Pioneer AVIC-X920BT brings Pandora streaming music to your satnav via the iPhone

Your car's dash just got a tad bit more interesting with the introduction of Pandora music streaming in Pioneer's latest navigation unit. The double-DIN in-dash device exploits your iPhone's cellular connection to glean tunes from the ether and comes with a 6.1-inch display, Bluetooth, 3D video accelerator, and 4GB of built-in memory expandable by MicroSD. Coming out in March for $1,200, this is slated to be a direct challenge to satellite and old school radio services, and for more on the greater market impact of its introduction, you can see the WSJ coverage below. For the full specs of this new flagship device, as well as a new AVIC-U220 add-on nav unit, hit the source link below.

[bagbozo Posted Jan 6th 2010 7:49PM]

Turned On by the looks, but kinda trippy about the price.

[BigJayDogg3 Posted Jan 6th 2010 7:54PM]

@bagbozo

The price is actually fairly reasonable. Go to Crutchfield and look at some of the name brand head units that perform navigation.

[bagbozo Posted Jan 6th 2010 7:58PM]

@BigJayDogg3

You're right I already know the prices of the Crutchfield models, but there are some models with the same features with lower prices.

But all and all, I've seen many Double-Deck Pioneer systems that are substaintially incredible.

[DaveBach Posted Jan 6th 2010 8:01PM]

@bagbozo

I think Pioneer has a winning line of navigation head units here. If I'm not mistaken their current lineup has a few lower priced units as well starting at only half the price of their top of the line model. I personally consider this unit my insurance policy in case the navigation/radio screen in my Cadillac STS4 ever dies on me. With this model it would not only provide me additional functionality but I'm guessing for about half of what the U.S. government (I mean GM) would probably charge me to replace my current one.

[KennyB123 Posted Jan 6th 2010 7:49PM]

AT&T will charge $30 a month for this "tethering."

[BigJayDogg3 Posted Jan 6th 2010 7:53PM]

@KennyB123

I have a feeling you are correct. Either this radio is doing something that you could do before which is streaming the radio from the phone and transferring it to the radio through the dock connector, or the radio is running its own application and is just utilzing the iphone's data connection.

Either way, I think it's kinda, wait, no, it's VERY stupid to lock it down to a single platform.

[barCODE Posted Jan 9th 2010 1:47AM]

@KennyB123


Pioneer should have just gone with an SIM card slot so you could just take the sim card out of your phone and slapped it in the dashboard receiver. Same data rates, minus the tethering fees and troubles.

[supadude Posted Jan 6th 2010 8:00PM]

Wow, that is a pretty awesome looking unit. Good thing I have an iPhone too :)

[Cash9007 Posted Jan 6th 2010 8:05PM]

"Pioneer AVIC-X920BT brings Pandora streaming music to your satnav via the iPhone"

Uh, whoopee crap? I've been doing this since July with my iPhone and Alpine IXA-W400 over bluetooth, for a hell of a lot less then Pioneer wants for this thing.

[DJWaffles Posted Jan 6th 2010 8:06PM]

Why is does Pioneer get attention for this? I've been able to do this with my Alpine headunit for awhile now.

[bagbozo Posted Jan 6th 2010 8:08PM]

Personally i think Pioneer does have an amazing line of navigation units, but if you really wanted to find its competition you'd have to think of Kenwood, JVC, or Alpine.

[CMoebius Posted Jan 6th 2010 8:10PM]

I have been doing this with my Pioneer AVIC-D3 unit through the iPod cable since the iPhone got the Pandora App. There's nothing special about doing this since Pandora can use the 3G or EDGE network to stream.

[zkolev Posted Jan 6th 2010 8:20PM]

Alternative to this $1200 would be an android(maybe iphone) with free google nav, the free pandora app, a $10 car mount and a $200 BT streaming headunit. Its been working out great for me.

[Vision77 Posted Jan 6th 2010 8:44PM]

I have a bluetooth enabled Kenwood (forgot the model number) and I've been doing this for a while on my unlocked penitentiary free iphone on tmobile edge.....Pandora does take longer to start but once it gets going its all good....

[idoozy Posted Jan 6th 2010 10:02PM]

any car stereo with stereo bluetooth can stream pandora or slacker radio. this isn't really news.

[paul34 Posted Jan 6th 2010 10:07PM]

I still don't understand why Pioneer never seems to really update the GUI. Maybe it's different elsewhere, but judging from the screenshot above, it's a very mildly updated version of their past GUIs. I guess it's not terrible, but look at the map - really? It looks like it's from 2004 (it feels weird saying that).

[tuna Posted Jan 7th 2010 1:55PM]

@paul34

If you read the other reports on this unit, there is a new virtual sphere like UI for browsing connected ipods. Suppose to help speed up the browsing process. Whatever you think of the UI, it's still better than the competition.

[manezinho Posted Jan 7th 2010 11:51AM]

Um... any head unit with an aux-in can do this...
Sounds like a complicated solution to a simple problem

[tuna Posted Jan 7th 2010 1:53PM]

All good until AT&T decides to cap that "unlimited" data plan.

[grgcombs Posted Jan 7th 2010 3:57PM]

From looking at Pioneer's release, you actually download the Pandora app for your iPhone and the Pioneer unit just puts up a nice interface to control it from the head unit. But aside from that, as others have stated, I'm doing this already (minus the head-unit interface) to output Pandora on my AVIC-F90BT.