JVC KD-NX5000

First the good:
Lots of features. The KD-NX5000 can do just about everything you'd want in a head unit: radio, GPS navigation, DVD and DivX playback, CD player, Mp3 player with built-in 24 gig HD server, and even the option of Bluetooth and satellite radio (requires additional purchase).

It's a single din form factor. This unit should fit in just about any car. The number of features crammed into such a small space is rather impressive.

I like the look. Clean and not too flashy, with the right blend of cool-looking blue lights and graphics without going overboard. On close examination the face unit is made of kind of cheap-feeling plastic, but it's a good compromise for the price and it looks stylish from a reasonable distance. The face also comes off so you can take it with you to prevent thieves from going after it, which is nice.

It's pricy (MSRP is $1099, you can find on ebay for less than $600), but given the features this is to be expected. You won't find many comparable units in single din form factor.

Now the Bad:
Although the KD-NX5000 does just about everything, it doesn't do anything really well.

Navigation:
The unit doesn't have a touchscreen, which makes entering addresses for GPS navigation a real pain. You have to scroll through letters one at a time. It will shade out letters as your type, slowly allowing you to filter down to available destinations. This does make entering addresses slightly more tolerable, but still inferior to a touch screen. Navigation itself is comparable to similar nav units, it'll get you where you need to go and the POIs database is pretty extensive. The GPS seems to do a good job getting a signal, better than many of the portable units I've tried. There is the option of real-time traffic warnings (requires subscription, but free 3mo trial included). The traffic system is supposed to warn you when traffic is ahead and give you the option of re-routing, but I haven't seen this actually work. You can manually see traffic warnings on your route, but the nav never seems to want to re-route so I always need to take the initiative. I'm not sure why; maybe I just haven't seen the situation where a re-route would save a significant amount of time (doubtful IMO).

There are a number of quirks with the nav unit. It REQUIRES a speed sense signal to function. Now, a lot of in-dash units will take advantage of the speed sensor (VSS or Vehicle Speed Sense); it helps keep track of your location if you lose the satellite signal (for example: going through a tunnel). But as far as GPS navigation goes VSS is really just a nice-to-have; portable nav units don't have it and they work just fine. There is no good reason to REQUIRE the VSS for a nav unit to function. This simple fact somehow slipped past the design engineers at JVC. Without a speed sense wire, the KD-NX5000 is completely lost; GPS navigation does not work at all. So, cars with non-standard speed sensors (or inaccessible speed sense wires), require the purchase of a $220 speed sense generator. What may have appeared to be a reasonable price suddenly becomes a lot less attractive and most likely this will not be discovered until AFTER installation. A speed sense generator can be installed on the wheel well, polarize the tire and this generates a VSS signal for the nav unit. Just don't rotate your tires too often I guess.

If you are moving very slowly, such as in heavy stop-and-go traffic, the speed sensor will not send a signal. The nav unit assumes you haven't moved, even if you go from one end of the city to the other. Thus the KD-NX5000 is rather unreliable in heavy city traffic. This is a serious design flaw, IMHO.

Also, the KD-NX5000 will not allow you to enter an address or search for a PIO (point-of-interest) while moving. I'm sure this was intended to be a safety feature, as you wouldn’t want to be trying the tedious letter entry process while driving…but apparently JVC didn’t consider the possibility of having a passenger in the car. This is just stupid.

MP3 Server:
The MP3 server GUI seems like something from 4 or 5 years ago; it sorts MP3s by genre and album (9 available genres, 99 albums available each, 999 songs/album). There is no capability of making a playlist across genres or albums. You can shuffle a genre or album or play them in order- that's about it. Copying your MP3 library over takes a LOT of time. The easiest way is to burn your library to a DVD, which the unit can read. But the KD-NX5000 is not smart enough to automatically copy songs in folders as they appear on the DVD. So you need to copy one folder at a time, which will take a LONG time if you have a large collection like me. Songs in the root directory of a disc will be added into the first directory when copied for some reason. The unit can compress CDs into mp3s, which sounds cool until you try it; you have to manually enter album name and song titles; this entails scrolling to each letter and pressing enter ONE LETTER AT A TIME...yea that's a lot of fun. You're better off compressing on a PC and making a CD or DVD.

CD Player:
The CD player forgets where you are when you turn off the car, making it a bad choice if you like to listen to books on CD. Otherwise it's just a standard CD player, nothing special.

DVD Player:
The DVD player is ok, although the screen is rather small. It also plays DivX disks, which is pretty cool.

Radio:
Not an HD radio. Ok, maybe not a big deal. Some people might think my standards are too high. This is admittedly about the only feature you can’t get w/ the KD-NX5000. But even some cheapo $50 head units nowadays (as well as many standard factory built-in car stereos) have HD radio, so you can see the title and album and get better sound. All the major stations have converted to HD radio, so it's not like this is cutting edge stuff. Yet the $600 KD-NX5000 just has a standard radio. It has 6 pre-sets (each for FM1, FM2, FM3, and AM). You can name the stations if you want. ho-hum.

Interface:
The KD-NX5000 doesn't have a touchscreen and surface area available for buttons was limited, so JVC had to get creative with menus. The buttons do a lot of different things, and even the same button will do something different if you press it once or hold it down. The result is that you can access a lot of features with a few buttons. The problem is that you will need to drive around with the manual for a few weeks before you get the hang of it. This would probably make it frustrating to have a passenger do things like enter route changes since operation requires a few hours of training…but oh wait, you can’t do that anyway. You need to pull over to make any changes to the route. Yes, I’ve already mentioned this, but it’s REALLY annoying.

Bottom line:
I do not recommend the KD-NX5000. If you must have an integrated single-din nav unit and can't find anything else, call JVC customer care first (1-800-252-5722) and see if the VSS in your vehicle is compatible. At least then you'll know if you need to fork over the extra $200 for a VSS generator.

If you want an in-dash GPS head unit, a double-din from Pioneer or Alpine is undoubtedly better. If you don't have a double din slot, I'll bet you could get a decent HD radio and/or DVD head unit with aux in (for your ipod) and a portable nav unit for the price of the KD-NX5000. Plus you can take the portable nav unit with you when traveling and use it in a rental or whatever. I wish I'd done that.