Alpine W505 vs Pioneer F930BT

[naiku 10+ year member]

I am looking at getting a new/used double DIN, and of the 2 I am looking at, am not sure which is the best option. I prefer Alpine, but the W505 does not have navigation or bluetooth. While the reviews of the KCE-400BT are pretty favorable, the NVE P1 appears to have crappy reviews, not to mention it costs over $200, which means to get both bluetooth and navigation on the Alpine I have to cough up another $300 or so.

The Pioneer comes with bluetooth and navigation, but has a smaller screen. Probably not a big deal to me since I am unlikely to watch many (if any) movies at all on it. But, my only experience with Pioneer has been somewhat of a disappointment (with an older single DIN 680 something) where as my experience with Alpine (another older deck, but one of the 79 series, so a good one).

Is the F930BT a good unit? Is it better to get the Alpine and eventually add on the modules? I am more bothered with how good they sound.

Thanks.

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[09Alti 10+ year member]

I had the F90BT in my last car and it was great. You can't go wrong with the F-series IMO

 

[SPY 5,000+ posts]

I had a W205 with the blackbird II and I then I sawped to the W505 and kept the Blackbird II and I didn't really like how the combo worked with ether of them. I then swapped the W505 out for a Eclipse AVN726e and that was better but it has some flaws/quirks also so I eventually swapped it out for a Pioneer AVIC Z110bt. I have to say prior to all of this I was a big Alpine fan but I absolutly love my pioneer, the iPod works great with it, nav is easy to use and I haven't had any issues with it at all.

 

[naiku 10+ year member]

Thanks both, I am definitely leaning towards the Pioneer. Sadly Alpines quality is just not where it once was, poor reviews on pretty much every nav product they put out, which would be OK if they were cheap, but they are not.