Pioneer - CD - Built-In Bluetooth - Apple® iPod®-Ready - In-Dash Receiver with Wireless Remote - Black/Silver/Red/Pink/Violet

I bought this radio to replace the failing on in my 2004 Toyota Sienna SE. I chose this model, with help from Andre, a Best Buy sales associate who specializes in car radios, for several reasons: 1. In addition to the AM/FM radio and CD player my minivan's original radio had, I wanted some more up-to-date entertainment options, particularly the ability to play content from our phones and laptops via Bluetooth on long trips. 2. This model's primary controls were among the largest and simplest of any I saw on display. Many of the other radios I saw on display were controlled by arrays of very small buttons, and I felt those radios would be impossible to adjust safely while driving. Even with the enlarged controls, there is definitely a learning curve to using this radio, because some of the controls work counter-intuitively. For starters, as my wife and daughters were quick to point out, this radio has no obvious ON/OFF switch. You can use the big knob to turn the volume down, but unless you read this review first or are helped by a very good sales associate in the store, you will probably have to consult the manual to find out that you turn this radio on and off using the SRC/OFF button! Also worth noting is that as long as there is power to the dashboard, this radio is lit up, so unless it's actually playing something or you look closely enough at the display to see what mode it's in, it's not obvious whether the radio is on or off. Similarly, the big knob - called the M.C. (multi-control) Dial in the manual, takes some getting used to. When not being used to turn volume up and down, turning the knob changes selections within the radio's menus, and pressing it changes menus. I've had this radio now for about a month, and I still haven't completely gotten the hang of it. (To be fair, I don't spend a lot of time driving around. Someone who drives a lot and likes to play around with car radios would probably master this sooner than I will.) I wasn't overly worried about the sound. My minivan came with Toyota's standard radio and speakers, which are adequate but certainly nothing to write home about. I didn't replace the speakers, so I figured that any aftermarket radio would sound at least as good as my old one did. Besides that, unless one drives a luxury car (with a very quiet interior) or normally listens to the radio at very high volume levels, no automotive sound system is going to please an audiophile. My new radio sounds better than the old one did, thanks to its built-in equalizer settings, which are worth a bit of commentary. First off, if you're enough of an audiophile that you must have an automotive sound system with a graphic equalizer (in which case I assume you're driving a car that's quiet enough to let you truly enjoy it), the one that's built into this radio probably isn't going to satisfy you. It does allow you much more control than a simple tone control or even separate treble and bass controls, but it only has four frequency range bands. The radio has a series of equalizer presets - SUPER BASS, POWERFUL, NATURAL, VOCAL and FLAT - none of which seemed to produce optimal sound quality in my minivan. However, there are also two customizable presets, CUSTOM 1 and CUSTOM 2. As those names imply, you can set the levels for those presets who whatever works best for your vehicle. CUSTOM 1 is especially useful, because it memorizes separate settings for each input; CUSTOM 2 accepts only one group of settings and applies them to all inputs. This feature would be more useful if you could customize all the presets and rename CUSTOM 1 and CUSTOM 2, but, alas, it doesn't work that way. Still, it's nicer than what I had before. Personally, I find the illumination on this radio to be a bit on the garish side. You can change the color and brightness of the display and what the manual calls the controls - which is really everything on the radio that isn't the display, including the clear plastic parts framing and crossing the control panel - separately. This radio offers you a whopping 12 preset colors to choose from, and if you're one of those people who just can't make up his mind, you can even set it to rotate through all of those colors continuously. If none of that appeals to you, there is a custom setting where you can set the color using Red, Blue and Green levels, 10 apiece, which is tantamount to choosing from a palette of 1000 colors, which should satisfy pretty much everyone's idea of feng shui. I have two gripes about the color and brightness. The first is that even with the color set to the brightest white and the brightness set to maximum, you can't see the display very well in sunny daylight. The second is almost the opposite: in situations where I like my dash illumination low - like while driving on dark highways at night - even the most muted display color (dark blue) is uncomfortably bright. Neither of these might be problems if the radio were lower down on the dashboard, but the radio cavity in the 2004 Toyota Sienna is top center on the dash, which gets a lot of sunlight and is hard not to notice at night. The star of the show for this radio is decidedly the Bluetooth feature. I have yet to find a smartphone or laptop that won't work with it, unlike some other Bluetooth radios I've tried. Smartphones integrate particularly well. Once you pair your phone with the radio, it will automatically detect and connect to your phone anytime it's on and your phone is in range with Bluetooth turned on. I don't make or answer calls while I'm driving, but caller ID info appears on the radio's display when a call comes in, which is nice, and when I use GPS on my phone, I can play it through the radio speakers, which is useful at times when ambient noise is high. As long as a phone is connected to the radio, an incoming call will interrupt whatever is playing with a ringtone and caller ID info. There seems to be no way to turn that off. However, those who do use their phones hands-free in their cars can set the radio to answer all incoming calls automatically. If you have any music at all on your phone, you won't have to look at the display to figure out whether you've successfully connected it via Bluetooth, because the music on your phone will begin to play over the radio. Some people might enjoy that, but I found that it gets old after awhile, since I don't use my phone as a music player and the radio basically just starts playing the few songs that I use for custom ringtones. I've mostly used the USB port as a charging port. The only smartphones we own are a couple of Samsung Galaxy Avast phones and an Alcatel Astro Pop, all from T*Mobile. They behave inconsistently when plugged into the USB port. Occasionally, the radio recognizes them and begins to play whatever is on them, but most of the time it just displays an error. Either way, whatever is playing on the radio is interrupted whenever you plug a smartphone into the USB port. Fortunately, whether or not the radio plays music from the phone, it does charge the phone. All in all, I'm happy with the radio. The issues described above are annoying, but don't get in the way of enjoying it.

I got this unit to replace an existing (non-bluetooth) radio in my old Tacoma truck. It installed relatively easy (as far as installing car radios go) with no surprises. The installation documentation that came with it was surprisingly useful (I do my own installations, so I have to figure out my own wiring diagrams myself). Using the unit is relatively intuitive. I have an Android cell phone that I have all my music loaded onto as MP3 files, so when I select "BT Audio" as my source on this radio, it automatically connects to my cell phone, fires up my Music Player, and begins playing the last played song from my cell phone. I'm very satisfied with how this works. It also has a wired microphone that I mounted on the dashboard so the radio can also be used as a bluetooth cell phone (i.e. it picks up your voice from its microphone and outputs the person's voice that you are talking to through the radio's speakers). It had a few features that allowed me to thumb through my cell phone's address book through the radio's display, but to be frank it was easier just to initiate the call directly from the cell phone. I would not recommend using this unit for a cell phone in this manner, however, because the external microphone picks up road noise, engine noise, and any other noise that exists in the truck cab's environment, but I don't fault the radio for that issue, but rather the degraded noise-dampening materials in my particular truck. My disappointments are the lack of what I consider "standard" feature buttons that should be on all car radios. First, there is no Mute button on the radio's display. If I want to mute the sound for a radio broadcast, I either have to turn the Volume knob to 0 or else locate the radio's remote and then press the Mute button on it instead. Frankly, I don't like remotes for vehicles, as I find them very distracting (pick them up but don't drop them, flip them to face-up, then rotate them until the top of the remote is at the top, then search for the button of interest to push - all while operating a vehicle at 65 mph). I've still not got a good workaround for this issue because my truck didn't come with a suitable place to store my remote in the driver's area. The second button that is missing is the Loud button. I listen to my audio Bible in the morning (all vocals, Loud should be off) and music in the afternoons (all music, Loud should be on). There is no Loud On/Off button on the radio, nor is there one on the radio. The only way I have found to toggle Loud on and off is to press the Volume knob and then navigate through a series of menus to work my way to the sound settings and then turn it on/off there. I finally gave up and have learned to listen to my music with less bass (i.e., I compromised). For my truck, this unit is a welcomed upgrade. If I was looking for a radio for my car, though, I'd find another radio that has the Loud On/Off button and the Mute button on the display rather than on a remote. Most likely, when the battery finally dies in the remote, I'll throw it away since it seems to be more trouble than benefit.

I bought this radio for my 2002 Ford Mustang GT. I initially had purchased a non-touchscreen Alpine radio; it had two large button on it that were WAY too bright at night (even though that radio had a dimmer wire, which I had connected to my car's headlight circuit). I then exchanged the Alpine for a JVC touchscreen radio, which I had for about 4 months, but I could just never quite "warm up" to the touchscreen. I started looking around at non-touchscreen radios to replace it. I considered a few different radios, this being one of them, and decided on this one after going into my local Best Buy store and finding one as an open box item. Yes, the box had been opened, but NONE of the plastic bags inside had been opened - I don't think the radio had even been removed from the box, either! Plus, I got the store to lower to price by $20 from the $97 they had already marked it down at (because the $97 it was marked at was based on a $139 retail price, and they had since marked down the new-in-a-box units to $119 - a difference of $20), so I stole it for $77! The radio looks GREAT in my Mustang, and the illumination can be set to perfectly match my car's OEM lighting. It has a dimmer wire to hook to the car's headlamp circuit, and you can also adjust the dimming level. If you press and hold the "BACK" button on the front of the radio for about two seconds, it turns the dimmer function off (or on, depending on whether it's already on or off) - this is VERY useful, as I drive with my headlights on during the day (for safety reasons), and by turning off the dimmer during daylight hours, it makes the radio display much easier to read. Even though I use an adapter to play this radio through my car's factory-installed Mach 460 system (so, there really shouldn't be a noticeable difference in sound quality between any aftermarket head unit I install in my car), this Pioneer sounds noticeably better than either the Alpine or the JVC radios I had in this car before. I have never played a CD in it yet; I almost exclusively play my music from my phone, via Bluetooth, or I have a 64GB SanDisk memory stick I connect via the USB port on the front panel. Regardless, I'm VERY happy with the sound - even the FM (although it's NOT HD) sounds great! I eventually plan on installing aftermarket amps and speakers, but for now, I couldn't be happier with this radio!

I use this radio primarily with Bluetooth to play audio books stored on my iPhone 5 and music from a 64gb USB thumb drive. I don't use the radio much. The Bluetooth integration is good with a couple of exceptions: The connection is now no longer automatic so I need to navigate through my iPhone and manually connect Bluetooth every time I start the engine. At first this wasn't a problem so I am not sure if this is from a recent iOS update or something else. Also, once I am BT connected my audio plays automatically (5-10 seconds later) even through I pause the playback before turning the engine off. Many of the MP3s on my thumb drive do not play even though they are compressed to within the recommended parameters. Some root folders don't appear at all while some folders appear but the music within those folders do not. The time between turning the engine on and starting playback of a previously selected track is about 10 seconds. Switching between EQ settings requires way too much eyes off the road behavior using the multipurpose dial. Because of this I generally leave my audio books too bassy or my music too tinny. Since the dial functions not only to navigate through the menu but as the only volume control, it is possible to be in a situation where you are not able to lower the volume when menu mode is active. Dialing through a large amount of music while driving is awkward. First the browse button is pressed to enter the search mode. Then the multi-dial is turned to iterate through the top artist-level folders. Once a folder is chosen, the big dial gets pushed in to select the album-level folders, and then some more dialing and a press to select and play the track. If the dial is left untouched for a few seconds the browsing mode times out to return back to the default mode thus forcing you to start all over again. Meanwhile I have ended up planted into the back of the truck in front of me or I am 30 feet above the ground over the bridge railing.

I bought this at the Orem, UT store and had their guys install it in my 2003 Ford F-250 Superduty. They did an excellent job and with the old factory speakers it sounds great. Interfaces with all three of my Apple devices via BT or USB and I never have to touch the device for song selection or app selection. I love that I can play from my USB memory stick as well. My only negative is the terrible instructions with the owners manual. Not very clear on some things. I'm not crazy about a multi-function dial either. When I am driving I don't like working my way through a menu, it just seems like a recipe for disaster, but there you are. That's where the little wireless remote comes in handy. I'll just have to learn not to fiddle with the EQ settings and leave them where they are. I'm still trying to figure out how to reset the clock for when I cross time zones or change to DST. That's where the manual really sucks! In spite of those complaints I like it so much I bought one to put in my RV. Now I've just got to figure out how to devise an attractive non in-dash mounting. Oh, by the way....this has a small microphone with a cord and plug that has to be installed somewhere on your dashboard. If you are not into removing instrument panels, I highly recommend you get the BB installers to do the install. It's well worth the $65.00!!!!!

I installed this stereo in my wife's car, a 2007 Buick Rendezvous. I wanted a bluetooth capable system that would synch with her iPhone, and allow hands-free operation, voice dialing, and play through the vehicle's speakers. It worked, and I must admit the phone functions work very well, including voice dialing. This system comes with a wired microphone, which I really don't like...I don't understand why there isn't a high-quality integrated microphone. But I guess that would have added a lot of expense. I mounted the microphone on the top of the base of the steering wheel, so it picks up the driver's voice extremely well. So, I can't complain about the mic's function, even though I would have preferred not to have a wired external mic. Also, I think the changing colors are cheesy, and never would have chosen this feature. This was the stereo that Best Buy said would work best as a Bluetooth system with my vehicle, and that's why I chose it. The good news is, my wife does like the multi-colors that are constantly changing. All in all, this unit does what I wanted, and I was able to install it myself in a relatively short time. I did buy the wiring harness kit recommended by Best Buy, which cost more than the stereo!! However, I wanted my OnStar to still be functional, and my steering wheel controls to still work. They do, so it was worth it. I would caution those who buy this wiring harness, though; there is a large control box that everything plugs into, plus a chime module. You need a cavernous space behind your radio to fit the control box, chime module, and all of the wires.

Sound quality is good and bluetooth functions well. The only thing I don't like about the bluetooth is when I remote start my car and I am beyond bluetooth range, it will not re-look nor is there a button to get it to do so when I get to the car. I have to get the phone out of my pocket and have it connect to the stereo. So the problem does have a solution, but it would be nice if it just kept searching or if just pressing the band button would have it try again. If ur phone has and problems with the pandora app and u need to reset it, u are then able to just hit the band button and the stereo will retry. Why not retry connecting that way too? Maybe Pioneer will read this and do a firmware update... but that may be wishful thinking. Other than that, functionality is good. I mounted the mic on top of my steering column for the phone call function, which so far works excellent. Much better than one of those visor clip, battery powered, pieces that u can get from Verizon. You can program the 1 thru 6 button as speed dials so that u can just hit the phone key, then the preset, then press the center knob to call. U can set a variety of different lighting schemes to include a change when receiving a call. U can set it to auto answer, it will pick up after like 2 rings. Overall I am very satisfied.

After doing some research I went with this particular unit along with two sets of Kicker 6x8's partly because of the double din opening in my Explorer. After some initial frustration due to the wiring harness adapter I was able to get it installed. (Advice, talk to the installation tech in the store to find the correct adapter, especially for Ford vehicles as it won't be in the showroom.) Between the equalizer, bass boost level adjustment and sound expander (It basically reverses any audio compression and restores the music's dynamic range) you can tailor the sound to meet your needs. At the price I paid it's almost a steal and if I ever want to I can ad power amps for front and rear speakers as well as a sub with complete control over that as well. (Sub level, and high pass filter for front/rears.) The layout is simple and intuitive with that massive silver knob for volume/scrolling through menus with makes it very useful. While it may not win any car audio competitions it is more then capable of providing solid performance.