Kenwood Excelon DNX9140 In-Dash Double-Din DVD Multimedia AV Receiver (Black)
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The Kenwood Excelon DNX9140 navigation receiver gives you turn-by-turn directions from its internal Garmin navigation system, plus built-in Bluetooth for safer hands-free calling. The DNX9140’s VGA screen boasts a level of detail and brightness that’s steps ahead of lesser models, for vibrant movie playback when you’re parked, and outstanding detail and clarity when you’re using the intuitive menus and navigation features.
Features
- 2DIN 6.98? Wide VGA TFT Active Matrix Display with Reverse Tilt Mechanism
- Built-in Advanced Garmin Navigation With USA, Canada, PR, Alaska, Hawaii Mapping
- Built-In Bluetooth by Parrot
- MSN Direct Ready (KNA-M100) / TMC Traffic Ready (GTM10)
- iPhone/iPod Audio Video USB Direct Control With Alphabet Search
- Dimensions (W x H x L): 8 x 15 x 10 inches
- Weight: 10 pounds
Works good for me
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R156HHGX805EOY What do you want to know? Is it a good product that does what it supposed to do? Yes! You have to buy a hook up to connect your ipod to it so you can play the videos on your ipod. You have to buy the rear cam also to hook up to it. It is a great product. I love watching my ipod videos on it. I love the quality of the screen. It works fast enough for me and I show it in my video. You can hook up a 5 channel amp for the front and one to your subs too. You can have your xm, ipod, xbox 360, radio, nav, tel, tunner all hooked up and ready to play! Can also use the video out to go to another source. I have a Honda Del Sol so not much use of another source for me. ha. Some of the concerns I had when reading the reviews I go over in my video. I hope it helps!; I had to edit the video a little. I took out the middle, but the key points are still there.
Kenwood DNX9140 Review
This product is efficiently packed with all the top features available in today’s in-car entertainment technology. Unlike some of the other in-dash video units available from Kenwood, this model does not require any remote mount navigation module or accessory interface module. Therefore, this product takes up minimal space and is very quick and easy to install. The quality of this video unit is amongst the best, which is expected of Kenwood products.
Super radio, glad I got it.
Bought this radio a couple weeks ago and just love this unit. It took me some time to learn how everything works, ipod, ipod video, DVD, navigation, bluetooth and XM. It has great sound, the navigation system gives you the street speed limit that you are on, on the right hand corner. When you play the ipod you get the name of the song, album cover and artist. With a couple thousand songs on the ipod with random play, I don’t need XM any more. The bluetooth is awesome with your phone, you can receive calls, dial numbers from your phonebook, redial miss calls or just push the call home button. I haven’t try the voice command yet, will learn that next week, but so far I love this unit, I’m glad I got it. Kenwood Excelon DNX9140 In-Dash Double-Din DVD Multimedia AV Receiver (Black)
Great Head Unit, One Missing Feature
Absolutely superb head-unit/nav system/etc. I had someone else do the installation, so I can’t really comment properly on the ease of install. But using it, while seemingly complicated, really isn’t bad at all. A little experimentation with the various controls and I had most of the features figured out.
Works great with my iPod Touch, as well as my iPhone 3G from a Bluetooth and music perspective. iPhones apparently can’t share SMS information with the Kenwood, however (or if they can, I haven’t figured it out yet
).
The one thing I’d appreciate with the Kenwood is support for M3U playlist files on media such as CDs, DVDs, and flash drives. Currently, it just ignores the M3Us that I have on my USB thumb drive, so my playlists are useless. I’ve called Kenwood’s tech support, and the guy I talked to verified it doesn’t work, and also noted he’s received numerous requests via phone and email for the same thing. Whether that means we’ll see a firmware update or not is beyond me, but I’m not holding my breath.
Exceptional sound & nav, difficult to learn functionality
Sound quality exceeds expectations!
Navigation is above average – voice commands that work!
All the navigation options AND GPS SETTINGS can be set by voice command! The accuracy of voice command interface is very good.
In fact, all the settings for source monitoring (tuner, DVD, iPod etc) can be accessed by voice and many settings applied the same way.
As an example: changing map view from 3d to “north up” can be done completely by speaking commands.
Also it is noteworthy that while on nav screen the bottom of screen shows what song / source is playing – touching that line switches the display to
that source. (or can be switched by voice command) Switching back to navigation can be one button touch or say “view map” from any screen.
There are some videos on the internet showing the various functions – just search the web by model number to see them, the features are quite good.
I have a rear view cam as well, the backup cam image quality on screen is very high.
CONS:
*This is a challenging unit to learn to operate. NOT intuitive in the least. The saving graces for me were that I can get around
the settings by voice command – and the settings don’t have to be changed often.
* Too bright at night even at the dimmest settings, a good 10 times brighter than the dashboard lighting – which is a problem
when driving long distances at night. Once away from urban lighting, it is extremely conspicuous.
(the display can be turned off while music / nav are still working – display comes back on with a touch of screen or any button.)
Make no mistake, i am talking about having it on “night” display and dimming with display settings also.
*Operating manual is painfully basic and lacks detail.
Overall the sound and navigation quality make it a keeper for me – be advised this is not a simple unit to learn though.
It’s a good equipment
It’s fine for me, The only bad things is the voice reconition, It is very difficult to work with it.
Not happy
When the factory CD player in my 350Z recently went out, I stopped by a local car stereo installation shop where they recommended this unit. Now that I’ve owned it for a couple of weeks, I wish I had researched it first. It has a lot of features, sounds good and has a very clear display. However, I feel those positives are outweighed by a large number of annoyances.
* It takes about 20 seconds to start up.
* It randomly reboots (which aggravates the slow start up).
* If you play music from your iPhone and don’t disconnect it between turning off and turning your car back on, it will resume playing from where it left off for about 10 seconds and then go totally silent. You have to disconnect the iPhone and then reconnect it to get the sound back (and that doesn’t always work).
* USB storage device options are limited. It only supports FAT16 and FAT32 partitions, and only up to 32GB in size.
* In addition, it only supports up to 255 folders and 255 files per folder. That may seem like a lot, but I was planning on attaching a large solid-state drive to the unit with a copy of my entire CD collection, which far exceeds those limits.
* It only supports up to 320Kbps WMA encoding, and not lossless. I cannot listen to anything in my Windows Media library without converting it.
* The user interface often requires you to navigate through multiple menus/screens to perform common functions. For example, if you are playing music while the navigation screen is up and you want to change tracks, you have to navigate back to the AV source screen first. This is very distracting while driving, and all the more annoying given that the current song’s title is shown at the bottom of the navigation screen. Why didn’t they put a few common buttons (forward, back, pause) next to the song title?
Overall, I cannot recommend this unit. I have reconfirmed that all of these problems and limitations exist with the latest firmware versions as of Dec. 18, 2009 (GPS version 3.20 and player version 1.8).
No Changer?
Nice unit, but no CD/DVD changer option is the deal breaker for me. I’m going with the Alpine.
What I needed!
This DNX9140 has everything , easy to use, had it installed,gift for my daughter,she loves it.
dnx-9140 kenwood
feature packed unit which is the top of the line kenwood. took some reading of the manual, but it was all pretty straight foward. i would recommend this unit to any person who is tech savy and wants all the gadgets!Kenwood Excelon DNX9140 In-Dash Double-Din DVD Multimedia AV Receiver (Black)
Buyer Beware
IMO, anyone looking at this unit should really wait to make sure the bugs are worked out before they drop their money on Beta testing the unit for Kenwood. My unit will reboot itself for no reason while I’m driving or standing still at a stop light. It gets really annoying when your trying to find a location and all of a sudden the unit reboots. They should also put a Garmin on the radio side to help you navigate to the settings you want to change. For instance, your driving with the NAV on but the volume for the NAV is low, so you want to turn up the volume. You need to exit the NAV and go into the System preferences. Dig your way through the menus to find the NAV volume. Why not put the volume control on the screen in the map?
If ever anyone should obey the warnings of a NAV unit, they should on this one. It is WAY TO COMPLICATED and requires WAY TOO MUCH ATTENTION to use while driving.
Also the bluetooth A2DP does not work very well with my iPhone 3GS. With music on my phone, I bluetooth to the unit. Well the connection gets broken between the phone and radio. Is this a radio or iPhone issue? Well I have to believe it’s a radio issue.
Why don’t I just use the iPod cable to connect my phone to the radio? Well because that doesn’t work either. It just shows on the screen, “Reading…”
I do have to say – the sound is really really good. I did put in an AMP because the radio just wasn’t loud enough without one. I could hear the music but I couldn’t FEEL the music. So I popped in an AMP and new speakers. WOW. There are some songs I can play that can be turned all the way up and sound crystal clear.
I haven’t messed with video and I don’t have a camera connected so I can’t comment on that. But my issues shouldn’t cost me $1800. If Kenwood wanted to have me Beta test the radio, then they should have cut me a break and told me I was going to beta test.
So save yourself some stress and Don’t purchase this radio until they work out the bugs. AND TO MAC OWNERS, be prepared to invest in a PC to update the radio or find someone who has a PC. You will need it.
Fantastic Head Unit
Finally, I’ve managed to unclutter my windshield. I now have my cell phone, GPS, XM radio, Traffic receiver, DVD player and CD player all in this one unit. The Garmin nav system is GREAT and works just as my Garmin Nuvi 880 worked. Satellite radio is fully functional and the bluetooth interface works flawlessly with my LG cellphone. I have now been able to clean up all the clutter (wires & devices) that have litterd my windshield and dashboard. The User interface is highly intuitive and easily understood by even non techies. Kenwood has a great product in this unit!
DEFINITELY worth the money!
Before getting the 9140, I had a Kenwood KVT-910. I have to say, Kenwood has outdone itself yet again. It’s not perfect, but no unit will be. There are pluses and minuses to all the units out there. If you are searching for the perfect one, then you will be searching for a long time. I don’t have anything bad to say about Pioneer (or any other Navigation HU out there), but all I know is that I am completely satisfied with the DNX-9140.
Here are some pros and cons.
PROS:
1) Excellent DVD picture
2) Garmin navigation
3) Voice-control is very accurate.
4) Tons of features. I probably won’t use 1/2 of them, but it’s good to know that they’re there if I do want to.
5) Multi-angle tilt comes in handy.
6) Touchscreen is very responsive
7) Can easily hook up to headrest units in the back seat (I got the Vizualogic Roadtrip and it works great)
CONS:
1) More expensive than other in-dash DVD/Navigation headunits out there.
2) User interface does take time to get used to and learn
3) My biggest gripe: Can only hook up 1 item from Sirius, XM, and HD Radio. It’s bad enough that we have to buy extra modules to use these features, but only being able to hook up one when the 8120 can hook up more?!?! Fail!
Feature Galore!
I must agree with others who say this device is complicated, but several readings of the manual and some fiddling bring you tremendously good results! I added a rear-view camera, XM radio, a 5-channel alpine amplifier, 10″ Alpine subwoofer and infinity 3-way speakers and WOW! What a sound!. The unit has superb voice contrlol and amazingly diverse sound controls. I can play files from a USB hard drive and my iphone/ipod, including music videos. The video on the 7″ screen is awesome! The Garmin software is wonderful – I have three other Garmin untis so it was very easy for me to master. The only glitch I have had is that my ipod loses connectivity sometimes. I still don’t know why, but a simple cable reconnect fixes it. I also love to have video podcasts on in the car.
Don’t buy it
Don’t buy it. It is too exspensive. The radio menu is not user freindly. It disables the iPhone I pod part on the phone when conected. U have to use the radio display when playing the iPod . The radio display is very slow and not user friendly.
Perfection
This product is expensive but totally worth the money. Everything from the touch screen display to the Bluetooth capability is perfect. Any Car Audio connoisseur will love this product.