Cons:

There’s a software glitch in the bluetooth software that requires re-pairing your phone with the base regularly. Menus might seem initially confusing.

Summary:

I installed the AVIC U310BTs in my 2009 smart car after reading that this unit would be offered as the “official” GPS upgrade on the 2010 model smarts. I picked up a unit on eBay for $370. Another $30 for the iPod cable plus $50 for the double din face plate and wiring harness and another 50 bucks for new speakers and for $500 I had an upgrade that the dealer will offer for $1300.

The GPS is basic but adequate. The lady in the box giving directions has a very slight flutter to her voice but she gets me there just fine.

The radio/CD player work great and the units puts out a lot of sound. Paired with decent speakers, you will not be disappointed.

With a 120 Gig iPod, my Holy Grail has been a way to navigate through the hundreds of artists and thousands of CDs to play the tune I wanted without killing myself while driving. I’ve found that the AVIC U310BT succeeds in allowing me to search with a minimum of clicks and twists to the exact song I wanted– while driving! However, here’s where the confusing menus might make you want to read the manual. Once you “get” the menu flow, it all makes sense in some weird way.

My biggest disappointment with the unit is the software glitch with the bluetooth. About every 4 starts of the car the bluetooth hangs and will not work with my phone. It requires a faceplate reset which takes about 30 seconds then you must re-pair your phone which takes another couple of minutes. This is really the only thing that I do not like about the unit. I take a star away for the bluetooth hassle.

Pioneer AVIC units in the past have been criticized for slow boot times. On the 310BT however, the unit comes on instantly because the battery in the removable faceplate keeps it in standby when the car is off. The instant on function seems to be the culprit that somehow causes the bluetooth to hang upon occasion.

The U310BT has only been on sale since June so I expect that as more owners report this bluetooth problem there will be a firmware update to correct, but until then I’m not as happy as I could be.

Update: I’ve found a workaround to the bluetooth problem and my phone– once I paired my wife’s phone to the unit, it began working flawlessly! Dropping and re-connecting my phone from the unit now seems to fix the lockup. On reconsideration, I give this 4 stars!

I bought this unit after seeing some so called professional reviews online. I did see their notes about very limited POIs or lack there off, no video etc. But I was not looking for Video or not even lot of POIs.

I liked this unit for the fact it is always in standby state and will come on instantly. For Pioneer F series that has a major complaint about start up time. I installed this unit a week ago and did lot of experimentation so far and here are my thoughts.

Looks and installation:

I liked looks of the unit for it simplicity, not too many buttons, and able to control Major audio functions without using Touchscreen etc. Installation went very well with excellent documentation provided(courtesy Crutchfield).

Phone, Bluetooth Module:

After everything is installed, synchronized my iPhone with bluetooth module and tried to make some calls. I can hear other side verywell, no issues here. But other party can hardly hears my voice. If I hold Microphone within few inches from my mouth it was acceptable, but if that is the case I would very well hold my phone instead of Mic. Tried lot of positions, and nothing helped. So, I looked around avic411 forums and saw quite few people having problems with supplied Microphone and used either Parrot Mic or Garmin Mic. So, I went ahead bought the Garmin Mic from local Frys electronics and installed it( Garmin Mic wire length is shorter, only 10 feet). Now the quality improved substantially and usable. But it still had problem with boomy echo(even with echo cancellation), but that was partially because of location. Moving the Mic close to head liner( above rear view mirror) somewhat reduced it, and now I thought this is usable. I was able to transfer the phone book quite easily from iPhone 2G(My other car Toyota Prius built-in system has problems with iPhone 2G for Phone book).

In total I drove the car 4 days, and out of 4 days, Bluetooth system hung 3 times. The symptoms are, bluetooth does not connect. But when to click on Phone button in Menu, it goes to phone screen and shows Bluetooth off and connections button disabled. When I click on Bluetooth to turn it on, it keep circling and nothing happens.

Trying to do a F. Reset does not do any good. Only way to get it working again is doing Hard reset by pressing the small reset switch on LCD frame. This does fix problem, but also resets everything else. Phone Book is completely gone, all Illumination color, Radio presets, Song details Display preferences, Eq settings, and Navigation preferences(ATT, Mute etc) are gone. We have to do set everything again back from scratch.

RESET OBSERVATION NOTE : We can reset the unit after taking out of docking position. This way unit does not reset AUDIO/NAV settings.(Contacts/Phone Book and Some Nav settings seems to be lost).

Also, the volume adjustment is independent from main audio system, so if you raise the volume to hear over road noise during a highway drive it would not reflect in bluetooth volume.

Another bummer is, you can not access the numeric pad after call is connected(it is disabled). That means, you can not select IVR systems voice menu option which is quite common if you call any customer service, and even more annoying, there is NO MUTE . But atleast you can do it from actual phone.

Navigation:

Size of the screen is small, but I think it is okay size as long as it is not too far away from driver. Menu structure, selecting options, settings etc are fine.

Just to clarify, DETACHABLE SCREEN DOES NOT WORK AS PORTABLE NAVIGATION. It does not have any built in GPS antenna/GPS processor. You can browse maps like paper maps, or create route etc.

This system uses Tele Atlas database(instead of NavTeQ) for Navigation which does not have good reviews. Despite being the latest database it does not have main roads( Bus route) which are 4-5 years old. Even for old neighborhood like 30 years old does not have correct road information.

Now the routing, I got to tell you this got to be worst navigation I ever used(Garmin, TomTom, Omnitech, Toyota in built). It lags much behind the actual vehicle position(not a signal problem), sometime a street or more behind actual location. I think unit is taking too much time reading the data, calculating position and representing on the actual map. It may not be a problem for most highway driving or sub-urban driving, but for downtown it is pretty close to useless.

For some reason it does not show the all the road names. It’s 3D mapview is not good, 2D is ok. It does not know the difference between a walking trail vs roads, it will insist on driving on trails!

Text To Speech is pretty bad too, it says take a slight turn when infact it is very sharp turn. Sometime it lags, and sometime it all together forgets to tell you that you need to turn. Sometimes, it does not even show you on screen whether to turn or not(you come to a T-junction, but it does not tell you which direction to take.

I tried to compare same route with portable Omnitech Navigation unit(Destinator software). That is 100 times better in routing, shows better details on screen and providing direction properly.

And now the POIs, it is not the problem because of just 500k POIs. It is the categories they intentionally removed. The most commonly used categories, restaurants and Gas stations are missing, and do you believe they have Cemetery there? There is an option to feed the locations using AVIC feeds, but that does not come as POIs or category or even based on location unfortunately.

BTW for Navigation there is option to set voice, either to mute music, ATT music or simply say directions while music play at full volume(default, which does not make any sense).

Audio:

Audio portion I liked it. It is able to play music from recent thumb drive( 4 years small thumb drive did not work), and works wonderful with iPhone. Sound quality is pretty good, Radio reception is ok. Joystick navigation is ok, menus are easy to understand once you read the manual.

It seems many retailers listed saying this unit can music from SD card, but that is not true. YOU CAN NOT PLAY MUSIC FROM SD CARD. It can only be used to upload AVIC feeds(color, Locations, trip data etc). Pioneer confirmed it also See notes from Crutchfield editor to one of the reviews.

The illumination color can be selected or can be fed with custom color using AVIC feeds software. The LCD never turns off even when you turn off the unit. It only turns off when car keys are taken out(out of acc position). There is a button to turn off screen, but this is to turn off while system is on. Good thing about it is, you can turn off screen entirely when driving long distance during night. It comes back right away if you touch the screen.

Note: As of now there are no firmware updates available to fix any above issues I described, and quite few people have problems with Navigation Freezing. I think overall hardware is good, but it is the software/firmware that is problem.

12/04/2009: Another update. I can confirm after the Europe Firmware update, I did not get any bluetooth hangs anymore(4+ weeks). It also seems routing is little better(TTS voice is still bad). But I am having problems now-and-then with USB drive. During the playback it suddenly has problems with reading the USB, and I also saw the same issue with iPhone playback. Unplugging and plugging in back fix the problem temporarily. I checked the routed cable in my console and it seems fine, but I have not check behind radio to see if it moved(Highly unlikely as I anchored all cables with zip ties). I will update once I check it out.

11/03/2009: I did a partial upgrade using Europe firmware as Pioneer did not provide any updates to this unit in US. This seems only upgraded the Bluetooth module. But this change/improvement seems to be significant enough to report. First I no longer see the “Cell Phone disconnected” message after I turn on my car as Bluetooth module was not aware that I shutdown the car before and just started again(Just embarrassing if someone in the car). Now the change is that, when I shutdown the car(out off ACC postion to off/lock), the Screen does not shut-off immediately, but waits for about 5 seconds, identifies that Bluetooth module is disconnect, then shutdowns(It may look weird as you took your keys from car, closed the door behind, but this thing screen us on). The good thing is because of this change Blue-tooth connect quickly next time when you start(approx 18 secs vs 34 seconds without any other app running/audio/nav etc). This also reduced Bluetooth freezing episodes(not completely gone, but ran more than week or two with out freezing). Bluetooth freezing happens more frequently if Contacts are synced.

But Nav issues are still there, it thinks I am driving somewhere without roads, that is with fulll GPS signal( not just my unit, other too), Only way to correct is undock and dock it again( restart does not work).

And AVIC feeds, which I was excited about as I can create my own POIs is really restricted to the point that is not useful. Like example if you want to add all SHELL GAS stations(5000+), it only takes first 100. Ofcourse you can add 100 of each gas stations or restaurant. And you can not search these POIs like inbuilt POIs.

And AVIC Feeds for iPhone, it is joke for this unit( again highend units are ok). If you add a POI, it adds like a contact in your phone(like you will have McDonald as your contact) and you need to sync complete phonebook again from scratch to get single POIs from iPhone to AVIC-U310BT. But on the higher-end unit you can simply transfer that one contact.

09/16/2009: Now, even Navigation unit is hung. I tried normal reset, but that did fix problem. I had to hard reset keeping unit in head. All settings are lost as expected, but atleast navigation and bluetooth are working again.