I have a 2002 TL-S and have a stock bose system for now...

I am in real need of a navigation system, but I also want it to be a double din, so that it could look stock, and good example would be this:


this picture was taken from this thread: https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...6&page=1&pp=25

I also need the unit to have dvd, and most importantly TV. I need it to have great ipod integration, and everything has to be easy to use.

Now I am stuck in choosing between the Pioneer AVIC Z1 and the Eclipse AVN 6600.

The advantage of the Pioneer Z1 is that it has a 30GB hard drive, and 10GB of that hard drive could be used for music, so would I be able to transfer all my songs from like a DVD or something, and save them on the hard drive? Also, is it easy to browse through the songs? will they be sorted by Album, Artist, Title, etc...?

Another advantage of the Z1 is that it has a 7 inch screen compared to the 6.5 inch screen that the eclipse 6600 has.

Now here are some advantages of the Eclipse AVN 6600. It has Dual Disc slots, meaning you could keep a navigation dvd in one slot, and put anykind of cd/dvd into the other slot. Also it has a GREAT ipod interface, and you could use the nav and watch a dvd at the same time. The only thing I dont like about this unit is that it doesnt have a hard drive to store all my songs, meaning i have to buy an ipod adapter, and connect an ipod to it all the time, which really sucks.

So, this is why I am here writing this thread. I am asking all owners of these 2 units to give me some advantages and disadvantages so that I could finally make up my mind.

Also, I will be buying the unit brand new from ebay most likely, cause its waaay cheaper, so I'd like to know how much installation will cost approximatly. I'd like my unit to look like the one in the picture above.

 

where can i get that double din kit. im getting the eclipse navi too but i cant find that kit?

 

I have the avic z1, its a nice system, I would def. pick it over the eclipse. You can't save all your songs off of a dvd, you have to save them one by one, or a cd at a time. That would be cool, it has easy ipod hookup. Just got the bluetooth working right, and it rocks. The XM navtraffic is okay had a really good experience to it and a really bad one (pm if you want me to explain). The DVD has problems sometimes if you want to scroll to different scenes don't know if its just my unit, but I don't watch many dvd's...It sucks cause you literally have to take the disc all the way out and put it back in if it has an error...The z1 has its flaws but I'm still happy with it...It kills the competition I think...but if your not going to use it for all its potential than I would stick with the eclipse or something else...I have so much music in my car its crazy between the XM, Ipod, CD's and Harddrive...I'm set for any type of music at anytime...lol...

 

I know it's been a few months since the last post, but I just wanted to share my experience with the Z1.

Personally, I love it. I have both Sirius and XM hooked up, along with the XM Navtraffic that I recently added. Haven't been able to take advantage of Navtraffic yet since I haven't ran into any congested areas yet.

The bluetooth feature is nice, however I wasn't able to get my phonebook synched up (using the Cingular 8525 phone).

Songs do take a while to rip, I'd say about 20~30 minutes to rip a full CD, but it is nice to be able to have them on the hard drive. I was impressed with how many albums are in the current CDDB, however it wasn't able to find two albums my Muse in there ("Sing for Absolution" and "Blackholes and Revelations").

Navigating through songs on the iPod takes a while to. I found the best way to do this is just to make playlists of my favorite songs, rather than trying to find it by artist.

The GPS navigation is very nice. It's very intelligent about knowing the best routes to take, as well as knowing my prefered routes. It doesn't seem to be very accurate all the time. For example, if I was just using the Navi without having a route and I take the exit off of a highway, it still thinks I'm on the highway for a while.

I do think the Vehicle Dynamics is very cool. You can see your latteral G's, acceleration, direction, slope, angular velocity, and a few other things too.

The Sirius interface could be better, you can't see BOTH title and artist at the same time, you have keep pressing "DISP" to cycle through the information, where as on XM, it displays both title and artist.

The DVD playback is pretty nice, but the screen resolution isn't as crisp as the Pioneer AVH-P7800DVD, but I don't really use the DVD playback, so it doesn't bother me.

I've had to buy an amplifier so that I can regain my factory sub. I just hooked it up to the subwoofer outputs on the Z1 and works fine.

You don't need double disc slots for this unit, since it does have a hard drive and the maps are stored on here. It has many points of interests, and you can even add your own. Even shows logos for some places, such as McDonald's, Subway, Circuit City, and a few others.

From what I've read online, I'd go for the AVIC-Z1. I've been real happy with mine in my '02 TL.

Hopefully this will help someone who's deciding on which one to get. That's my experience with the Z1.

 

haha, thanks alot everyone for your input

I've already got the Z1 a few months ago, and I absolutly love it

 

with either of them, can you play a dvd while driving and still have the gps voice over the movie? or can you only use 1 at a time.

 

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36130

 

I am looking the new Pioneer Avic-Z2...

 

look for one of our sponsors Uncald4

 

Just to let you know my z1 is having problems dealing with the heat. I have heard that this is a problem on the z2 also. I live in the high desert and its starting to hit 90's, I wonder what this thing will do when it hits 120.... It is pretty much useless when it gets too hot, I can only listen too the last channel it was on...volume is all I can control...Pioneer says they know nothing about it being a mass problem..

 

Z1 or not, I would never park my car in that much heat, luckily I have a garage, and most places I go to have garage as well.