0ur opinion:

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lf you?ve been waiting for an Alpine head unit that you can control just like your iPod, this is it. Menus that are navigable exactly like the iPod. All search options just like the iPod, ability to view album art as you would on the iPod and fast song selection as quick as the iPod.

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Buyer's feedback: - * Great idea but not so fast.... ...
Yeah, this should have been a great product. And it mostly works... 85% maybe. But you'd expect more from Alpine wouldn't you. Specifics - no matter what you do, no matter how many times you change it, the system will set to "repeat all". You can change the settings on your ipod and on your deck and the next time you use it, it'll default back to "repeat all". Why??? Second, the text is too big - you can't read titles. And you can't change the text size, no matter what they tell you. This just should have been tested more and should have been a better product.

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Buyer's feedback: - no other unit HU out there does what this does for the price
Pros:
Overall graphics incredible.
Ipod works flawlessly showing album art.
Sirius Satellite operation incredible

Cons:
the remote sinks.

In Between:
Couldnt get Bluetooth to work with my HTC 8525 initially. Always said "Updating..." and couldnt see my phonebook but could see who was calling when calls came in. Got Jetware Mobile for my phone and now it all works.

i dont use it with a hard drive so i cant speak to that functionality.

i am a heavy satellite user and i can search by artist or song what is playing but clicking the big knob down. incredible! i do not need to search the 100's of satellite channels manually for what i want ot hear. you can set up alerts to tell you what your favorite team is playing and it gives score updates if you listen to another channel. it also can "record" a satellite signal like a tivo. it shows all info on what is playing and the text is beautiful and readable.

i am a heavy ipod user and my 5th gen 80 GB ipod works great showing album art as advertised. i can search my ipod by artist or song. i have over 300 albums and can search around and play what i want just fine. no, its not an ipod so the interface is different but i was able to get around on the HU UI ok. I am a IT chick tech geek so bad UI's are a pet peeve.

i am not a sound geek so i know this isnt something i can review as a pro. all i know is that when i turn up the sound the bass isnt distorted and there are quite a few EQ presets for me to choose from.

the remote has no bluetooth or ipod buttons. not all buttons are lit for night use.


even with a lame remote i cant take down my 5 star rating.

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Buyer's feedback: - * Great little device, but room for improvement in the next gen ...
I switched from a drive+play to this head unit because the drive+play was giving a ground loop whine that was drivin me crazy. Anyway, the digital connection made all background noise go to zero, which was a huge relief. The scroll wheel is nice, I can get through my 4400 songs pretty quickly and accurately, which is another improvement over the drive/play. Something weird happens when scrolling through audio books that defies logic, the scrolling jumps around which makes choosing an audiobook nearly impossible. This anomaly is fortunately contained to only the audiobook menu. I didn't like the default backgrounds for the unit, so I went to alpine's site and was able to find one out of the twenty that suited my tastes (a way to create your own has been discovered on the internet, but it is a little technical.). The biggest issue I have found is that it does not charge the ipod while the car is off, and for me with my "old" and heavily used 5th gen ipod, it seems to drain the ipod overnight, but others I have talked to do not seem to have this issue. In summary:
+Looks good, nice screen, good graphics
+custumizable graphics
+Signal to noise ratio super (I had issues with my previous system)
+Many amp Outputs on back and input
+Many options to expand with greater functionality
-no included cd player (can expand with six disc player)
-weird audiobook menu glitch
-no video
-won't play protected aac files (DRM'ed files from itunes)... I actually can't co nfirm this, but have heard it from a buddy who also owns one and uses itunes.
-no upg radeable firmware
-menus could scroll text better, the 10 character limit is not leaving much to work with for album title, artist name, or song title (though song title does scroll, the others do not)
-menus could animate more like an actual ipod (but now I'm being nit- picky)
-Only charges the ipod when car is on
-finally, as the text is white, it is impossible to replicate the ipod screen which is black text on a white background.

Did I write a big enough book here? I tried to address all the questions that I couldn't find the answer to when I purchased it.

P.S. even though there are more minuses than pluses, I still recommend this over any other ipod car interface and think it is a great product... just with some room for improvement.

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Buyer's feedback: - No remote control and cannot rate the songs
Excellent player, but you cannot rate (stars) the songs like a Ipod. The remote control must have to be included for this price.

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Buyer's feedback: - * Alpine IDA-X001 Digital Media Receiver ...
Works OK. Doesn't give the full feature when you press the back button. Some design flaws - Enter button is to the upper left of the big knob. The big knob itself should have been the enter button. Alpine's product development engineer must have been asleep that day. Another feature left out - wished it had alphabetical first letters of the artist name so you can skip quickly by jumping from A to P directly.

Still having problems downloading special background from Alpine's website to this unit. Used USB flash drive to keep the file background but head unit just won't read & memorize it. Another Alpine flaw????????

Amazon's price is very very reasonable for this unit.