Honest AVPN2210P Info - Good and Bad

[aadmikep]

I'm an avid TomTom Navigator user who decided to get rid of all the cords and get an in-dash unit. So, I bought the AVN2210P and had it professionally installed at Circuit City in my 2003 Nissan Altima 2.5 S. Since they don't carry the optional steering wheel interface of iPod interface, they told me to get it elsewhere. I then paid Circuit City quite a lot of extra money to get this done. 4 weeks later it's still not right. That's another story...

The AVN2210P is very good at several things and very bad at others. I'm keeping mine and thought I should share this info as it's really hard to find some of this especially at eclipse website.

GOOD
It's a TomTom in-dash (great maps and navigation features without cables)
Touch screen is removable for anti-theft
Touch Screen is matte finish
Touch screen is very bright in daylight and automatically very dim at night
Auxiliary Input cable OPTION ? simple effective and good sound quality
IPod Interface OPTION ? good and bad
Amplifier Quality and Power is better then I expected
Size of Screen ? big enough to see and touch buttons, small enough to put in your pocket
New TomTom software version ? Out of the box, this hardware has lots of issues that go away as soon as you register and get updates!
Processor power. (It doesn't hesitate)
USB port ? Good for charging your dead phone ? not much good otherwise

BAD
CD Player - It WILL lockup and WILL leave the front face lifted up
AM/FM reception - It works but fades in and out with strong local stations
IPod Interface - Yup, it's good and bad
Backlight color - Unless your dash is all backlit in RED!
Volume control - Smooth but you have to spin it a lot to get it way up, or way down
Phone interface - Great idea, very poor mic. (Don't put your friends through it)
USB interface ? Remember, it only plays MP3 and WMA, no AACs, etc. It also only sees nanos, thumbs and small stuff
MP3 and data CDs ? Don?t use optical discs, but if you do, you get on screen info, sometimes, but no selection menu. It also typically won?t see many of the songs.

DETAILS
IPOD interface works better after syncing the removable touch screen with the TomTom HOME program on your home PC. The free upgrade allows the iPod interface to do the following among other improvements:
Continue to play while tomtom verbally provides instructions out of your driver door speaker (it use to constantly pause the music!)
Somewhat remember the last iPod album, artist or genre you chose. This is only if you repeat the same choice. It won't remember album if after choosing album you next checked out your artists amnd then went back to album. Why is this important? Once you select a song, there's no back button to see the previous screen where you chosethe particular song you?re listening to. You actually start at the bottom of the root menu and work your way back to the same album, alphabetically. This is probably not much of a pain if you only have 20 or 50 songs on your iPod.
You have song skip forward and back
You DO NOT have pause/stop
So you can quickly find yourself pressing and holding the up or down arrows at the right edge of the screen. I have well over 7k songs loaded on my iPod. I'm going to seriously reduce the number of songs just so I can navigate more quickly.
TomTOm always announces out of the driver sidei speaker and its voice volume is set independent of the stereo volume knob. This is OK with me. I keep voice volume pretty low. Since it mutes that speaker while playing much at any volume, I know to glance at the screen even if I don't hear what the voice just said. After all, I wouldn't want it shouting at me every time.
The voice volume can be automatically connected to the vehicle speed by choosing it in the preferences screen. However this is clearly to levels, quiet and louder. It's never perfect. This is why I go a little quite.

I?m sure that there?s some sort undeclared functionality improvement for the upcoming AVN2210P MKII that I will not see the benefits of on the unit I bought. All in all, I really like tomtom?s maps, Points of interest, Celebrity voices almost perfect rout calculations, and overall dependability. Their tech support people also go out of their way to help you. I know because they spent many hours with me overcoming shortcomings of the Fujitsu side of this device.

BUY THIS IF:
You want really good navigation
You?re OK with using your iPod through an ?Aux? headphone input or don?t mind a rough user interface
Want to get rid of loose cables and window or vent clips while navigating

DON?T BUY THIS IF
You don?t care about navigation
You play CDs, ever
You are impatient or intolerant with your stereo
Are not willing to pay a professional to install it for you
Listen to Am/FM radio
Want text-to-speech navigation instructions ?Turn right on North Main Street in ? mile? This one says ?Turn right in ?? mile?


I couldn?t find a lot of this info when looking on the net so I thought it might help others. I don?t think there is one all perfect navigation system. Feel free to post questions and I?ll try to reply in a timely manor.

 

[Andy Somnifac]

In the event that other users find this post consider it when doing research to see if they want to purchase an AVN2210p, I wanted to post some additions to the above quick review. Please note that I have the AVN2210p mkII that is referenced at the end of the above post.

Auxiliary Input cable OPTION ? When using this, I have found that I am unable to get a good signal. Audio is always very soft through it.

CD Player - Maybe they fixed this with the mkII. I've never had the unit lock up.

IPod Interface - My only complaint is that it starts at the first song alphabetically every time the car is started. I have no complaints about navigation, but I only have it connected to a Nano.

Back light color - The mkII's back light is blue. I would have preferred the red, as it would have matched the orange illumination of the rest of my dash a little closer. But it's hardly a deal breaker.

Volume control - I'm running through an external amp, so my volume control is a little steeper than with the internal amp. I do agree though that the volume increase/decrease was a little shallow.

Phone interface - It keeps both of your hands on the wheel. I wouldn't have an hour long conversation on it, but you can call ahead to a restaurant without an issue. My issue with the phone interface is with the TomTom's POI database. Since it's made in Europe, it's tested with GSM phones (I'd imagine). So, when I attempt to call a POI it dials +1(XXX)YYYZZZZ. I use Sprint, which is CDMA. It seems that CDMA carriers do not like the + in the number and automatically assumes I'm attempting to dial international, which I don't have enabled on my account.

USB interface ? I think this is one of the best features. Currently I have it running to a USB card reader (stored in the glove box) with a 4GB CF card in it full of music. I can pop the card right out, swap out what's on it and pop it back in with no problems. The USB port supports any device that is a standard Mass Storage Device, so I plan on wiring in a 60GB hard drive in an external enclosure. This is especially good with audio books.

MP3 and data CDs ? Maybe they fixed this with the mkII, but I burn mp3s to DATA cds and play they all the time. I have never had an issue at all. It sees all the mp3s on the disk, and full information is displayed on the screen. I only wish that it supported data DVDs full of MP3s. In this day and age, there does not seem to be a reason to not support this.

Sat. radio - There's always been a Sirius option, but I'm an XM subscriber (for the baseball). So, for a while I had to use an external tuner. But, after months of waiting, there is a firmware update for both AVN2210p's (mkI and mkII) that makes it compatible with the Audiovox CNP2000UP w/ the XM Mini Tuner. Finally, XM works through the head unit. There is one small problem however. The information display is truncated for the artist and song information. Seriously truncated. Around 10-12 characters truncated. MP3s and iPod information is complete, but XM is not. I've talked to Eclipse about this and they are currently investigating where the issue lies (the head unit, the TomTom, or the XM tuner). Again, this is just an annoyance, not a deal breaker.

 

[rogereaton]

eclipse AVN 2210p

Does anyone know how to get a tom tom unit with an sd card for the eclipse AVN 2210p unit without paying more than what you can buy a whole unit for?

 

[Andy Somnifac]

While I was watching eBay for the head unit, I used to see people selling just the TomTom. Not sure where they came from, but it might be your best bet to keep an eye out on there.

 

[N715DP]

My thoughts on the POS can be found here:

https://www.tomtomforums.com/showthread.php?t=10319

Most of it is poor TomTom stuff - the eclipse side isn't that bad.