Best Buy radio malibu 2002 installations

Lots of things to like, with some compromises, May 13, 2010

By 

E. Borah – See all my reviews

  

This had all the features we were looking for — Bluetooth connectivity without a separate microphone to install, detachable faceplate, DVD support, SD support, USB and external audio input on the faceplate. I also appreciate the dial volume knob, and that many of the controls have hard buttons as well as touchscreen equivalents.

The sound is much better than our factory-installed stereo (in a Kia Sedona) — richer sound, deeper bass, but not distracting or distorting (all with the factory-installed speakers). The tuner has slightly more static than our old stereo off the same antenna, but the difference isn’t great.

The touchscreen excels on the tuner setting — a nice display that shows time, radio station, and your current preset settings (each preset shows the frequency associated with it). While it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that some high-end stereos have (it doesn’t detect and display the station call letters), it does fine.

Where things break down a little is when you put in an MP3 source (CD/DVD or SD card — I haven’t tried USB yet but I assume it’s the same). The screen is split into three sections. One tiny line across the top shows what’s currently playing, on a slowly scrolling display. This display is way too small to be particularly useful — you won’t be glancing at the dash to see the name of the current song when you’re playing MP3s. The left half of the screen shows the directory listing, and the right half shows the filenames for the current directory. The MP3 metadata only displays for what’s playing, not for the file listings. Because the screen is broken up left-and-right, the width of each section is less than half the total width of the display — which means if your MP3 files are named something like “01-First Song on the CD.MP3″, then you’ll probably see something like this in the directory listing: “01-01-F” — the first 1 is the system telling you it’s the first song on the list, and then you get about 4-6 characters of the filename itself. That makes finding the right song on a directory listing pretty difficult. While you play an MP3 source, you see this menu display — and that’s it. Blech. Sounds great, looks awful. They’d have been better off showing fewer directories and files on the screen at once, and letting them take the full width to show more of the names. Oh well, it works.

The bluetooth connection works well for handsfree phone calls, and the audio on it is surprisingly good for a condenser mike built into a faceplate — not awesome, but for talking while driving it’s pretty great. Road noise isn’t bad, and the driver is quite understandable. I didn’t hear any echo when I talked to my wife, and my voice was coming out the car speakers and hers was coming through the mike on the faceplate.

I haven’t watched any video on the screen, as I didn’t want to tear everything apart to figure out how to hook it up to the parking brake. This does point out one other annoying feature if you don’t hook up the park brake (or use it with the park brake disengaged) — changing to anything other than tuner pops up an ugly blue screen with a message warning about watching video while you drive, which stays up for several seconds. Even if you put in an audio CD, you’ll see the warning before you get to a menu screen. It’s obnoxious, but it’s not a big deal. If you do put in a DVD, you can still listen to it even though the video won’t show if you haven’t hooked it up to the park brake or if you have and the brake isn’t set — if you have a music video DVD, this might be useful, though the sound is only stereo and not 5.1 Dolby or DTS or anything fancy.

The detachable faceplate comes with a little fabric pouch with a drawstring — don’t expect it to offer much protection beyond avoiding minor scratches.

All in all, pretty solid. Good sound and an awesome set of features makes the flaws sufferable, and it looks great in the dash (maybe I’ll add pictures later — comment if you want some). I’d consider buying another, if my other van’s dash had a double-DIN slot (at 1.5-DIN, this just isn’t an option).

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Worth every penny, September 24, 2010

I bought this product even though there were few reviews available online. I was actually not looking for a DVD player, but this was the cheapest double-DIN receiver I could find with Bluetooth. All the other features work as advertised. I have used everything short of a USB drive and streaming media from my phone (due to my phone not supporting that feature.) I have a 4 GB SD card that I have used on several occasions and it works just like it says. While I love the receiver, there are a few things you should know ahead of time, and I will list a couple of tricks that may make it more enjoyable. First off, it takes a while to load up a CD (or the SD card). When the CD is playing, the BOSS splash screen is up and all that you see is the track number and the elapsed time for that track. No clock, etc. When the SD card is playing, you get a screen that shows the directory on the left, and the files in the currently selected folder on the right. The font is kind of small, so keep your reading glasses handy if you don’t have 20/20. I have begun to use the IR remote more than I though I would – some of the features are quicker to make happen on the remote than on the limited buttons on the receiver. Now for a couple of tricks: 1. When you insert a disc (CD or DVD), a message comes up on a blue screen that tells you to not watch a movie with the car in motion. If you hook up the “Parking Brake” wire to a ground, you won’t see that message – and the side benefit is that you can now watch a DVD regardless of whether the car is moving or not. 2. I installed a back-up camera and wired it to the reverse light. Sure enough, when you put the car in reverse the camera automatically comes up. However, you can’t adjust the audio of whatever you were listening to before you went in reverse. Typically that is how long the CD takes to load, and if the volume was loud you can’t turn it down until you are out of reverse. The power output is great and an AMP is not needed unless you are running a SUB. I have a BOSS 8″ powered AMP connected to this with some nice Polk Audio component speakers and the transformation of my vehicle is amazing. The DVD display is very nice, although I haven’t used it since my initial test – I don’t recommend driving down the road with a movie playing. All in all this was a great purchase. My only other gripe is that I had to re-engineer the mounting process for my vehicle. Also, the plastic bezel wouldn’t fit either due to the size of the opening in my console. So if you own a 2003 Nissan Frontier, be prepared for those gotchas. I would recommend this to anyone looking for an inexpensive upgrade to their factory stereo!

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price is right. has the features. it just works., March 17, 2011

By 

Nathan T. Smith (Anaslime, CA) – See all my reviews

  

Well, going into this purchase I knew you would get what you pay for… I wasn’t expecting much! All the features I wanted were there, so I figured somewhere there had to be some corners cut. All I can say is that I am satisfied with the purchase. The GUI is useable and wasn’t as dumb as I thought it would be. For instance, when you hang up the bluetooth, or switch the unit back on, it will remember which song you were on. I was a little nervous that all the features wouldn’t perform well – but they do. The sound quality is a little better than expected (better than my part-out OEM Bose head unit) which makes me glad I didn’t go with a no-name brand. The radio, cd player, and bluetooth screens are plain but not badly designed. The SD/USB mode however is straight ugly, looks like a 80s DOS program’s attempt at iTunes, but it gets the job done. It’s a bit slow to “read” your USB/SD data – good 20 seconds before you get your music bumping.

I was actually most disappointed that the unit didn’t mount flush. I should have known this because it has a detachable face. Thinking about it now, I really don’t play CDs at all anymore – maybe a unit with a bigger screen that would mount flush would have been a better option, but the buttons you can actually touch and feel are far better (and safer) for when you’re driving – especially with the way I drive. Plus it’s not as flashy so hopefully no one will be tempted to jack me. And again, for the price, it just works. Direct, bright sunlight on the screen will render it 75% invisible – not sure if a more expensive unit would act this way? On certain modes, like radio, you can turn the screen off – so it’s not so bright at night. Let’s see – the installation was a snap. Pairing with bluetooth is easy and quick. I think that’s about all I have to add. As far as I can tell, for $175 this is the best unit on Amazon if you’re trying to get the most features per dollar.

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