I recently installed a KW-NX7000 in my Honda Civic. Overall it is a pretty good system but it does not really break any new ground either. This is not my 1st GPS, I have installed a Kenwood DNX5120 in my other vehicle and a factory VW Navi in another. I also have various portables from Garmin, Magellan, TomTom, Dash, etc. I will primarlily make comparisons to the Kenwood, the VW system is not worth discussing!
Interface. One big plus I will give to the KW-NX7000 is the interface. It looks good, is intuitive, and is easy to use. Kenwood has good Navi menus (all Garmin) but the rest of the interface is a mess and often requires you to refer back to the manual. With the JVC the manual is really not needed, the whole system is very intuitive.
The navigation itself works very well. It locks signal quickly and presents routes that usually make sense. The database of POI's seems reasonably complete. You do have options for fastest time / shortest distance in both preferences and on a per trip basis.
I am not especially impressed with how the KW-NX7000 displays maps. They are easy to read but kind of dull, often times you are just seeing lines on a white background. Unfortunately, there is no option to show more or less detail. Thus, unless you are zoomed way in to about 600 feet, you do not even see road names, town names, etc., just lines. The 3D view was even more dissapointing as it shows even less detail unless you are in one of the few major metropolitan areas where 3d renditions are presented. I have yet to see it present anything nearly as interesting as the photo on the box! My 10 year old says that my other units maps look more "modern". Although I tend to think Garmins maps look a bit cartoonish, I still prefer them to the blandness of JVC's. I will give JVC the edge in how they present things like speed limits, lane guidance, and other details when you are doing a routed trip. If you are only displaying the map all you get is the map and the time.
The JVC has a feature that menus appear and buttons light up when you hand gets near the screen. This is a nice feature and sensitivity can be adjusted. You can change the screen colors but not the button light colors as you can on the Kenwood or Pioneer units. No big deal but if every other button on your car is red, these will be blue.
Boo-hiss to JVC for not including RDS on FM. This means that the unit does not display the song, artist, or station information. Kenwood does provide this feature. JVC has it for HD Radio only.
I installed the JVC bluetooth module and this works great with my blackberry. Given the price differential between the Kenwood and the JVC, I do think Bluetooth should be built in as it is on the Pioneers.
I have not yet installed the HD radio module as this requires an antenna splitter (KS-U21) to continue getting traffic. Unfortunately, part KS-U21 is virtually unobtainable at this time. I am also waiting on my ipod interface so will have to provide an update on that later.
Physically the unit looks good. As installed in the Civic it looks very close to a factory install. The removable, flip down, screen is a great feature unique to the JVC. The screen is nice and large, defintely bigger than the DNX 5120. However, keep in mind that in some vehicles, the screen will stick out a bit more form the dash than some other units and may thus look more "aftermarket" than some others. I was originally going to install this in a 2nd Gen MR2 and it just stuck out to far for my tastes. In the Honda it sits in a "pod" so this is not an issue.
Install was no harder or easier than any other 2-Din head unit. It does work with the PAC Steering Wheel interface controller.
I do feel that for the price of this unit it should include some additional "standard" features. If it included either Bluetooth or HD built-in, this could make it stand out from the pack and not require another box to hide under the dash. Heck, if they just included an iPod cable or an AV cable it would be nice. Do lifetime traffic instead of 3 months. Just provide something that makes this more than another "me too" GPS. This unit costs a good bit more than the DNX5120 but it does not feel like I got a lot more.
So, is this a good head unit? Absoultely. I think it does everything well. I guess the rub is that it does no one thing great, it just has not raised the bar in any features other than the removable faceplate. Some of this could be revised in software, but the same can be said for every other manufacturer.
If this unit were the same price as the DNX5120 I would call it a toss up. You would be trading some features for others so it is a matter of what is more important to you. Currently it is a fair bit more expensive. If I were to get another GPS today, and it were between these two, I would likely go with the Kenwood.
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