List Price: $1,999.00
Sale Price: $599.00
Today's Bonus: 70% Off
I researched a replacement radio for my 2011 GMC Sierra and wanted to upgrade to an all in one unit. I wanted BlueTooth, GPS, DVD, and still have the OEM steering equipment and controls work. I looked for several weeks and checked with local dealers then, I cam across this unit. I was hesitant to order since I had never heard of this brand or knew anyone that has owned one. After reading the great reviews on the other vehicle units this company sales, I took the leap. The unit is AMAZING! It is so simple to install and actually is just PLUG N PLAY. ALL of my factory OEM controls work exactly the same, the GPS is spot on with location and directions and has MILLIONS of POI's. The DVD player has great quality and is very useful on road trips. The sound output is great and works well with my after market subs. I can not say enough about this item. I have had it for two weeks now and just added a backup cam to my truck and the picture is GREAT day and night! If you do encounter any issues or have questions, the customer service responds very quickly and gives you access to their forum. I have done the research, tried the product, and APPROVE 100%. To top it all off, the unit looks better than the OEM that GMC offers for $1,499.
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This unit is the same as the one sold for Chevrolet (I know this because it's the same model number and I put this into a Silverado).Considering the price, this unit is a good buy (assuming it's reliable). The Advent OGM1 or the Rosen (brand) option are going to be better user interface-wise, but probably not $500+ better. All of my steering controls work fine and my factory bluetooth continued to work (including muting the stereo). The internal speaker amplifier in this unit is notably more powerful than the stock (non-Bose) head unit that it replaced. Annoyingly there's an option on this for "CDC" (meaning CD Changer) but it does not have an internal or external CD changer. You actually play CD's using the DVD function which is just a bit half-baked, in my opinion. The harness includes a USB cable that you'll need to get an adapter for to connect to the factory USB port, if you have it (see other reviews). It also has a proprietary iPhone connection (30-pin). If you have an iPhone 5 you'll need to spring for that $30 adapter from Apple and I'd say good luck getting that adapter behind the radio anyway. Another half-baked idea. It would have made more sense to just have two USB inputs vs. having the iPod/iPhone connection and programming the unit appropriately. I'll have to come back and update this review with regard to how well it manages my iPhone 5. If it won't (or won't let me just control music from the iPhone 5 itself, which I'd prefer, then this unit will be a no-go for me. DVD playback is surprisingly good I was expecting as bad a screen as I've seen on some of the lower end Pioneer double-DIN units but instead it's as good a screen as your average laptop. The buttons all have a consistent feel to them. Frankly the Advent OGM1's button configuration is better than this SimpleSoft unit but, again, not $500+ better. Weirdly the GPS keeps wanting to come on when doing other things like listening to the radio or playing a DVD. This got really annoying and I realized you could turn off an "auto-on" feature for the GPS. Not quite sure why I'd want the GPS to turn itself on but I figure this is for when you're driving and you go change the radio station but then the system will turn back tot he GPS program on its own figuring you don't really need to see the radio station. But it does this with a DVD playing as well and obviously I'd like the movie to be showing, not the GPS so I turned this auto-on feature off. No issues since. Frankly I also find it kind of annoying (maybe I'm OCD) that all of the icon text you see in the stock photo are capitalized except the iPod icon text. That, to me, stands out and ultimately will surely drive me nuts enough to try and figure out how to dig into the code of this unit (which apparently runs on Windows CE) and capitalize the iPod icon text. Hopefully Apple doesn't mind! This bugger does indeed come with RCA plugs for amplifiers but I have no idea what voltage output they produce (probably 2V). I haven't used them yet as I was using the high-level speaker wire to connect to the amplifiers, so I'll come back and review once I change out that wiring (if I decide to do so). There's a bunch of extra wires on the harness that I'm not sure will get used and they included a power, accessory, and ground wire for bench testing, which was clever (i.e., you don't need to connect these wires when you install the unit into the car/truck). The volume knob on the unit itself is overly sensitive and often skips a number. Volume control from the steering controls goes up one notch per press of the steering control button, and that's good so I'll live. The steering control track up/track down button advances CD tracks, XM favorites (if programmed), and FM/AM favorites (if programmed). For FM/AM, it doesn't seek through all available channels. You have to do that via the SCAN button on the screen or frequency by frequency. The FM/AM feature in this unit is therefore a bit half-baked but it gets the job done well enough to not be annoyed by it. I'm undecided if I'm going to keep this or not overall but it seems to be okay enough for me to keep it as I want a stock look.
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I thought about getting a dash mounted GPS unit and plugging it in, but that would have cost a couple hundred bucks. An OEM nav unit was about 1600 bucks. For $599, you can't go wrong with a built in Nav unit, and this one is well worth the money. Screen is big and bright, maps are readable at a glance. This one works well, and does everything as advertised. I put it in my 2013 Silveradonot on the list but works perfectly including the steering wheel controls. The hardest part of the install was getting the trim panel of (i broke one tab) and getting all of the cables to go out of the way so the unit could slide in. Install is super easyjust read the instructions online.Nav unit works well to find directions and get where I am going. The install manual references a Nav unit manualI asked SimpleSoft about it a couple weeks ago on their forum and via email, and still have no answer. It is annoying that it uses metric units of measurement on all directionsI can guess at 500 meters, I have trouble with Kilometers. I also tried to turn off the speed warning beepstill tells me when I reach the speed limit. The clock is discrete, meaning hard to find at a glance. When you are en route to a destination, the only clock is the ETA clockno screen to tell you what time it is currently.
This is NOT like the OEM unit. It defaults to the map screen. If you want to do something with the radio or sound, you have to go to the menu. The steering wheel controls are slightly different as wellup and down won't go to the next preset, but to the next station. I kept the OEM bluetooth, and can't comment on the nav unit bluetooth. It is so good in the 2013 that I didn't want to fool with it. Ditto with the backup cameramine is still on the rearview mirror and I get a warning screen from the radio when I back up. XM and Onstar work just fine.
Setting favorites, both on the radio and the Nav unit, is a snap. The unit boots up slowly, as others have commented. Not a problem for me yet.
For the price, this is a great alternative to OEM. A couple of tweaks in the program and this would blow the OEM away, even at a higher price. As it is, I would buy another if I had a need.
Honest reviews on OEM Replacement DVD 7" Touchscreen GPS Navigation Unit For GMC
I purchased this unit after trading in our fully loaded Touareg with OEM VW navigation. This is my first American vehicle and was worried about installing anything non-oem. This head unit was so easy to install, the hardest part was just tweaking the cables and the settings to my liking. The unit is completely plug and okay, requires no additional programming. The preference settings are a bit hard to get to due to their folder depth. This means that it takes some time to fund the map settings so you can set units to US and not meters...but its there. Also, the DVD player works awesome, but you do have to remove the two shipping screws or it will take I n the DVD and then spit it back out. It's a product safety precaution.As far as the device, it rocks. I maintained the Bose sound, dual sound zones, chimes, etc! I gained DVD playback, iPod interface, usb interface, Bluetooth, navi and touch screen. The rear camera is auto-on with no further programming.
The graphics are a bit weak compared to VW/Audi and the buttons and dials light up gm green/blue instead of oem red. However, the led's are SMD and can be swapped for a weekend project for geeks.
Worth the price? You bet. Just read the money people have spent installing OEM units and the headaches they've been caused by those installs on Acadiaforums and you'll see what a tremendous product this is!
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