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It’s an in-dash GPS navigation unit, a CD and iPod player, and a four-channel 50W MOSFET amp. And a Bluetooth hands-free unit. And…
We wish we had taken a picture of our car interior prior to the installation of Pioneer’s $999 AVIC-F310BT. Its ability to transform the in-car environment would then be clear. Previously we had an iPod dock hanging off the cigarette-lighter socket, mushily broadcasting its tunes via FM using one of the few spectrum gaps to be found in our part of Sydney. Often we would throw the iPod dock on the floor in order to use the lighter socket for the coily cable attached to the dash-mounted sat-nav unit, which would then dominate the windscreen with its mount obviously designed by a fan of farm machinery. And our mobile phone would sit in the console tray so we could see when it rang, though we never answered it on the move, of course, honest we didn’t.
Is your car like this? Then you need a Pioneer AVIC unit.
Most readers will be aware of Pioneer’s longstanding achievements in the in-car arena. The company made the first-ever in-car CD player (1984) and the first-ever detachable faceplate (1989), not to mention a continuous line of head units, speakers and amplification. In many markets, however, the company’s satnav products are less known, even though Pioneer created the first CD-based GPS incar unit in 1990, and it has 30% of Japan’s incar GPS market — and that’s one nav-crazy nation. Yet the company never joined our Australian rush on portable GPS units over recent years, preferring to invest in a longterm belief that in-dash navigation was the true path — integrated with your in-car audio, one head unit, one screen, located in a position we’re used to manipulating. After our experience with the AVIC, we’d tend to agree.
Equipment
So this is the entry-level of the three new Australian models of AVIC.
It fits in a double-DIN space, offering a 11cm (4.3-inch) touch-screen navigation system, a CD player, FM/AM radio, four channels of 50W MOSFET power for your speakers, hands-free Bluetooth mobile phone control, and you can leave your iPod or iPhone in the glove compartment connected through to and controlled from the head unit. You’ll never need that cigarette socket again. Unless you smoke. Our thanks to the crew at Ryda in Petersham for doing the installation, connecting to our existing speakers while threading the provided mini microphone up above the driver door and the square-tab-style GPS aerial down at the right corner of the dash.
Performance
We drove away and immediately became lost in the back streets of Lewisham, so before we even docked up our iPod we had pulled over and loaded a home address into the F310, which promptly led us reliably back north to the CitiLink.
Directions proved as clear as any satnav we’ve used — none of your 3D buildings or ‘real view’ intersections because, frankly, what you need are clear instructions and a good map (2D and 3D-angle views available). The next-turn and street name is always shown, and if you select ‘close-up view’ in settings, you also get a more detailed enlarged map of the upcoming junction. There’s also a clock and the usual rather optimistic predicted arrival time. You can zoom in and out, scroll around using the touchscreen, and select between ‘north up’ view and the normal direction of travel orientation. Clear and accurate stuff. We adapted easily from our previous windscreen-mount GPS position to having the screen lower down in the control console.
The friendly Pioneer lady announces difficult lane changes and roundabout exits a good way ahead and then again as you reach them — occasionally a tad late if you didn’t react to the earlier announcement. The one other flaw we’d point to in the voice command system is volume. This voice level is chosen in settings and remains entirely independent of music volume. Sensible enough, you might think — you don’t want instructions to disappear if you’ve turned down your music. But the result is a choice between a reasonable-level voice which will disappear entirely under loud music, or a loud voice setting which will be heard at all times but is outright deafening when you’re not playing music. A bit of level riding would be a sensible addition for firmware.
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