Clarion N.I.C.E-- Navigation in-car Entertainment System
Bad UI, Limited Functionality, Low Value
If you value your peace of mind, don't buy this product. It's all eye candy. <br /> <br />The N.I.C.E unit does provide navigation, satellite radio, video, and MP3 player functionality. However, the amount of frustration you have to experience to get these features is unreasonably high, especially considering the unit's price. <br /> <br />These are a few of the frustrations users of this unit will encounter: <br /> <br />1. The interface is atrocious, both in design and response. Very often the unit registers a press of a softbutton on the screen with a highlight and a beep but doesn't actually perform the action. You have to press the softbutton again. You'll find this very frustrating when entering addresses in the Navigation component. <br /> <br />The interface is also not consistent between modules. Although less serious, this problem makes it difficult to learn the product's functionality. <br /> <br />2. The SIRIUS radio component has major problems. The two N.I.C.E. units I've had constantly present a annoying alert (accompanied by a loud beep) named \\"Song-Seek Alert.\\" In the first unit, the alert was there from the start. After I got a replacement, the second unit worked fine for about two months but then started to constantly show the alert, too. The alert (shown in one of the customer images for this product) goes away by itself after two seconds, then the module goes into the Song-Seek List view, which lasts about five seconds. Listening to SIRIUS radio with this problem is a frustrating experience. Curiously, the alert (and the annoying beep) don't occur when you use the SIRIUS module and the Navigation minimodule at the same time. The user manual makes no mention of this alert; therefore, you cannot determine what causes it. I believe this is a debugging aid used by Clarion (TM) engineers. <br /> <br />The second major problem with the SIRIUS module is that it doesn't remember the band you were using after you turn off the ignition or after changing modules. This is frustrating because I keep my favorite SIRIUS radio stations in separate preset groups-called bands in N.I.C.E.-depending on the kind of content each station provides: I keep news/talk stations in band A and music stations in band B. While I'm listening to music-on the way to the mall, for example-I set the band to B. On my way back home, when I press the 1 preset softbutton, I get NPR instead of Area 33. This is doubly frustrating when I'm listening to SIRIUS radio and need to use the Navigation module. When I switch to the Navigation module, I need to activate the SIRUS minimodule and change the band before I can use my music presets. <br /> <br />The third serious problem with the SIRIUS module is the constant blinking of the SIRIUS logo. You cannot deactivate or overcome this blinking without losing the ability to change stations (by using the Channel List view, for example). <br /> <br />3. The Music module is terrible. This module makes it impossible to navigate a large music library while playing a song because it insists on going back to the song being played on the list. That is, if you're playing the 25th song of a 100-song list and scroll to the 45th song, five seconds after you let go of the scroll button (to read the song names displayed on the page), the unit takes you back to the page that shows the 25th song. And, when you go to this module (either by restarting or by switching from another module) it always restarts the song that was playing last. This is a HUGE problem to people who enjoy listening to long tracks. <br /> <br />4. The Video module needs to be more usable and flexible. When I parked my car under a tree and tried to enjoy videos in my iPod, this module keep thinking that I was driving. This caused it to display an alert every couple of minutes during playback. For videos that use the widescreen format, you cannot clip the top and bottom black bars, with a zoom function. You can only stretch the display. Having been released in the era of widescreen video, this is unacceptable. <br /> <br />5. The mounting arm is not strong enough to hold the unit in place. While driving, the unit bounces too much to be usable as a navigation aid. You have to add extra support to work around this problem. I used a small pack of napkins. <br /> <br />The Navigation module is the best one of the unit, which isn't saying much. It has a few minor glitches and the user interface responsiveness problems mentioned earlier; but, overall, it's OK. <br /> <br />These problems, especially the Song-Seek Alert problem, tell me that Clarion performed very limited testing under actual usage conditions, that is, inside a vehicle being driven and parked as a regular person would do. Clarion offered customers an relatively expensive device expecting us to conduct the actual testing. As a gadget-savvy customer, this offends me. As of 2006-02-12, Clarion has published no software updates for the N.I.C.E. unit. <br /> <br />I had always associated the name Clarion with sophistication and quality. This association no longer stands. This is my last Clarion purchase. <br /> <br />If you value your sanity, I strongly advise you to stay away from this product.