Alpine IVA-D310R and NVE NO99P Sat Nav review

Baghdad · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 03, 2005 Posts: 7

Here we go then, after much vacilation and attemtpts to find out info whilst I was away i settled for the above configuration for my Sat Nav and in car hifi needs.

The car came with a BLaupunkt Pasadena Head unit with a 10 CD auto changer in the boot and also a 10 speaker system. The head unit and autochanger were removed but the speakers left in situ. All the work was done by Auto Dynamics who were excellent - very customer focused and helpful to deal with.

When the screen is folded away this unit is very discrete as you can see below. one concern i had was that it would cover the climate control switches, which of course it does. However there is a button one can push that lowers the screen to the horizontal allowing for pushing and altering before resetting itself 10 seconds later.

How easy is it to use? Well not bad fairly intuitive withonly a few trips to reading the manual required to get the basic functions going. Lets get straight on to what i don't like. Well i think the iPod integration is poor in terms of being able to search rapidly for individual albums/artists. You have to scroll down through them which is a non-starter when driving and also if you have 30Gb of music as i do a long time to get to ZZ Top for instance.

Onto the nub of it - how does it navigate. Well its pretty damn brilliant. No speed cameras which will please the TOMTOM crowd and get them shouting at how brilliant theirs is and mine isn't. Personally i rely on the Mark 1 eyeball and a sense of driving within the legal limit to prevent me losing my license. First trip was into the city to pick up my brother in law. I noticed there was an option to avoid the congestion charging zone which was good. The choice of routes took no time indeed. I was presented with three options to go for based on time, shortest and i can't recall the third Immediately i noticed the TMC was working and reporting traffic on the Marylebone Road, but it still onsidered this the quickest route and off we went. The instructions came fast and furious - giving me a 100m-350m warning according to speed and then another instruction 5 seconds before the turn. This information being given in split screen format, with route overview to the left and detailed junction data on the right. The left hand screen can be viewed in North Up, direction of travel up and 3D/Birds eye. Around my brother in laws office there are a number of roads closed due to construction - this was a problem as the Alpine didn't know about this. No problem as soon as i passed the turn and it worked out I wasn't going down that road it instantly calculated a new route. When travelling down the Marylebone road as one approached junctions it gave you visual instructions as to which lane you needed to be in.

Having collected him it was time to head off to the cotswolds, so i punched in his postcode and off we went. Once on the motorway you were once again presented with the split screen( which you can change when you want to if you don't like it) which provided distance and time to the next three junction, services or feature along the motorway. As one approaches the turn off it goes into guidance screen on the right hand side showing you the junction lay out and then the roundabout at the top. The audible insturctions are always clear and precise, with the sound system being muted when they are delivered. A number of times it came up with TMC updates offering me the opportunity to reroute - i decided to keep going on the route i was on as we were making good time. The result it counted down to zero metres and there we were at the bottom of the drive. Very very good.

POI's up the ying yang on it. Routing options that i have yet to even consider as some refer to ferry/chunnel etc.

As for the audio - an excellent sound. Radio has 3 FM, 1 MW and 1LW bands.

Bit of a rambling review but am i impressed - you bet!!!

	PocketGPS
	Web