[danbak]

Hi Folks,

Does anyone have one of these head units. I am considering installing it in my little matiz. Can you comment on quality of the bluetooth, does it stay in sync. I know it has USB on the back, does it also have an aux input (the manual suggests it does).

Any info gratefully received.

Thx.

[james.miller]

ive actually just bought an installed one on friday. the bt is good. ive had no sync issues at all, although there is a slight audio delay and it is only slight, and the call quality isnt quite as good as the sony BT kit that was in the car previously although thise was a stand alone piece of kit so that's to be expected really - It's still perfectly acceptable.

Overall, im more than satisified with the BT performance. It syncs perfectly with my blackberry 8900, displays the battery life, the signal strength, tell's me who's calling and and can pull up the phonebook and call log entries from the phone to dial ect.

It does also have an AUX input, yes - standard 3.5m stereo minijack affair. be careful if you want to make use of the USB input, there's a limit of 254 folders and 8 layers of folders. In otherwords if you have each album in its own folder thats 254 albums you can put on the card/drive in total. Which i found out after copying a thousand albums on to my portable hard drive and realising it wouldnt play 80% of them also, the menu system is diabolical so make sure you are stationary when trying to set the thing up lol, it's not logical at all. Once it's all tweaked to your liking its very easy to use, but getting there....lol

finally, search around for the best price fi you do decide to buy it. The lowest ive seen is about £171

[danbak]

Thanks for the reply, most appreciated.

Can you explain the audio delay on the BT? I know this maybe awkward, is it as you speak or as you hear the caller.

Have you read any incoming sms messages yet on the head unit, I was interested in this feature. What's the audio quality like, I know the kenwoods are not the very best but I'm hoping for very good.

I have an offer from a store in Bradford for the unit and install of £210, this looks ok - 175 for the unit 35 for the install. What did you pay for yours?

Thx again.

[james.miller]

its only a slight delay, once or twice when i rang the GF i found we sometimes had to pause because we appeared to start speaking at the same time. Again its only a slight delay, but i believe it was as i speak. The audio quality itself is very good, only only really looses out as it's a bit tinnier than the sony kit i had previously, which was wired in to the stock head unit. It's the same on the recieving end, the GF said she can tell im on loud-speaker type kit, but only just and only because the old kit was soo good - she didnt even know i was using it untill i told her.

My phone doesnt support sms reading unfortunately, so make sure yours does if that's a feature you're interested in. im being totally honest here - what ive described are only small niggles, the overall quality of the unit is excellent it has to be said. and while the BT module isnt *quite* as good as the kit, and the miles of wire that went with it, i pulled out, it's toally acceptable and im very happy with it

[Phil6340]

Is that the bb 8900 that does not support sms reading?

[james.miller]

That's correct, and i assume thats the case for most BB's.

Dan, i paid £174 for mine and installed it myself for £30-odd quid thats a decent price to have it installed for you. Although it isnt all that difficult, ive put a head unit in a matiz before and you have to take half the dash apart to do it lol, and also find a sensible place for the mic in this head unit's case, which i ended up installing just above the rear view mirror

[danbak]

I am getting a new phone with blutooth, hence the reason for picking a new head unit with it. I'll check the instructions and spec on it before I buy.

I've not been happy with the standard blaupunkt anyway, if I have it on RDS it jumps all over the place, it seems to prefer sheffield and hull stations to the local ones, the previous unit in my other matiz that I had before was the same. I'm hoping for slightly better, it may of course just be a poor antenna in the cars.

I'm a bit club handed and would surely break the clips or something on the plastic dash so £30 to fit is worth it These folk seem experienced so I hope will do a good job, they will also wire the usb and line in where I want them. Plus this is a christmas present from my folks and it is likely to be done a day or two before the event.

You have been really thorough in your explanations and this has really helped me decide. Thank you very much.

[ivans]

Hi
What is the model of that portable hard drive ? Do u power it up with extra voltage from Y cable? What portable drives works on this or similar kenwood products (7544u, ...)
I tried samsung s1 mini 1.8'' 120gb on kenwood 8044 and it didnt work.

Originally Posted by james.miller

Which i found out after copying a thousand albums on to my portable hard drive and realising it wouldnt play 80% of them

[james.miller]

Originally Posted by ivans

Hi
What is the model of that portable hard drive ? Do u power it up with extra voltage from Y cable? What portable drives works on this or similar kenwood products (7544u, ...)
I tried samsung s1 mini 1.8'' 120gb on kenwood 8044 and it didnt work.

yeah, at the moment im using a the usb splitter cable (with two usb plugs on the end) that came with a generic 2.5" hard drive enclosure. it's not brilliant as it means i have to use a usb car charger like this USB Car Charger Adapter . Luckily ive got two sockets in my car.


It honestly isnt worth using a hard drive imo. The only reason i still am is because it works and im waiting for 32gb flash stick prices to drop. If i were you, id look at either buying some 16gb sticks or a single 32gb stick (or however many you want lol). It's simpler, less cabling involved and the stereo reads from the sticks quicker as well than it does the hard drive

[paulw77]

Is anyone using a BT8044U with an iPod ?

The favourites feature is great on this head unit, but if you add a favourite to an artist on the iPod, and subsequently sync the iPod and add others artists, the favourite "moves" to another artist. It's like the favourite is actually the position in the list rather than the artist itself.

For example,

If you only had 3 artists :
1. Artist A
2. Artist K
3. Artist Z

and created a favourite for artist Z, if you then synced your iPod and added tracks by, say artist B, then your existing favourite would no longer point to artist Z.

Very annoying !