Well I did my normal 40 mile drive in this morning and listened to the Ipod the entire way. I will give a full review on the device after a couple of days. Needless to say I am very pleased with the operations. 2 major things: 1 you have to have all songs in playlists in order to use it (I knew this going into it) 2. You can NOT see the contents of the playlist, so you can't look on the screen and jump to a song. That is probably the only thing I don't like but can live with. The ability is there for it to do it but this head unit is obviously not capable. It does say in the manual that came with it that that option does not work with all head units.

I have not lost functionality of anything. This device works great so far.

Oh yea I forgot to mention it has the abiltiy to over ride the "I agree screen" for the NAV automatically after 5 seconds. I haven't tried that yet.

 

Three questions:

How many songs can be in a play list?
Are you able to see which song is playing so you can just tap through it?
Does shuffle work?

I look forward to your review.

 

With a radio capable of regular cd playback the playlists can be up to 99 songs. For a MP3 capable it can be 999 songs per playlist. I have mine setup in MP3 emulation and it shows at the very top MP3.

Yes you can see the song title.

Random works. I tried this this morning.

I will take some pictures at lunch with my cell phone and try and post them. I will have to figure the posting part out. If someone wants to give me simple instructions to do that it would be great.

Basically the device shows up as a secondary CD player. After I've had some time to use it and get a little more hands on experience with it I will write something detailed up. I haven't found even a simple user review of it on the net. I just got back from running to 7-Eleven and listened to it on the way and back. I am very pleased with it so far.

 

Cool. And your iPod pauses automatically when you turn off the car and resumes playback when you turn it on?

 

Yep. I was curious about that too. It works just like a CD. I actually wish there was a pause button....but then just turning of the radio works or switching modes.

 

Awesome. Thanks for the info. And when you do a write up, let us know why you picked this one over the others.

 

I can answer that one quickly. I had seen someone who had bought the dice unit and reviewed it (they own a Prius). I went to the place where he got his and they didn't carry it anymore but they had a newer version. I read both what they advertised and what several websites stated it could do. When I decided to actually get it some time had passed and they came out with a newer version. Basically all the functionality is the same except it is smaller. There was a slight difference but I don't remember what.

I took some pictures and am goiong to upload them to my workstation and then try and post them. They are the screen shots of the display. I looked at one of the CD's that I have in my player and it shows all of the songs on the disc. I have a feeling that with playing around with the playlist on Itunes that I will be able to get the songs and folders to show up in the list view. maybe not but I am going to try. If I can get them to populate I wil still be very pleased with the device.

 

Ok Here are the pictures.


This is a picture of the main screen. You can see the folder buttons on the bottom right. You use these to change playlists. The controls on the steering wheel will let you switch songs just like on a CD. The top line of this display is what will appear when you are in an other non-audio screen when you change a song.


When you hit Folder List (at the top right) you will be taken to this screen. On the left you will see 2 icons Folder and File. The folder button should populate all of the Playlists that are on the IPod I believe. The File list should thus show you all of the songs in the playlist, if I have read the manual correctly. I haven't gotten this to populate yet and the manual states that not all units can utilize this. If you hit the Detail button it will then take you to the next screen.


This screen gives you more detailed information about the song playing. In order for it to populate correctly you have to have the information input correctly in the track tag, which you can modify in Itunes. As you can see in this picture it isn't in correct.


In this picture the tag was correctly input.

 

Cool. Thanks for the images. It is a bummer you cannot change the play list. I would try to put all of my song in one play list but I would must rather not have to make a play list. I wonder if there is a device out there that does not require a play list and can read the songs from the iPod DB.

Where do you keep your iPod?

 

My Ipod id in the storage compartment under the head unit.

I have Over 2000 songs and it only took me 3 playlists to get them in. You can switch in between playlists. Right now I just can't see a list of all of the songs in them.

Basically if you make 1 huge playlist it doesn't hurt anything when you use it out of the vehicle and you never know whi9le you are in it. It does state that you need at least 2 playlists on the device to operate properly.