Ok, with the latest gen of IPods, (isn't it 5th gen now?), plus the fact that my Creative Zen Vision M was stolen, I broke down and bought one. In fact, I love it!! Now I'm trying to decide: Dice v. Vais? What I'd like to hear is some feedback from those who have each, how do you like it, would you buy it again? any complaints, loves, hates, regrets, ??? any suggestions? TIA all,
I loved my VAIS for the 2 months that it worked. One unpleasant thing I did experience was a high pitched squeal every time I started the car. I've never seen any other VAIS owners report this though, so perhaps it was related to my units incredibly short life span. Looking back, for the $ I spent on the VAIS I could have gone to Crutchfield and purchased a real nice after market head unit that played CDs, mp3s, AM, FM, linked to my I-pod and had a USB input. I didn't want to lose the ability to control the tunes from the steering wheel so I went with the VAIS. Would I do again? No.
I purchased the Dice Silverline a month or two ago. I think it is mediocre. It's good because it allows you to control your iPod from your steering wheel and keeps your iPod charged. I don't like it because it does weird things sometimes. It may or may not play songs/podcasts in your playlists. The "random" play function works intermittently. Switching between functions on the touchsceen sometimes causes the screen menu selections to disappear and you have to back out of the audio screen then get back in for the menu to reappear. Their tech support people never answered an e-mail I sent them. If I had to pay the cost of the Silverline plus install, I probably would have been very disappointed. The fact that I purchased it through the Prius Shop at a small discount and did the install myself lessens the pain a little. If I had to do it again, I probably wouldn't buy the Silverline. Good luck.
I've been running the VAIS with my 5g iPod for nearly a year now with no problems of any kind. It integrates well with the Prius display for navigation through tracks and playlists. I'm very happy with it.
Man I wish there was a good write up for the difference between the two. With such a large price difference is the Vais worth it?
I've had my DICE for a while now. Easy install and works great. The only issues I've had with it were 1). At one point the iPod wouldn't stop playing when I would shut off the car. Apparently this is only the case when the Hold switch on the iPod is on. 2). Randomly the MFD tells me the iPod is DETACHED when it clearly isn't. Unplug, plug, and it works again. The interface took a couple weeks to get used to, and now I don't even have to think about it when I want to change something. I did the cables-through-the-box-under-the-stereo install, and I would highly suggest it.
