CAR AUDIO FROM PIONEER THAT WILL GET YOU TALKING

Pioneer Electronics is excited to announce the release of two in-car CD players, featuring Bluetooth wireless technology for 'hands-free' calling.

The Pioneer DEH-P7850BT and DEH-P9850BT are Pioneer's first in-car CD players to use Bluetooth wireless technology. Using the CD player with a mobile phone (compatible with Bluetooth wireless technology), users can now make/accept calls (including call waiting), talk, and hang up without touching the phone at all.

The mobile phone can be stored away in the boot, glove box or suit jacket pocket.



Operation is simple. You can talk into the unit's included microphone while listening through your in-car speakers. Other features included are Voice Dial, Auto Answering, Phone Book Transfer and ABC Search.

Pioneer Australia will release the DEH-P7850BT (RRP $799) and DEH-P9850BT (RRP $999) on June 1st, 2006.

Great units, we fitted a DEHP-9850BT Last week.



George
Adelaide Pro Sound

I love the look of the display, and Bluetooth Phone Connection will surely have to be a standard feature from all manufacturer's before long. Suprised its taken as long as it has really

You'd want to have a car charger in your car too though, bluetooth chews through battery like crazy...

Bingooo. If your going to use a cradle charger, you may as well use a standard charger/car kit.

But damn, that new colour screen unit looks SEXY. If that had been out a year ago, i would have bought it (depending on features).

I like the bottom one. looking at it from an intgration standpoint it will be a good thing. swap the radio and gain a HF kit.

Bert Verdonck is a popular man.

he has a big phone number too

9850 looks nice

Mmm...9850BT = NICE.

P.S. Bert is my homeboy.

I have the Bluetooth function on my phone on all the time and it doesn't appear to use the battery much quicker than without it on.

Wouldn't bother me anyway, phone came with a 12v charger, but no hands free, so this would be a pretty useful feature for me

The audio features are improved too

I wonder if you could use the HU to make calls out and using the remote to dial. Would be nifty.

I believe you can do that on my alpine, the 9835. Almost certain. So i dont see why you couldnt on the pioneer

You can use the knob to scroll through numbers in your phone book and another button to start dialling. Inputting a new number is a bit more fiddly though.

Yeah have the 9850 sitting here waiting to get installed. Now just to get the rest of the system figured out.


MDL

People interested in these units might be interested in alternatives as well... I just got this: Parrot RHYTHM N'BLUE ...

Can't wait to install it...

Click to view attachment

Personally I don't mind that it looks a bit ugly...

The Parrot is Ugly though

What the hell is Parrot?

Sorry to say but the class of the Pioneer headunits gets RUINED by that thing down on the bottom of page 1.

That is horrendous or however you spell it, and even though its a $99 EBAY special i wouldnt put that in my car or any customers car to begin with.

Sorry but thats just TERRIBLE.


George
Adelaide Pro Sound

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
werd.

If i had a unit like that i'd do a forrest gump and run like the wind..

ill take 2?

those have been around for 9 months now. (I can sell them but choose not to.) about the $450 area from memory.

I was about to say, fantastic choice before the pioneer range was out..but perhaps superseded now. You'd be pissed if you were the original manufacturer.

lol.yea the new units are pritty cool,had a play with them at work the other day,they have a fairly decent range on the 2,not that you would need that if yur sitting in the car lol.

Thast a great looking and functional head unit, i am so getting one lol. Now to sell my kindney lol

The Pioneer is nice.

The Parrot is FUGLY!!

Sorry if I sound like boring old pessimist, but I don't see what the fuss is about personally?

The way I look at it:

1) The screens look typically high end pioneer to me. That means sacrifice clarity and legibility to gain pretty colours and crappy low res text and pictures. Legibility is critical in the complex environment of a moving vehicle. In traffic, if you have to look twice to read what track is playing, that second glance may send you into the back of a car or through a red light.

2) The interface looks typically high end pioneer to me also, which i personally consider to be a backwards step over their more conventional models (5750 for example). Again interface is absolute critical inside a car, because most of the time you will be moving. It's extremely important to be able to access functions easilly and quickly to minimise the amount of time your attention leaves the road.

3) Bluetooth on your deck! You can press a button on your deck to answer a call...or i guess you could just press the button on you fone ... or maybe on your handsfree ... but no, it's 'cooler' when you can do it with your CD player!! Forgive my pessimism, but it looks to me like yet another unnecessary gimmick.

I really feel like deck designs have taken a major step back lately, especially this year.

Clarion
Their old 2003 line was simple, but classy. I the 946MP combined innovation (touch screen), style (moden, curvy design), a good screen (animated, yet still clear and high res) and class (solid feel, metal casing).

Their 2005 'upgrade' brought built a less sexy square box face, but addeda (very nice) colour screen to the screen. The design grew on me a little (not much) and the screen looked great so I forgave it. And at least it was still a classy silver, metal finish.

Now their 2006 upgrade abolished their nicest non-pro model (956 equivalent) and rebuilt all of their square blocky faces in ugly black! *sigh*

Eclipse
Eclipse were always known for their sound quality rather then their looks - as they were always dull and cheap looking. In 2005 this changed, and they actually brought out a range which (IMO) looked as good as it sounded. I belive they did a great job of walkign the line between 'flash' and 'function'.They had just enough brightness to not be boring, and yet were simple enough to not look too 'tacky'. Again their interfaces were good, and they had a nice nice clear, legible display.

Now, they've replaced the 8455 with the atrocious looking CD7000, which appears to meas if it should be well and truly in the running for 'ugliest source unit of 2006' title. It's boxy, dull, and cheap looking, and they replaced the nice little classy looking silver knobs for a single big, chunky thing that looks like a dinner plate gone wrong. I can only HOPE this looks better in the flesh then in photos, because from what i've seen I'd buy the cheaper CD5000 anyday and accept the lesser features just so that I can bear looking at the thing! Thank god the haven't filtered this look into the rest of the range (YET).

Alpine
Nothing to say here.. I've always found Alpine to be far too traditional in their deck designs. I think they should realise they are an audio maker, not a car company. Jaguar, Mercedes, BMW and the like rely heavilly on brand image and identification to sell their hundred thousand dollar product to wealthy people, who are often badge snobs. A Jaguar is a statement, and most jag owners want everyone to know they are driving a Jag.

Alpine sell decks to people who like to listen to music. Why must they continue to design decks that look like they came straight out of 1970? They have a very good quality feel to all their units, but it's sad they cant back that up the quality with appearance. Even their F#1 unit (as legendary as it's abilities may be) looks like a 1980 teeny bopper special.

Nakamichi
Ok, I can understand the 'simplistic elegance' idea, but did these guys forget to add the 'elegance' part? I could easilly mistake this for the oem tape deck in my parents EL Fairmont if I didn't see the name. I'd genuinely struggle also to come to a conclusion about which one looks better...

Right now, my list of classy, functional source units is limited to about 4:
*Clarion HX-D2 - A touch plain in photos, but in person the metal, shadow chrome finish is pure class.
*Eclipse CD5000 - classy, and modern, without sacrificing functionality
*Pioneer P90 - simple, techno look
*Pioneer P80 - Functional and stylish. How the 8650 and 9650 SHOULD have been
*McIntosh: I'd go so far as to call it dull, maybe even ugly, but theres something sexy about that glass-like finish. One look at the interior of a new Liberty GT will confirm this!

I would almost add in that new 9850BT to that list. The face design in general is quite nice, looking clean and classy, but the screen looks cheap, and something about that knob doesnt seem to look quite right...

Anyway, back on topic.

went to have a play with the top-end pioneer today.
Man that thing feels cheap, the big knob is a rotary dial, but also flexes in each direction.
Downfalls
-- it takes a lot to push it in any direction with just one finger.
-- The knobs smooth, all over. its VERY easy to slip while pushing up, thus turning the rotary dial, thus f***ing up your selection
-- The knobs smooth, so its very easy to slip off alltogether when trying to "Click it" in any direction

the big knob also feels cheap and plasticy, like it'd fail after a couple hundred clicks.
Pretty unit, though, great features and bright screen, but as stated, a bit
low-res.

I wouldnt personally go it anymore. The combination of stuff-all buttons on the face, with a very finicky rotary commander which you cant really use too quickly, makes it a no-go for me. Pity. its got heaps of features.

Lucky the DEH-P80RS has most of the same features and but without the BT

That 9850BT to my knowledge retails at exactly the same price as the P80RS, which tells me one thing about Pioneer - they are smart.

Rather then bringing out a half arsed model that attempts to reach all audiences, they release two.

*The 9850 for the boys who like to show off their toys
*The P80 for the enthusiasts who desire functionality and subtlety.

I'd like to see more companies take such an approach at this end of the market, as most people who love one of these decks, would likely hate the other.

To me the P80 kind of comes cross as a downscaled, affordable version of the P90.

I'm surprised Clarion hasn't taken a similar approach in releasing a downscaled HX-D2 for the ~$1,000 price point. Perhaps this is why they haven't yet released a replacement for the DXZ-956MC? There are so many people who love the HX-D2 but just cannot afford it.. i really think that such a deck would really fill a massive void in the industry, as the P80 seems to have that market all to themselves now, with offerings from eclipse and alpine seemingly taking more of a 'flashy light' approach at this stage.

Nope sorry. RRP on the P80RS is $849. All of which you said still applies though.

Really? That's a really great price... I remember reading somewhere that the RRP was $999, they must have been pre-release estimates or something.

That really makes it a very tempting alternative over a HX-D2 for me now.. I can buy that deck, an external active crossover, and a 30 band EQ, and still work out cheaper then the Clarion.

Will give it some thought for sure.

Where can you get the DEH-P80RS from? It's not on the Pioneer Australia website, is it an import only?

I really like the look of it and its feature set.

Its an independent model. Thus, you can get it from idenpendent retailers (not places like Autobarn).

Where's the list of independent retailers, so we can pick one close to home?

Dont know if there is one. Maybe try calling Pioneer or asking at your local store?

Use the link below and disregard the chain stores in your results, i'd call the store first to make sure though.
http://www.pioneer.com.au/customerservice/...estretailstore/