warranty . serial number was scrtached (the installer showed me).

product is lousy .. user interface is non intuitive ..

Avic-D3, I reciently installed pioneers nav/dvd multimedia in my 08 corolla, it looks stunning, has many many options. Of Course every option requires additional equipment to buy. i puchased it new on amazon for just over 700.00, well worth the money..Also the best part.. it is easy to change the background to what every you can upload to it. i got a great picture of my kids on it!! i love this feature!!!

-Navigation- Beautiful picture, lots of points of intrest, my house not found :(..but i can set a Wave Point and label it my address! 15 gig hdd can only store memory temp, one trip at a time. Need to use Navi DVD every new route.
-Bluetooth adapter- cd-bt200. easy to install, easy to use, sounds like speaker phone on other end.(lots of complants) cant upload my address book on my phone even though option is there. (lg9900 env)
-Sirius Tuner- easy to install, option there for siruis traffic on menu screen, would be a nice addition to nav, but sirius cant link up with this head unit at this time :(.. cant figure out how to edit presets to show channel name, xm can do it, siruis doesnt have directions in the manual.

-Great unit. should be a [...] from pioneer now at [...]- Feb thru Mar 08.. i recommend anyone who buy this or any other AVIC unit to read [...] lots of good help here

First off, I am NOT your average buyer. Meaning, that I research prices and items for great value. I consider a value the amount of money that I am spending, for the material and/or workmanship that I am receiving. That being said, this receiver marks an EXCELLENT value for the price in what you are getting. The touch screen is amazing, and the gps is near flawless. I highly suggest adding the Bluetooth and Ipod adapter as well as the Sat. Radio option. This adds to the total value of the unit. Did I mention that this thing also plays MOVIES strait out of the box? Amazing.

I have had it for over 3 months now and have not had a singular problem. If you want to spend thousands on another unit, be my guest, but there is no challenging the value of this buy, and its a Pioneer.

I love this multimedia player. I particularly love the ipod interface and touchscreen controls. Cons: The navigation disk need to be used. ALso, I have a double din sized opening (7 inches) in my car and this is 6.1 so have a little gap. Other than this, the unit creates a nice sound, has a great deal of features, bluetooth is clear (added feature). I would buy if your looking for an entry level unit and short on cash, but if you can wait and have the money get the pioneer linc coming later this year...

I installed the Avic D3 without any major problems. The only major flaw I have found is the parking break safety. The unit must see the parking break on before it allows you access to any menu options on the Navigation option screen. Only problem is if you don't use your parking break before you start your car a red warning message comes on the screen after the unit powers up. This is a stupid setup and Pioneer wants me to remove the unit and send it back to the factory for a software update. No way am I going to take the whole thing apart to send it back. So now if I forget the lock the parking break before I start the car I have to reset this warning message. This is a poor design!

Pioneer AVIC-D3 15GB In-Dash GPS Navigation System with DVD Player, very good and no compare, great price, under one thousand buck, I use with other DVD set at under the driver seat connect to DVD navigation with audio video cable input and connect to additional LCD under the ceiling, DVD under driver seat select input A/V at the front you may play additional games or other systems but have to looking for additional eye remote control connect from DVD under seat to the front of navigator let you easy control DVD at under driver seat at the front driver seat, plus flip down LCD install under the ceiling of the SUV or what ever, cost additional or flip down about 90 dollars "Cheap very good for my SUV
Thanks Pioneer good product cheap and full funny while travel by vehicle

This unit looks good on paper. However, it has two major flaws, big enough to make me return it:

1. Unless the car has the parking brake on (even though it may be in gear) the unit is significantly crippled in functionality. You can't perform any navigation functions. You can't hook up a cell phone via bluetooth, and you can't navigate half the menus. Ever hear of "passengers?" They are these wonderful people that can sit in the seat next to you and type in addresses, while you drive and keep your eye on the road safely! Not only is the design stupid, it is even implemented poorly. You can apparently be doing 90 down the highway, and as long as the parking brake is clicked one notch, the unit thinks you're parked.

2. The night view mode is non-functional. Of course, you have to stop, park the car, and hit the parking brake, before you can turn it on, so most people probably won't even try. Or, just hit the parking brake while doing 90. If you turn it on though, it doesn't do anything. There is absolutely no difference between the night mode and the daytime mode. The unit is so bright that you can't see the right-hand 25% of the road at night.

I purchased this unit after trying two JVC products specifically because I wanted certain functions. After extensive research, I found that this device said in the product specs that it would do everything I wanted.

Here are the functions I wanted:

1. Bluetooth integration (including voice dial).
2. Ipod integration.
3. XM integration.
4. Control of unit from factory redundant controls on steering wheel.

While technically the unit does all of these, it performs quite poorly in some areas. I have decided to keep this unit, but it's a Hobson's choice. Frankly, I have been unable to find a unit that does all of them well.

Keep in mind, in order to do a lot of these things, you need to buy a separate breakout box or adapter that is not included in the price. Here how it did in each of these areas:

1. Bluetooth integration. OK at best. Call quality is fine. It also accessed and played music from my bluetooth smartphone. Where it suffers, though is voice dial integration. Basically, although you can initiate a voice dial call from the unit, there is a bug in the Bluetooth stack in the Pioneer unit, and, because of this bug, you cannot hear prompts from you phone telling you when to talk or asking you to confirm a selection. Pioneer says "yep, we have this problem", and "nope, we're not going to fix it". I have made a work around by disabling all voice prompts on my phone, but I still have to guess when to talk, and if the phone gets the wrong voice tag, you don't know until the wrong person picks up. This issue really is annoying if you rely upon voice dial. There is also no dedicated hard button to turn on voice dial that can be accessed no matter what mode the unit is in. You instead have to get to the phone screen & then trigger a voice dial. The JVC KW-AVX800 does a vastly superior job of bluetooth integration.
2. Ipod integration. Quite good, but has a rough spot or two. While the menu tree could be better, it is vastly superior to the JVC. It does sometimes loses time sync with my latest generation ipod nano, but it recovers quickly.
3. XM integration. Very good. Nice displays and easy to navigate. My presets do sometimes disappear from the preset list. What I mean is that the slot for the preset would be there, but the channel name would be missing. This happened with my JVC unit much more frequently, though.
4. Control of unit from factory redundant controls on steering wheel. Good. I wanted to be able to control basic functions on the unit from the factory steering wheel controls so I would not have to take my eyes off the road. It works reliably, but every tap on the buttons brings an audible "bing" from the unit. This can be annoying when you are changing the volume.

Finally, although navigation was not something I cared about, since it has nav, let me talk about it: it is incredibly sub-par. I have used a Garmin Nuvi unit for some time. The navigation experience on the Garmin is just vastly superior. First and foremost, the Garmin is just MUCH more accurate. The Pioneer seems not to recognize things like turns as well. Second, the Garmin's maps are preloaded. Each time you want to navigate on the Pioneer, though, you need to remove any cd or dvd you have in the unit & put in the navigation dvd. Cumbersome. Finally, and for me unforgivably since it would be a simple software fix, integration between an ipod and the nav system is poor. Unlike on the Garmin Nuvi which pauses music or book on tape content when the navigation system gives you a directional prompt, this unit does not. This means when the unit tells you "left tern ahead" and then 5 seconds later "turn left now" and then "proceed for five miles" you miss a lot of the thing you are listening to & need to keep rewinding.

In the end, I'll keep it because it does most of what I want at least passably well. If I was relying on it for navigation, though, it would definitely be a reject.

Finally, the product descripton says it has "15GB". I'm not sure that it has anything like that. It certaily requires you to use the nav DVDs, so I think this is a misprint.

The navigation on this unit is absolutely horrible. Its not that it doesn't do it the most efficient way, but it just doesn't make ANY SENSE at all. Just as someone else posted, it will have you drive right past the road you should turn on, then make a u-turn a few miles away, and come right back to where you should've turned to begin with. If that's not bad enough, its even had me turn off the correct road that i was already on, drive a few miles, make a u-turn, and come right back to the same exact intersection. There's just no explanation for this thing, unless it's that it's a big prank from Pioneer.

This unit packs a lot of features for the price. Everything work as advertised. The only minor complaint I have is the navigation only announces major highways and just left or right turn on local streets. But this is similar to most OEM navigation systems. I actually installed it myself without any problem.

The unit works perfectly. I had some installation issues (returned to installer 4 times) so choose a reputable and knowledgeable installer. Read the users manual before use.

I installed this myself in an '06 Jetta.
Pros:
- The sound quality is excellent and the iPod control is the best I've seen.
- GPS is a 3.5 out of a 5 (compared to a Garmin Nuvi 660, which I give a 4.5)
- Button and screen color choices, ability to change background images - because of this, many people think it is a factory unit

Cons:
- GPS makes some strange routing decisions, and needs cheaper updates released more often than once per year.
- With thousands of songs on the iPod, it takes entirely too long to find a specific artist - you really need to have good iPod organization - mainly good playlists

one of the best investments made on my car. worth every penny, and install was super easy. would like to get the bluetooth and xmnav traffic as well. love the user friendly interface, though some menus may be hard to find since it has so many functions. highly recommended unit!

For US$700 you get a lot of features... Great navigation and great sound! This is a must buy item...

The only con I could find is that you can't download your own maps. You have to buy map updates from teleatlas...

I'll keep this short and sum up everything I've found over the past 3 days since I performed my install of the AVIC D3:

Pros -

Ton of features and options for expansion
iPod interface is amazing and very useful
Screen is bright and colorful
Menus are easy to navigate and make sense
Sound quality is amazing - even more powerful than the AVIC N1 I replaced
Fits perfectly in my double din opening and looks great
Can't beat the price ($709) for DVD/Nav/iPod/etc...

Cons -

Nav is slightly delay in positioning but this can be resolved by hooking up the VSS wire

Other than that, I can find no fault for a product in this price range. A great bargain for the money and I couldn't be more happy with it.

Most of you have figured that this is a great product, I admit it is and I think what you need to know is that the Map DVD's seems to be little old. The User experience with the GUI is so 2000 but hey it does the job well.

It's been 3 months I have installed this unit in my Acura RSX and also wired iPod Adapter without any problems. The Bestbuy folks will do it for 250-300 bucks.

That's all. My only complain is that Pioneer needs to update their DVDs.

I rate the radio 5 star. Ipod interface 5 star. xm interface 5star. Now for the Nav system if I could give it a -5 stars I would. I have used them all in rent a cars and own an old garmin that works great. The D-3 has a habit of routing you pass were you should turn and than will have you u turn and back track up to 3 or 4 mile to turn on the street you passed 5 miles ago. It is 4 house off to find my house, the old Garmin is 4 feet off. For Navagation forget this one.

I've been debating on getting one of these for the past 6 weeks ever since I got my new (to me) 03 Camry. I had a Sony head unit with ipod capability installed a month ago but it just wasn't cutting it for me because of the difficult navigation with the one line text.

So today I made the decision to get this unit installed at Circuit City. I paid $100 extra for them to install it even though it took them about 20 minutes.. I think it's people like me who keep them in business but what can I say, I couldn't soder back in high school shop class and am too lazy to learn now. I'm more of a computer guy and I'm not too good with my hands.

I gave the guy and extra $30 to install the bypass to watch DVDs while the car is in drive (his idea). I doubt I'll ever watch them because it seems very dangerous but I'll put them on for the passenger sometimes.

Here are some positives I've found so far:

- Navigation is acurate and pretty fast loading.
- Very customizable including LED color and welcome background image
- Ipod integration is amazing. no more scrolling one song at a time. I can look through playlists, genres, artists, etc. Even has Ipod scroll wheel
- Sound quality seems better than my factory CD player
- Pioneer is a great name in high-end state-of-the-art electronics straight from Japan so I expect it to last a while
- Unit is aesthetically pleasing (It's <#000000> for you web designers) and blends with most if not all car dashes

Negatives:

- Screen hard to see/read when it's daytime and sun is shining on it but there's really no way around that right now
- One disc slot means limited navigation while other CD/DVD is in the drive
- I'm a more worried that my car will get broken into now (so I'm trying to think of a way to cover this when I have to park in bad areas)

Anyway if you're thinking about it like I was and can't decide, I'd say go for it because you only live once and you need to enjoy your time here on earth. Happiness is the secret to life and this unit will give you years of car enjoyment.

Why I like it:

Unit:

- Cheap.
- Customizable with accessories.
- Does its navigation job most of the time pretty well.
- Nice extras such as vehicle dynamics, A2DP compatability, equalizer settings.
- Quite intuitive commands regarding navigation.
- Good sound quality (Better than factory setting).
- Good POI database and telephone search is a blessing.

iPod:

- Whatever. It works.

Bluetooth:

- Works ok. Automatically stops playback and transfers call and vice versa.

Why I don't like it:

USB Interface (I returned this accesory)

- Very archaic controls.
- Only folder navigation, but no subfolder navigation abilities thus resulting in cumbersome searching.
- Only 8 character text display for folder, artist, album.
- Painful.

iPod

- For song capacities > few GB, searching is cumbersome.
- No alphabetical navigation (that would be nice)
- Scrolling doesn't work. With 200+ pages, finding an artist starting with M requires holding the down button for a while.
- After all the hard work of getting to the artist/album, the entire process needs to be repeated for the same result.

Eg. If you somehow found Buddha Bar - I, listened to it and now want to listen to Buddha Bar - II, the entire onus needs to be repeated.

Unit:

- Urban canyons can be painful resulting in wrong or convoluted directions.

Bluetooth:

- Had to buy a new phone because older version of BT wouldn't work.
- Highway noise can cause receiving party to get frustrated.
- Still doesn't automatically recognize phone (perhaps it is phone's fault)

What I would like to see:

- Z-axis information I.e. altitude. After the end of a trip, a graph showing the altitude points along the way would be great (As this reflects in the fuel economy)
- Voice commands (its there in the higher end models)
- Punchier colors.
- Choice of different voices.
- Trip information in real-time i.e. Distance covered, time elapsed.
- NO CHARGE ON DVD UPGRADES (I plonked a coupla grand for this)

Just finished installing the D3 in my '06 Scion tC this weekend. In addition to the head unit I also installed the Bluetooth adapter/iPod cable/PAC steering wheel control interface and XM tuner. At this point I am still unsure if I am going to install the reverse cam. This is my third Pioneer head unit, but first Navigation unit.

The unit looks very nice installed with the included mounting hardware, much better than in the photos, I might add. The screen is very bright, and the touch interface works very well. The XM interface is very nice, especially when the Nav disk is in loaded, as it will then display station and category logos along with the standard XM track/artist info.

Here are some of the pros and cons I have come up with in the two days I have had to fool around with it:

Pros:
-XM or Sirius, it stinks to have to make a decision on a head unit based on your sat. radio prefs (Eclipse comes to mind here)
-Superb XM interface
-Solid iPod interface with cool iPod scroll wheel on-screen image (although no search function)
-So far the Nav has worked very well
-Vehicle diagnostics are fun, although not for any practical purposes
-Pioneers parametric EQ has always been great, it is even better with the enhanced visualization of the large color LCD
-Great internal sub-woofer controls including high pass filters, as well as low pass output and sub level controls
-Customization options are nice as you can match your cars instrumentation color
-DVD quality is very good
-Phone call quality is very good from the feedback I have gotten from callers (mounted the mic on the right side of my visor with the included clip)
-Night mode: when you flip on your headlights you can choose how dim you want the screen to get, and the navigation screen has a night mode which uses darker colors for the map, and is much easier on the eyes

Cons:
-No ability to have different EQ settings for each source as far as I can tell (source custom EQ)-this is a major disappointment, i.e. XM output is usually very flat compared to CD/MP3 sources, requiring a lot of messing around with the EQ to get it sounding right. Having to change EQ depending on source is a major pain
-No automatic sound levelizer (adjusts volume level depending on road noise)-even my stock Scion/Pioneer head unit had this
-No remote ($15 dollar option at [...], come on Pioneer, I know it's an inexpensive unit, but still)
-Some background noise at times, but I have concluded that it does not affect sound quality, as much of it only occurs when no music is playing (i.e. caused by the button tones or nav guidance)
- Having to use two little satellite antennas is silly- I don't understand why they couldn't have designed the XM tuner to be able to accept the sat. signal from the Nav antenna, i.e. pull the sat. signal through the IP bus
-I have still not been able to load my phone book into the unit and I tried both my cingular sonyericsson and my nextel blackberry-have checked forums and others are having similar issues, I'm guessing there will be a fix out soon as this is a brand new Bluetooth module
-No HD radio support

Overall I am very satisfied with the sound quality, interface, ease of use, and ability to customize the unit. I just wish it had the source custom EQ and the $170.00 Bluetooth module would load my address book.