I was rather apprehensive about this at first. When I first decided it was time for a new radio in my everyday driver (04 Colorado), I scoured the Crutchfield website to read reviews about different radios. To no surprise, every Tom, Dick and Harry had an iPhone that they mentioned when it came to Bluetooth compatibility. Some units had reviews with Galaxy S3 owners who complained about that phone just synching half the time and all sorts of other problems. Since I have a double DIN radio in my truck from the factory, I didn't want to put anything else in there size wise so I decided on an Alpine IVE-W530 since I didn't need navigation and since I couldn't justify spending another $250 for the next model up whose major advantages were HD Radio and Sirius Radio compatibility, both of which I have no desire of using.
The day came and my buddy started installing the radio. Hook up was pretty straight forward since Crutchfield send all the right adapters and wiring harnesses, so before we even thought about how to mount the thing in the dashboard, we turned it on and tried it. My Note 2 (Sprint) and the Alpine found each other right away, and with a simple click to confirm the pairing, everything was done. I must say, either I got lucky, or these two were a match made in heaven. BT audio streaming of the micro sd card in the phone works flawlessly. When I leave my truck, I do nothing to the phone, it just keeps the song paused in the background and either continues were it left off or starts it again from the beginning when I get back into my truck. I takes about 10 seconds from the time I start the truck to the time the music starts playing again. The installed hands free phone feature with the included microphone works great as well.
I was wondering about whether or not I could listen to streaming music from the phone through the trucks system, especially since while doing my research, I found so few radios that were Android App friendly, most of them had iPod and iPhone integration. Well, not to worry, any app I tried played the music through the trucks speakers. Tune in Radio works, even games work, heck I can even listen to movies streamed from Netflix. Movies on the SD card work as well....all in all, I am pleasantly surprised and very pleased.
So, if you have a GM vehicle with the double DIN stock Toaster, throw that thing out and get yourself a good radio.
Only one thing that bugs me about this radio is that you have to set the parking brake, step on the foot break, release the parking brake and then engage it again while keeping the foot brake pressed the entire time to be able to play DVDs and to access setup menus for anything other than sound functions. I mean, I have to do this to se the clock! That's a bit overkill.
The day came and my buddy started installing the radio. Hook up was pretty straight forward since Crutchfield send all the right adapters and wiring harnesses, so before we even thought about how to mount the thing in the dashboard, we turned it on and tried it. My Note 2 (Sprint) and the Alpine found each other right away, and with a simple click to confirm the pairing, everything was done. I must say, either I got lucky, or these two were a match made in heaven. BT audio streaming of the micro sd card in the phone works flawlessly. When I leave my truck, I do nothing to the phone, it just keeps the song paused in the background and either continues were it left off or starts it again from the beginning when I get back into my truck. I takes about 10 seconds from the time I start the truck to the time the music starts playing again. The installed hands free phone feature with the included microphone works great as well.
I was wondering about whether or not I could listen to streaming music from the phone through the trucks system, especially since while doing my research, I found so few radios that were Android App friendly, most of them had iPod and iPhone integration. Well, not to worry, any app I tried played the music through the trucks speakers. Tune in Radio works, even games work, heck I can even listen to movies streamed from Netflix. Movies on the SD card work as well....all in all, I am pleasantly surprised and very pleased.
So, if you have a GM vehicle with the double DIN stock Toaster, throw that thing out and get yourself a good radio.
Only one thing that bugs me about this radio is that you have to set the parking brake, step on the foot break, release the parking brake and then engage it again while keeping the foot brake pressed the entire time to be able to play DVDs and to access setup menus for anything other than sound functions. I mean, I have to do this to se the clock! That's a bit overkill.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram