Well, i got my Alpine iDA-X305 in last friday night, and threw it in the same night, and i had all weekend to mess with it and test it out and here are a few of my thoughts on it.
Its sad that the bad list is larger than the good, but there are just a ton of missed opportunity's on this HU. I sort of regret my purchase, but sort of not.
Maybe I’ll cut and paste this review all over the internet, maybe Alpine will see it that way...
The Bad:
1. What’s with the rotary knob? It’s kind of hard to turn fast for quick volume adjustments and fast scrolling through iPod lists. And when you push in and turn, it serves a different function, but I can’t quite figure out what it is... Switching playlists I guess? Anyway, the knob in general just does not feel too solid and sure of itself, and that’s unfortunate...
2. Where’s my album art? I'm pretty sure I have album art for at least half of the music on my 30G iPod, and I’ve only ever seen one album artwork come up since I installed this thing? Does it only display certain artwork or something? If I would have known it didn’t display artwork reliably, I might have considered a different head unit, what’s the use of a full color LCD if all you use it for is text?
3. Wheres my EQ? Bass and treble adjustments, with adjustable frequencies, high pass filter, ect... not bad, but for a head unit like this, why not add a graphic parametric EQ... Come-on!
4. The text on the screen... It takes forever for all the text to come up on the screen, and even then, it doesn’t all fit. So it takes a while to load up all the text, then it take a while more for it to scroll across the screen, I wish there was an option to make it all pop up at once, and then reduce the text size just a bit so more would fit on the screen.
5. No cd player. I know, I know, I agreed to this when I bought the unit, but still... they really couldn’t fit one in there? It’s nice to have.
6. Radio presets? I still don’t know everything about this thing, and still haven’t touched the manual... but I don’t see how there could be any convenient way to use radio presets on this... I’ll look into it though.
7. Build quality...I hate to say this about an Alpine unit but... This thing really doesn’t feel that high quality, the volume knob is plastic, with fake chrome, as is everything else. The removable part of the faceplate is very light, and reminds me of cheaper stereos. I just remember with my CDA-9985 the knob felt solid and sure of itself, and all of the buttons were very high quality and had a good feel to them. I also remember that that faceplate weighed a ton compared to this one.
8. Add ons... Are you serious with this? I could spend three times the cost of the stereo on add-ons that should be build in... HD radio, Bluetooth, Satellite, Imprint Sound Processing, CD changer, ect.
The good:
1. Sound. The unit sounds pretty good, i haven’t upgraded the rest of the system too much yet, but it definitely sounds better than the stock Chrysler/infinity stereo that it replaced.
2. IPod Controls... I think the iPod controls are decent, the menu structure and concepts behind the menus are very similar to the iPod, so you'll get the hang of it quickly. It just makes sense for the most part, which is very important, I’ve tried some other stereos with the iPod and they were not very intuitive at all, and slower.
Over all, I think it’s a decent unit, and it will serve its purpose, but it could be serving it purpose a lot better. I think if I had to give it a star rating, I’d give it a solid three out of five.
Heres a mic of th install in my car... sorry its a phone pic.
Its sad that the bad list is larger than the good, but there are just a ton of missed opportunity's on this HU. I sort of regret my purchase, but sort of not.
Maybe I’ll cut and paste this review all over the internet, maybe Alpine will see it that way...
The Bad:
1. What’s with the rotary knob? It’s kind of hard to turn fast for quick volume adjustments and fast scrolling through iPod lists. And when you push in and turn, it serves a different function, but I can’t quite figure out what it is... Switching playlists I guess? Anyway, the knob in general just does not feel too solid and sure of itself, and that’s unfortunate...
2. Where’s my album art? I'm pretty sure I have album art for at least half of the music on my 30G iPod, and I’ve only ever seen one album artwork come up since I installed this thing? Does it only display certain artwork or something? If I would have known it didn’t display artwork reliably, I might have considered a different head unit, what’s the use of a full color LCD if all you use it for is text?
3. Wheres my EQ? Bass and treble adjustments, with adjustable frequencies, high pass filter, ect... not bad, but for a head unit like this, why not add a graphic parametric EQ... Come-on!
4. The text on the screen... It takes forever for all the text to come up on the screen, and even then, it doesn’t all fit. So it takes a while to load up all the text, then it take a while more for it to scroll across the screen, I wish there was an option to make it all pop up at once, and then reduce the text size just a bit so more would fit on the screen.
5. No cd player. I know, I know, I agreed to this when I bought the unit, but still... they really couldn’t fit one in there? It’s nice to have.
6. Radio presets? I still don’t know everything about this thing, and still haven’t touched the manual... but I don’t see how there could be any convenient way to use radio presets on this... I’ll look into it though.
7. Build quality...I hate to say this about an Alpine unit but... This thing really doesn’t feel that high quality, the volume knob is plastic, with fake chrome, as is everything else. The removable part of the faceplate is very light, and reminds me of cheaper stereos. I just remember with my CDA-9985 the knob felt solid and sure of itself, and all of the buttons were very high quality and had a good feel to them. I also remember that that faceplate weighed a ton compared to this one.
8. Add ons... Are you serious with this? I could spend three times the cost of the stereo on add-ons that should be build in... HD radio, Bluetooth, Satellite, Imprint Sound Processing, CD changer, ect.
The good:
1. Sound. The unit sounds pretty good, i haven’t upgraded the rest of the system too much yet, but it definitely sounds better than the stock Chrysler/infinity stereo that it replaced.
2. IPod Controls... I think the iPod controls are decent, the menu structure and concepts behind the menus are very similar to the iPod, so you'll get the hang of it quickly. It just makes sense for the most part, which is very important, I’ve tried some other stereos with the iPod and they were not very intuitive at all, and slower.
Over all, I think it’s a decent unit, and it will serve its purpose, but it could be serving it purpose a lot better. I think if I had to give it a star rating, I’d give it a solid three out of five.
Heres a mic of th install in my car... sorry its a phone pic.
