Level II, Sony XNV-770BT Installation

For my needs it's completely acceptable, but your mileage of course may very. When I connect with my Ipod Touch 4G it does state that this device isn't compatible, but everything works fine and it immediately starts playing a song. I believe it continues to play in the mode I last played but I haven't tested this out.

Shuffle works fine. It's a bit different than the way that it works on the Ipod since it's not a selection at the top of Playlist, Albums, or Songs. Instead it's a button on the unit that you need to select after you've already selected a playlist, album, or song

So if your listening to a song ((List->Music->Tracks->Song A)



and you want to go to shuffle mode you'd click on Play Menu /Shuffle Button. That will display a new set of options on the screen



If you then click on the shuffle button it will switch to the shuffle mode.



Notice in this example the shuffle mode is Device since I had drilled down from Music->Tracks. This basic method works for playlists and for albums too.

The only real ipod issue I'm aware of is that if you press "List" while listening to a song it always brings you to the top level Ipod Menu



You then have to drill down to the area you want from there. So from here I'd have to click on music



etc. This is obviously a different model than the ipod which would bring you back one level, not to the top.

Hope that answers your question

 

Great thread. Curious what motivated the posters to purchase the SONY vs a Pioneer or Kenwood.

I like the option for traffic and it doesn't look SONY even offers it as an option.

How to the BT buttons on the III steering wheel work with the unit.

 

Price turned out to be one of the major factors for me as I managed to get the Sony for under $800 and my original price point was $1000. My original wants were navigation, traffic, hd radio, and ipod integration.

I was originally leaning towards the Kenwood 6960 due to Garmin, with an added HD Tuner and Traffic Tuner since the Kenwood 9960 was going to be out of my price range. Later adding all the extra tuners concerned me, this being my first install. That caused me to give the Kenwood 9960 a closer look. But in reading this forum a few people indicated that the PAC TATO which I'd need for a JBL equiped Prius III wouldn't work with the 9960. The 9960 output 5v for it's preamps and the PAC TATO only supports up to 4v (NOTE: the Metra TYTO-01 being newer may not have this issue) There where also quite a few reports on Kenwood that talked about there sluggishness when changing functionality. I tried it at car toys and saw this behavior. It also boots really slow.

Those factors kinda moved me over to JVC KW-NT3HDT. The JVC had HD Radio and Traffic like I wanted. It was going to be any easy install being all integrated and it was pretty inexpensive. Cons navigation was generic, ipod connector was on front of unit, and resolution of the screen is low.

I really never looked at Pioneer due to price and that it's GPS software was generic. Also rrolff reported that the bluetooth was really poor.

rrolff recommended the Sony. I looked at it but past issue with Sony technically support kinda of made me hesitant to buy another Sony product. But the TomTom Navigation was appealing since good supported navigation was my primary want. But at $1299 it was too expensive.

Eventually while I was researching how to do the install and collecting all the bits and pieces the Sony unit dropped to a great price on Amazon and I grabbed it after doing a bit more research on it. With it I did lose traffic but I had been experimenting with using my GPS and it's traffic report and found it wasn't all that good. So that turned out to not to be a requirement but instead became a nice to have. But truthfully with TomTom IQ Route I think I'm actually getting better routing now. The HD Tuner for the Sony is a disappointment. Not sure how it compares to anything other than the JVC unit. It works fine but doesn't give you the same functionality that the Tuner does. Once I've played with it a bit more I'll write a review on it. But I'm not ready at this point to do that.

I'm not much of phone person so I can't really give much feedback on the phone and the steering wheel controls at this point in time. It's on my list of to do's. I did try the answer button and it works. Hang up isn't working but that mostly like since I just plugged in the AWSC and didn't ever go through the steps outlined in there doc since it looked like it all worked Guess I'll need to go through there steps after all.

I don't suspect the other button for voice command will work. I think that only works for one Pioneer unit right now. If it does I don't have a way to test it since it's not supported by my phone.


Hope that helps

 

I have to say that the Sony does look very nice indeed. It even runs my favourite nav software, TomTom, I believe. The great shame for me is the price, here it retails for £1300 (around $2000) with the cheapest deal I can find here still being around £950 (about $1500) If I could buy one that worked over here (the US version won't, I believe) for $800 I'd definitely go for it, based on the way this install looks.

Jeremy

 

Bonjour Jeremy.
take your time before ordering this HU...

I have the european model (L77BT) since 3 months.
This HU works perfectly for my taste:
great sound (sound dampening in doors, loudspeakers Focal 165 KR2 );
works perfectly with BT phones;
excellent Navigation, traffic info is great.

But:
tomtom' support is totally inexistant, services for updating maps & POI's are not operational today.
They must be paranoid about hackers and are not able today to provide any kind of services for updating the new nav generation.

I spent time on phone with them; listening how to use a computer,
I sent mails with pictures of the params in the HU;
only kind of answers I got : have a look in the FAQ....

 

Thanks Frenchie, that's useful and ties in with the way that map providers in the EU seem to want to keep prices high. The contrast with the US is quite remarkable. The high price is keeping me from buying the L77BT at the moment, anyway.

Jeremy

 

Sony? Blech...their head units of lore weren't named "Xplod" for nothing...

1+ to whomever mentioned the JVC KW-NT3HDT. That's the way to go, IMO, if you can handle screen res that is a little lower than some of the competition.

 

The US site to upgrade the maps isn't running either. It's not clear if the issue is with Sony or with Tom Tom. The unit is only a few months old. People who pay for each map upgrade would normally wait at least a year. It would be beneficial (but not likely) if the one year of free upgrades starts from the time the update site is running.

BTW--I emailed Metra technical support. They said the 5 volt Kenwood wouldn't be an issue with the TYTO-01.

Refurbished 9960s are being closed out for under $1000. I'm tempted.

 

Actually that's not true. The site is up and running as the first thing it did when I connected to it is update my unit with presumable newer maps and speed light cameras. That being said, all the bells and whistles that are generally offered by TomTom aren't yet supported for this unit. You can't offer map corrections, change the voice for the unit, change the vehicle icon, backup your device, nor add your own POI's at this time.

 

Updated maps for the SONY weren't available when I checked yesterday. I think I was routed to the European site. Looks like the European version of this unit includes traffic.

 

I should qualify my earlier statement. TomTom has been giving me regular updates for the navigation device but I not sure whether I've actually gotten a map update. They appear to be adding new features with each update as I keep noticing new prompts. Today for example it asked me if I wanted to do Map sharing.

Today though I did a notice indicating that a map update was available, along with another device update.



I did set my setting to install beta versions when available. So I'm not sure whether everyone will get these options when they connect.

 

bonjour,
my nav module spent the night with my pc
and this morning it is updated:
navcore 10.870
maps : europe v865
I can now upload POIs.

 

Now that I've had my unit for awhile I've run across what appears to be a bug of some sort. My Sony unit keeps losing the Tuner or HD Station that I set it too. Basically if I'm listening to the station 91.7 FM and I go to work when I come out after work and start the car up I find that sometimes it's set to 83.5 FM. The radio still has all the preset stations stored in it's memory so I'm at a lose for why this is happening. I've duplicated this on the radio tuner and HD radio selections. Has anyone else seen this problem?

 

In europe, we don't have HD station, but we use RDS, so we get the name of the station and, on some stations, the tittle of the song.
I have exactly the same behaviour with my Sony XNV L77BT: it does not restart with the station I was listening to before stopping the car (but always with a preset station, and not always the same)....

 

Thanks. It's nice to know I'm not going crazy. I have an thread going in there forum Other Sony Products -> General

https://forum.sel.sony.com/

if you feel like confirming my report there.

 

I'm going to sell my Pioneer setup, and switch to Sony (EBay $730 w/3 yr 'home brew' warranty...)...

Anyone know what Sirrius module I need? SIR-SNY1 says it works on all sat ready Sony (and is only $48 delivered on EBay)......

Also wondering about this 'Y cable -what is it, where do I get it?

 

As a FYI, you did see the complaints about Sat support on the Sony units in this video review. The display only outputed 8 character for the Name of the song

The Y-cable might be for the antenna.

Metra 40-UV44 Female to 2 Male Y Antenna Adapter

I had to use it so I could power both the HD Tuner and the Tuner.

Overall it's a nice unit, the navigation is excellent. It's definitely gotten cheaper lately.