Archos 5 500 GB Internet Tablet with Android Review

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(More customer reviews)I just got my new Android 5 500GB direct from Archos yesterday and its quite a beauty. I'm upgrading from my old Archos 5 250GB, so that will be my primary point of comparison. I also have the following to compare to: iPod Touch 64GB, Archos 605, Walkman X, Samsung P2, and a host of other MP3 players large and small.
Given that my iPod Touch upgrade this year was less than astounding, I pretty much figured that this upgrade for Archos would be similarly understated. Mainly I just wanted the extra hard drive so I could backup all my laptops onto my music player. I was wrong! The new Android version seems to have a whole new feel both in form factor and the new software. I had heard that Archos was having problems with the software, but they seem to have ironed most of them out as of 1.1 firmware release. I did update my firmware immediately, and the process was quite smooth.
I'm going to rate this player on my absolute scale. I will also be making notes on the value of the upgrade from my old Archos 5. Note: I mostly use this as a media center to play music and video; secondarily as a backup drive.
Let's get to it then, these are the things I love about my new Android:
1) 500GB -- totally awesome amount of disk, I can now put just about every digital file I own on the Archos.
2) Android interface -- the overall feel of the software interface has definitively improved with the integration of Android. Effects are crisper, the esthetics are cleaner, things seem to happen faster. I especially like how easy it is to access the most recently played song or video from the main screen, pops up with a little thumbnail that you tap on and voila, resumes right where you left off!
3) Apps -- with Android we now have access to some serious app selection. Of course, nobody compares to the Apple App Store, but this comes the closest.
4) Weight -- this actually feels lighter to me than my 250GB.
5) Dock/DVR -- this popped right into my old 5 DVR and started playing right away. I still think this is the best DVR/Player combination available of all the MP3 players.
6) Video/Hi Def -- of the players I have owned, this has the best, biggest, and highest resolution screen.
7) Portrait/Landscape -- Archos has borrowed the iPhone trick of rotating the display according to orientation. I guess they have an accelerometer in there now, I dunno. Still, its fun to see this feature on an Archos. Its a lot easier to navigate playlists in portrait mode.
8) Easy and regular firmware updates -- with a WiFi connection, the firmware updates are easily performed on the unit itself. That's the easiest system I've seen of all my players. One thing I've learned about Archos over the years, they will put out a steady stream of firmware updates.
9) WMV/MTP mode-- very smooth interface to Windows for either Media Monkey or Windows Media Player.
10) Dedicated volume button -- power and volume buttons have been conveniently located onto the top edge. This is actually much easier to use when it is docked on the DVR (which is where mine spends most of its life!).
11) Sound quality is quite good, sounds great through my Klipsch speakers and seems to have more oomph than my other players.
12) WiFi/Browser -- has a good browser and WiFi connection has worked well for me. I think the keyboard is better than the Touch's, although Safari is probably the slightly superior browser. The bigger screen also helps for browsing. Overall I'm inclined to give the Archos the top ranking for browsers.
13) I just discovered Twidroid, one of many apps pre-loaded, allows me to check my Twitter in a really nice format -- love it!
14) Portability -- well there's only so much portability that can be expected with a screen and hard drive this large. This new design is smoother and rounder so its a little more comfortable in a pocket. It is very easy to carry around as a handheld device, fits nicely in my hand as I stroll about the house trying out all of the Android Apps! In any case, this is not as portable as a Touch but I think its pretty good for a small computer -- which is basically what this is.
15) No extra plug ins needed (so far!). Always in the past I've laid out another $40 for additional Archos plugins to play iPod format music and other video formats. So far I haven't had to do that -- thank you Archos :)
16) Archos will stand behind their product. I've had to send in a couple of Archos units over the years and they have always been happy to either repair or replace the unit without quibbling about it, as long as its under warranty. Note: it did take two weeks to get my unit back!
17) Multi threading: now I show my engineer/geek side. This baby can do a bunch of different stuff at the same time, unlike the iPhone/Touch which can really only do one thing at a time. The Android can be doing other stuff while you are listening music. I love the little bar on the top that you can pull down and switch to any other task that is running.
18) Built-in kickstand, very nice feature.
19) Stylus friendly touch screen -- sometimes you just get tired of trying to type a touchscreen keyboard with fat fingers! In general, this is one of my favorite touch screens. Most of the other touch screens, including iPod/iPhone, are capacitance which means stylus won't work
20) Micro USB cable plug-in: finally a standardized USB plug and you can have it resting on its kickstand while plugged in :)
Given that the Archos tops the class in several categories, and continues to be the best 500GB 5 inch screen player available I give it about a 4.7 stars out of 5 (round to 5). There are a few things I'm less than thrilled about:
1) Update: I believe you can now format your drive in a Windows friendly format on 1.7.96 version of firmware. External hard drive EXT3 -- as I understand it, Archos changed to the EXT3 hard drive format for reasons of speed and reliability. The result for me is that I can no longer simply select hard drive MSC mode, plug the Archos into a Windows machine and expect to access the drive. You have to install an Ext3 driver such as EXT2 IFS on your Windows PC. Once I did that I was able to access the hard drive and backup files to my hearts content.
2) The playlist interface didn't get much of an upgrade and its still kind of clunky. I want to simply tap my playlist and it starts playing. Often times I have to do a couple of extra taps to get the thing playing.
3) We lost the dedicated play button and removable battery a while back -- but I still miss them both! None of my favorite touch screen players has either of these features. I'm also missing the brown metallic color and the rubbery backside.
4) Finding a case for this baby is no easy trick. You're not going to find one at the local Best Buy I'm afraid. In the past I've resorted to ordering my Archos cases from European companies like I-nique and Noreve. This is generally true of any player that is not an iPod or a Zune.
5) As always with Archos, you must remember that you are dealing with a French based company. This means that they don't always provide the best support/service/upgrades to us Americans.
6) Lets face it, Archos is always playing catch up. Some of the new features aren't fully functional yet. I do have faith that Archos will fix all the little glitches with things like GPS over the course of the next 6 months. The Apps available are currently a bit limited. I expect this will improve over the coming months.
7) Keep in mind that this is not a unit for the faint of heart. This is more for the hobbyist who wants a cutting edge experience that may take some messing around to get it just the way you want it. If you want something easy that requires minimum effort then iPods are going to be more your cup of tea.
For me this is still the best player of its class -- that class being large hard drive, big screen PMP players with other fun features. Android makes for some fun possibilities, and overall I'm impressed with this as an upgrade. Once again, if you don't mind a smaller screen and you love apps I suggest you get an iPod Touch. If what you care about most is sound quality you may want to get a Walkman X. For me those are your top 3 touch screen players, it just depends on what you care about the most.
Note: 10-23-2009; I upgraded to firmware version 1.2.03 which fixes some App, Browser, and YouTube issues. Apps do seem happier now, upgrade process was very smooth. Still happily listening to tunes for about 8 hours a day with no problems :)
Update 11-7-2009: I've been running version 1.2.15 with a host of bug fixes and the unit does seem more stable in general now. Wifi is working better and USB connection seems more reliable.
Update 11-23-2009: Upgrade to firmware v 1.3.07 -- a long list of bug fixes including a few improvements that I had hoped for to control the scanning of multimedia files/ ArcLibrary. Got an AppsLib update which seems to work more reliably. There seem to be a lot more apps available now (300 ish) in AppsLib. Just keeps getting better and better! Still is playing music day in and day out with no problems and I'm backing up 2 laptops worth of files onto my 5 IT.
Update 12-18-2009: I've been on firmware 1.4.16 for over a week now. Lots of little fixes, seems even more stable now.
Update 2-11-2010: Firmware 1.7.33 (Android Donut) upgrade. The upgrade was a bit of work, I ended up reformatting the drive and starting anew. However, power saving seems to work a lot better and I haven't seen it reset itself for quite a while now. This seems to be the most solid release yet!
Update 4-8-2010: Firmware...Read more›

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ARCHOS, award-winning for its constant technology innovation, now introduces its new ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet. This product combines all the multimedia know-how that ARCHOS is famous for, with the ANDROID operating system. It offers you an uncompromised Internet, Media and TV experience in a customizable interface. In perpetual evolution with the continuous arrival of new applications, you can personalize your ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet to perfectly reflect your tastes and needs.


HD Multimedia
Brilliant 5-inch Touchscreen The ARCHOS 5 features an 800 pixel-wide 5-inch touchscreen, an ultra thin design, and an accelerometer for portrait or landscape viewing. Whether enjoying media yourself or sharing with friends, it delivers outstanding image quality.
HD Video Formats Don't compromise--the ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet is able to handle the widest range of video formats, even at HD 720p resolution (H.264 HD, MPEG-4 HD, and WMV HD5).
Your Music Everywhere Enjoy more music formats directly on your device (MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, AAC+, FLAC and OGG Vorbis). In addition, the unique ARCHOS music browsing system allows you to create your playlists without using a PC. Who needs a tuner? Just plug your ARCHOS 5 into amplified speakers and you're all set.
Experience Your Photos Browse through your photos with a simple flick of your finger or play a slideshow with music and transition effects. The high resolution screen is great for zooming in on details.
Take It All With a 500 GB Hard Drive, you won't waste time choosing what files to bring along--take your entire media library with you.

Internet
Fast & Convenient Web Surfing The ARCHOS 5 lets you easily surf the Web. With a Wi-Fi connection (802.11 b/g/n) and the new OMAP3440 processor running at 800 MHz, you get quick and responsive Internet browsing just like on a laptop, without the endless waits for page loads. Enjoy the Web in full width thanks to the 800 pixel wide screen, with no need to zoom in or out.
3.5 G Mobile Phone Connection If you own a standard mobile phone equipped with 3.5 G & Bluetooth technology, simply pair it up to your ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet via Bluetooth. This will give you easy access to Internet directly on your device anytime and anywhere.
Web TV and Web Radio In less than 3 clicks, you can access nearly 1,000 Web TV channels, over 10,000 Web radio stations, and 100,000 podcasts. There's no downloading wait time. Radio and TV start streaming directly from a worldwide list of traditional and independent radio and TV stations.
Media Club The Media Club remains the easiest way to get video and music content on the go. With an even richer library with new partners and some of the biggest industry names, you'll discover a large library of movies, documentaries, music albums, and games. Buy or rent your entertainment in a couple of clicks and start watching it on your ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet.

GPS
Full-Featured GPS Whether you are walking or driving, you will always find your destination with the on-board GPS. The GPS includes voice assistance, points of interest, fast multiple-route calculations, and car/pedestrian/adventure modes based on the latest maps from Tele Atlas with 3D landmarks.
You can go to your account at anytime on the ARCHOS website and purchase the available maps or cities.
3D Photo-Realistic City Navigation Find your way around cities in 3D Photo Realistic mode. With multi-angle views and four zoom levels, you'll be able to recognize places as if you had taken your own photos from the sky. This is ideal when walking and visiting large cities in the US (available Q1 2010).
Free 7-Day Trial Try the GPS for 7 days free of charge.

TV
HD TV-Out With the Optional DVR Station or HDMI Mini Dock Turn your TV into a real web-connected multimedia platform. Enjoy all the ARCHOS functions on the big screen of your living room. Watch your movies in HD (720p), listen to your music, share your high resolution pictures, play games or surf the Web.
Record your favorite programs with the Optional DVR Station With the optional DVR Station, you have the perfect match for your ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet at home. Record TV shows and movies in one step using with the included remote control. Then you can enjoy your recording at home on your wide-screen TV or in the palm of your hand when you are out.

Applications

Ready to go with pre-installed applications Enjoy a selection of fun and practical applications for daily use right out of the box:
eBuddy IM: for instant messaging The multi-platform instant messaging application. Chat from one place to all your friends on the various platforms. Supports MSN, Yahoo, Gtalk, Facebook, ICQ, MySpace and AIM (AOL)
DroidIn: for connecting to LinkedIn Connect to your LinkedIn account to exchange information, ideas and opportunities. Stay informed about your contacts and industry. Find the people & knowledge you need to achieve your goals. Control your career online.
Twitroid: for instant micro-blogging Twitroid is the industry-standard Twitter client for the Android platform. Easily access the famous free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables you to send and read tweets, publish short URLs and pictures.
Deezer: for music streaming Enjoy 35 free web radio stations and the SmartRadio directly on your ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet.
Dailymotion: for viewing and sharing videos Browse videos by searching tags, channels or user-created groups.
QuickPedia: for access to Wikipedia Access to the free web-based and collaborative encyclopedia.
ThinkFree Mobile: for viewing Office documents This application allows you to view, edit and create Microsoft Office 97/2000/XP/2003/2007 Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF documents. You will get a free update before year-end allowing you to also edit and create documents.
E-mail & contacts Stay in contact by using the full integrated Email and contacts applications.
Moov: toggles easily between your apps Moov wraps up your search needs all in one place, so you can quickly toggle between the product's contacts, Google, Wikipedia and the remaining Applications on your product.
CraigsPhone: for access to online classified advertisements CraigsPhone is a centralized network of online communities, featuring free online classified advertisements � with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, r�sum�s, and discussion forums.
High Paying Jobs: for access to a list of jobs (US & Canada only) Browse through jobs lists directly on the Product. Search over 2 million jobs from all the leading jobsites.

Add-ons
DVR Station This accessory allows you to record TV, play video back to your TV and charge your ARCHOS. Recording your favorite programs has never been so easy. You can also surf the Web or stream web video to your TV while comfortably laid back on your couch using the included remote control as a keyboard and mouse pointer.
DVR Snap-on Use our DVR Snap-on to record from almost any audio or video analog source when you are on the move.
Mini Dock Transfer your files directly from USB keys, digital cameras, or other portable media players. Quickly charge your ARCHOS with the included charger/adapter. Play video out to your TV with video output in high quality S-Video or standard quality composite.
HDMI Mini Dock Optimize TV playback with HDMI output quality. Transfer your files directly from USB keys, digital cameras, or other portable media players from the standard USB port. Quickly charge your ARCHOS with the included charger/adapter.
Battery Dock Transfer your files directly from USB sticks, digital cameras, or other portable media players. Quickly charge your ARCHOS with the included charger/adapter and get extended playback with the built-in backup battery. Play video out to your TV with video output in high quality S-Video or standard quality composite.

What's in the Box ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet, headphones, Standard USB cable, DVR Station adapter, Quick Start Guide (QSG), legal and safety notice.

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Alpine iDA-X100 Digital Media Receiver Review

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(More customer reviews)I've made my way through a bunch of different car stereo head units over the years, but ever since the iPod has become the de-facto standard, I've wondered why nobody made a decent iPod-friendly one. Alpine's iDA-X100 is probably the first usable product for this purpose (its predecessor, the X001 was essentially a beta-tester version of the X100, and by many accounts, not ready for prime time). Sure, there are a slew of crummy FM transmitter adapters, and many stereos have auxiliary (Aux) inputs, but those are merely kludges.
The X100 displays the artist, track, and album of the currently-playing song. It lets you quickly scroll through all your artists, tracks, and albums, so you can find the song you want fast. All this works very well, and does so while charging your iPod in your glove compartment or wherever you want to put it. Don't have an iPod? No problem - just put your tunes on any inexpensive USB memory key and plug it in!
The X100's bright screen rivals a typical iPod screen, although is definitely a step down from my iPhone. The volume knob, which also affords navigation through your collection, is large and comfortable. In all, a solid design designed for use while driving. (This means that, unlike the iPod itself, you can use without having to look at it.)
So, why not five stars? First, the screen is too small. With the X100's large, easy-to-read font, there's only room for 6-7 characters. Listening to the White Stripes? You'll only see "White S" on the screen. Sure, 'long' text scrolls back and fourth, but that's a poor design for drivers who need to keep their eyes on the road. If I had designed this unit, I would've moved the big knob all the way to the left, and made the screen twice as wide. As it is, the left side is wasted anyway.
Second, when a song begins playing, the text rolls out on the screen very slowly, like it's being typed one letter at a time from a typewriter. It can take 10-15 seconds before everything appears, making it a stupid design for a display that must relay all its information at a glance.
Third, the 'Back' and 'Next' buttons are small and flush with the surface of the unit; you can't use the big wheel to go to the next track. These buttons should be more prominent, perhaps akin to the slick lever on Sony's excellent CDX-C90.
Fourth, the X100 can be set to have blue or red backlighting. But the red is a harsh, dark crimson that looks terrible next to the amber lighting on my dashboard. Why no soft amber/orange setting? Who knows.
Fifth, the X100 can display cover art from the current song (provided you've loaded one into iTunes), but, for some reason, it displays a very low-resolution image. This is particularly glaring when you hit the Display button to hide the text and display only the cover art; it just looks bad. I have high-res cover art in my collection that looks great on my iPhone's screen, but the X100 just doesn't use it. Perhaps a firmware upgrade will fix this?
Finally, and it may sound like nit-picking, but the X100's customizable wallpaper feature is poorly executed. You have two trendy patterns from which to choose, or you can download additional patterns from Alpine's awful website (which was last updated in 2005, by the way, and only works on Internet Explorer). Although Alpine has gone out of their way to prevent customers from creating their own wallpaper (for reasons that completely elude me), you can do as I did and download the free, third-party xndconverter.exe utility and create your own APN files. With my own photo as the wallpaper, the X100 head unit actually now looks nice in my car, despite the lack of a matching backlight color.
As for the sound quality (which is supremely important, despite the fact that I've spent most of this review talking about the interface), I'd rate it a solid 'B.' The sound is pretty good, but lacks the richness and warmth of the gold standard, the Sony CDX-C90 (even when playing the very same MP3s). Perhaps the PXA-H100 IMPRINT add-on accessory will improve the sound, but I haven't tried it yet.
To sum up, this is THE unit to get if you want to listen to your iPod/iPhone in the car, but don't expect it to be perfect. I'd give it only three stars if there were competition, but since it's the only worthy game in town, it earns four.
(Note: At the time of this writing, Alpine also makes the ida-x200 and ida-x300, but these are lesser models, both without the X100's bright color screen.)


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Sonos ZonePlayer 90 Wireless Multi-Room Music System for Home Theater or Stereo Review

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(More customer reviews)Seeking to upgrade my home audio setup, I picked up some ZP90s along with a Logitech Squeezebox boom and duet, figuring I'd play around with them and then sell what I didn't like.
Overall, I did feel the Sonos setup offered the best usability. The setup was a breeze, the software very use-friendly and easy to quickly find what you want and play it on the appropriate player(s). Another real treat was the iPhone application, which lets me use my phone as the remote and eliminates the need for the costly and bulky controller. Rhapsody, Pandora, and Last.fm are the 3 major music services offered, and all work very well. There's also the bonus of listening to local radio stations without the static, although I was disappointed to find you could only configure it for one location at a time (listening to KEXP in Seattle would have been great).
However, there were two shortcomings when compared to the Squeezebox. The first is the requirement that at least one of the Sonos players be hard-wired in to the network. This wasn't a problem for me since the Sonos is just 20 feet away from my router, however I'm sure there are users out there that won't be as fortunate. The Squeezebox was completely wireless and could go anywhere in the house, so it has a clear advantage there. The Second was not having support for the Slacker music service. I slightly prefer this service over Pandora, and find myself turing on the Squeezebox more due to that reason.
Summary - If you have the money and want something easy to use, and are OK with having at least one Sonos device hard-wired to the network, then this is for you. But if you love Slacker, need something 100% Wireless, or just don't quite have the budget, go with the Squeezebox.

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The Sonos ZonePlayer 90 lets you play all the music you want, all over your house, on all the audio equipment you already own - your home theater receiver, stereo system, powered speakers, and more. Just connect the ZP90 to any amplified audio device in any room and it's instantly part of the wireless Sonos system. The ZP90's digital and analog outputs deliver superior sound to every room. And with the ZP90's superior wireless range, no room is out of reach. The ZP90 is super small, so it will fit just about anywhere. Plus, every ZP90 includes a Sonos Desktop Controller for the ultimate in control and convenience.

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Pioneer MVH-P8200BT Multimedia AV Receiver with Built-in Bluetooth Review

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(More customer reviews)I received my MVH-P8200BT yesterday, and installed it. Installation was as normal as any other stereo, except the additional parking brake wire if you want to use the photo or video portion of this radio. Let me first start out by saying the AM & FM portion of the radio work pretty good, you can relatively easily seek to the next or previous station by pushing the knob left or right, or bring up your presets by pushing it up. The radio displays the RDS nicely as well. Changing sources (Radio, ipod/USB, or Aux input requires pressing the SRC button and rotating the tuning knob to the right or left to highlight the source and then pressing the tuning knob in. This in all is relatively easy to do in a timely manner.
Where the problem comes in, is using the ipod interface. it will start playing I believe the last song you had playing, but if you want to jump to another artist or lets say a podcast, be prepared to take your eyes off the road. You have to hit the Home button, and then rotate the knob one to the right and then press it in, and rotate the knob to highlight Songs or podcast or artist, and in my case lets do podcast, then the lost of podcast comes up and you have to rotate to the podcast and press the knob in, then it shows you the episodes, then you push it in. But on top of doing this, the tuning knob which is a 5 way control (left, right, up , down, and in) is very sensitive and plan on registering the wrong menu choice, and then having to hit the previous button on the display to pop out one menu and continue. You have to do this anything you want to change songs that are not the next immediate song that you can just press the right commander button to jump to next track.
So, I thought, well the nice remote has a left right up and down, and in feature as well. I will do this from the remote with a little more precision, well turns out 70% of the buttons on the remote don't even do anything. any function that requires you to turn that knob on the radio, still has to be done that way. the up and down will not allow you to scroll through menu items. the only real think I was able to do with the remote was volume, next track and previous track, and radio tuning.
If you thought it would be nice to be able to play videos from your ipod or photos, it requires a $40 cable with a usb and aux cable now hanging out of the front of the radio per the manual. I did put some photos on the SD card, but you cannot play music from SD while you do your slid show, and again its a cumbersome use of the scroll wheel to jog between music and photos on the SD setup. You are able to play the slide show while listening to the radio.
Now for the real good, I think the best integration with this unit is the bluetooth with the iphone or probably many other phones, I was able to easily pull up contacts, and you can quickly choose a letter of the starting letter of the contact and click through to dial the appropriate name and if you want to call mobile or home. And the audio with the included mic is excellent. it will mute your music and continue it when your call is done.
The radio looks really good and thats what lead me immediately to this model, but I am ever so sorry I did not test it out before doing the install. I for sure thought the short comings would be overcome by using the remote, but you had no way to test it that well in the store. The remote is useless for iPod navigation or navigation or any SD media. I did get a chance to watch many tutorials online on the Alpine receiver 305 which was made for iPod and it has the navigation the way I would prefer it, thought it does lack characters and you have to scroll most titles, this pioneer was able to display a good character set. Oh and speaking of a feature that Alpine has, it has a nice readable clock. The clock on this is small, there is a feature you can turn on to show a nice clock, but you have to turn it on every time, it doesn't stay on as an option. Even with the radio in off mode, it should show the nice larger clock IMHO, but it doesn't you have to fight menus again to call this up.
To summarize, much fighting with a poor jog wheel to drill through menus to make common settings to what you want to listen to. They made it simple to change source and volume and next and previous track everything else gets deep in menus that will take usually 6 to 10 seconds to drill through menus to do, this is not safe in a car and the remote which could have assisted in this matter has much less ability. I think if you can do a double din the AVH-P3200 double din touch screen, is sooo much easier to navigate and for not more then $120 more in general, very upgradable and the addition items you get (CD/DVD slot and DVD playback, you wont be trying to convert stuff to Divx, and you can burn your stuff or bring along your DVD's and you have a bigger screen.

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"Mech-free" receivers are all the rage lately, as more and more consumers migrate their music and media collections to hard drives rather than physical media. The MVH-P8200BT from Pioneer is one of the company's first mech-free receivers, and has plenty to offer the digital-centric crowd. Make and take hands-free calls with built-in Bluetooth technology. Enjoy direct control of your iPod, with simple navigation and search features. Play back MP3/WMA/AAC audio files, DivX video, and even JPEG images from USB devices or SD memory cards. You can even tag songs heard on the radio for later purchase. It's all conducted via the simple "Rotary Commander" control and simple user interface displayed on the unit's three-inch display.


MVH-P8200BT Features
Built-In Bluetooth The MVH-P8200BT features built-in Bluetooth technology, which allows you to take incoming calls through your vehicle's sound system. Connecting your Bluetooth-enabled phone is a snap, and gives you access to all your contacts. Best of all, you can make or take a call without a headset.
Smart Interface for Quick Access Pioneer's new user interface has a minimal yet powerful design, and scales to accommodate modern media sources easily. Tailor it to your own preferences with the customizable home menu, putting your favorite features right at your fingertips.
USB Input / SD Memory Card Slot Connect USB thumb drives or other devices and enjoy playback of your digital audio and video files. Ditto for SD memory cards. This makes it a breeze to quickly grab some media from your computer before a big road trip, and enjoy hours of entertainment on the road.
iPod Direct Control (CD-IU50V required) Connect your iPod directly and experience exceptional sound quality while easily navigating through music, videos and album art on the AVH-P5200BT's screen. Say goodbye to the annoying static of FM transmitters and other iPod half-solutions.
Simple Search for iPod lets you quickly search your iPod/iPhone with alphabetical search by Song, Artist, Album or Genre categories.
MP3/WMA/AAC Playback Play back three of the most popular digital audio formats:MP3, WMA, and AAC. The MVH-8200's screen displays track info, and makes navigating directories/folders a breeze.
Video/JPEG Playback for Non-Stop Entertainment The MVH-P8200BT features a three-inch color display designed to take full advantage of all of your media. Play music videos and more from your iPod/iPhone, or from SD memory cards/USB devices. The MVH-8200 can decode Divx (AVI or DIVX extensions) video. You can even display JPEG photos using the Digital Photo Frame feature.
Auto EQ Automatically tailors acoustics by fine-tuning frequency bandwidths plus front/rear speaker digital parametric equalization. Result: smooth sound full of subtle nuance and clarity. Requires optional CD-MC20 microphone.
Customize Your Colors The MVH-P8200BT will accommodate your taste or mood. Select from six colors (blue/violet/red/amber/green/white) for the display, and 112 colors for key panel illumination.
Connect, Tag, and Download Have you ever heard a great song on the radio, but couldn't remember what it was called or who sang it when you went to go look for it later? Now you don't have to worry about missing out on great music. iTunes Tagging gives you the power to "tag" all of your favorite songs without having to scramble for a piece of scrap paper in the car, then later preview or purchase music at iTunes Music Store. Works with stations transmitting RDS data.
Bring Your Music to Life with Advanced Sound Retriever This year you can hear the detail, warmth, and clarity the way the artist intended it, from all of the highly compressed MP3, WMA and AAC files playing on your CD player. By restoring data that tends to get lost in the digital compression process, we can make your music sound close to CD quality.
Supertuner IIID AM/FM Tuner Pioneer's legendary Supertuner IIID combines the best of digital and analog tuner technologies to reduce distortion to bring you exceptional FM and AM performance. If you live in an area where reception is weak, you'll hear a big improvement in signal strength. And when you're near tall buildings, Supertuner IIID reduces the effect of multi-path noise, which occurs when the signal is reflecting off of the buildings.
Always have your favorite stations at hand with 18 FM and 6 AM user presets. And when you're somewhere new, let the tuner do the work for you by activating the Best Stations Memory (BSM) function. The tuner will seek out the 6 strongest stations in the area and set them into the tuner presets.
MOSFET 50W x4 Amplifier for the Power Hungry Compared to conventional power supplies, the MOSFET amplification circuit is smaller and more efficient, delivering power with less distortion and absolutely zero on/off switching noise. And that doesn't just mean a boost in volume: it means that your music will be cleaner at higher volumes because you're not pushing the limits of the amplification circuit. Clean, efficient power that will rock your vehicle.
For those who'd like a bit more power, three 4V RCA preamp outputs are also included for system expansion (front/rear/sub).
MVH-P8200BT Basic Specs

What's in the Box Pioneer MVH-P8200BT Receiver, Wiring Harness, Installation Hardware, Owner's Manual

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Sonos ZonePlayer 120 Amplified Wireless Multi-Room Music System Review

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(More customer reviews)A few months ago, I decided to upgrade my music system. I began looking at CD "jukeboxes" that could load my entire collection. Along the way, I discovered the world of wireless music systems, and began researching them. Sonos seemed to be well-received, so I finally made the decision to purchase a ZoneBridge and a ZonePlayer 120. This setup has fulfilled every expectation I had for a new music system, and more. It's an easy and pleasant way to listen to music you already own, and to discover new music.
Below is my review of all the main benefits I see to this amazing system.
1. System Setup
Sonos offers many hardware options, but they all have a few things in common. A Sonos ZoneBridge connects to your computer - it "indexes" music on your hard drive and connects to the Internet for music services (more on that later), then it beams all this to a ZonePlayer, which is hooked up to speakers somewhere else in your home. It creates a wireless network dedicated just to music and does not interfere with other wireless devices. You can add more ZonePlayers, and they all pick up the same wireless signal and allow you to listen to your collection in multiple locations throughout your home.
The ZonePlayer 120 has standard jacks for directly connecting speakers. You can also hook up an ethernet cable, if you want to stream music through a wire instead of using the wireless signal. Finally, the ZonePlayer 120 allows you to connect an analog device using standard RCA cables. For my setup, I just hooked up two speakers.
To get ready for this system, you must rip all your physical CDs into a music library. This is the most time-consuming part of the process. But there is nothing unusual here. You can use iTunes to rip CDs into your library, just as you normally would. To get the best sound quality from the Sonos system, you should rip everything using "Apple lossless" format (instead of MP3). This is really easy to do in iTunes. Lossless is not required (you can use MP3s if you want) , but it's better because you'll get CD-quality sound.
After you rip all your CDs into an iTunes library, you run the Sonos "Desktop Controller," which comes free with Sonos systems. This is one of the easiest and most intuitive software applications I've ever used. Just tell it to set up your music library. It finds your iTunes collection and "indexes" it in the Sonos system. Depending on the size of your collection, this may take a little while. With my collection of about 400 CDs, indexing takes about three minutes.
After that, there is an automated process where the software "locates" your ZoneBridge and ZonePlayer. On your computer screen, it literally shows a picture of the devices with arrows pointing at the buttons you need to press. In less than five minutes (seriously) the Sonos Desktop Controller can have the whole system done and ready to go.
Other than that, you just decide whether you want to use one of Sonos' remote controllers, or get the free Sonos app which runs on the iPhone or iPod Touch. I use the free app, and it it works great: I turn on the iPod Touch, click the "Sonos" icon, then scan my entire music collection and play anything, within a few seconds.
2. The Listening Experience
Of course, easy set up does not matter if the system doesn't sound good. Well, Sonos sounds great. The music that plays through the ZonePlayer is CD quality (remember to rip in Apple lossless format). It's as simple as that.
There is about a three-second wait time when you first click on the icon on your controller, as the Sonos systems starts up. But after that, you can run through your collection without delay. I like how my music collection is suddenly organized alphabetically by artist, album, or track names. If you're like me and have a large collection, this indexing of your music is itself a great improvement over looking through hundreds of CDs for the one you want! Of course, the accuracy of your index relies on the album and artist data you provide when ripping your CDs into your iTunes library.
Once the music starts to play, it just works. I've never had interruptions due to wireless connection problems. While the music plays, you see album artwork on your controller, plus the standard play/pause/forward/rewind functions we're all accustomed to. You can also create playlists.
3. Music Discovery
Of course, having your entire music collection easily accessible is great. But the Sonos system goes much further. I was pleasantly surprised after I started using my Sonos system to see some excellent music discovery options I had not known about before.
Through the Sonos system, you can access Pandora (the free Internet radio service) and play it through your stereo speakers.
You can also access radio stations from around the world and play them live over your stereo system. I've enjoyed cruising my local radio stations, or stations from around the world. You can find stations in obvious places like the US, Europe, Africa, and South America. But you can also find them in remote areas of the South Pacific, Asia, Antarctica (I'm not kidding), and places you may have never heard of before. It seems as though almost every corner of the globe is represented in this system. If you find a station you like, you can bookmark it as a favorite. It is important to point out that when you play a radio station through this system, it is not a canned pre-recorded program. You're hearing the actual broadcast, exactly as it would be heard by a "regular" radio.
You can also take out a subscription to an online music service. I chose Napster for $60/year. At any time, in about a minute or so, I can locate artists, albums, or tracks and play them on my stereo system. The sound quality of Napster is not quite the same level as the lossless files ripped from my CD collection, but it's very good. You can bookmark your favorite albums or artists to play them easily each time you start the Sonos system. Napster even has some interesting spoken-word "albums" like poetry readings and stories. You cannot create CDs from Napster music, but I use it all the time to hear enough to decide if I want to buy the actual CD, which I then rip into my library.
There are numerous other music services available through the Sonos system. All of them show up right on the main menu of your controller.
4. Product Support
The Sonos system often feels overwhelming when you're first looking into it. When I began reading about it, I was confused about all the different ZonePlayers, could not tell what I really needed, and did not know about the sound quality of the equipment. For me, it was great having the Sonos user forum, a group of customers helping each other. There are a lot of patient people there who are willing to help you understand what the Sonos system is all about. After purchasing the system, you may have a question or two about options and possibilities, and the user forum is great for all of this.
5. Conclusion
As you can see, I'm a big fan of what Sonos has done with their music system. It really has opened up all kinds of listening possibilities. I can play music easily and at high quality levels, and I even see my own collection better now - sometimes noticing CDs and songs I had forgotten about!
I recommend this system strongly to people who want to modernize their music library but keep the same music quality they are accustomed to with CDs.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Sonos ZonePlayer 120 Amplified Wireless Multi-Room Music System

The Sonos ZonePlayer 120 is amplified, wireless, compact, and convenient. With its state-of-the-art digital amplifier, the ZP120 works anywhere you've ever dreamed of having music - the bedroom, the bathroom or even the backyard. All you have to do is plug it in, connect your choice of speakers and you've got a room filled with music. And with the ZP120's superior wireless range, music lovers really can play all the music they love, all over the house. The design of the ZP120 is both compact and cool so you can feel free to hide it away or leave it out for all to see. And every ZP120 includes a Sonos Desktop Controller for the ultimate in control and convenience.

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