Alpine PMD-B200 Blackbird II

Summary: When I called Alpine to find out how to get the unit to sync properly with the Blackberry Curve I was told that it was not Alpine's issue. This ...

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Summary: When I called Alpine to find out how to get the unit to sync properly with the Blackberry Curve I was told that it was not Alpine's issue. This is surprising since they charge a hell of a lot of money and claim how great the unit is and when one of the most popular phones does not sync they send me away!!!!!!!!! They tell me it is RIM's problem and/or my carrier's (AT&T). You can guess the rest, AT&T says it is RIM and Alpine's problem and has anyone ever been able to call RIM? I am now back to using my 8700 and my slick 8310 is sitting in it's original box. What a waste!! If you have a Curve DO NOT BUY THIS UNIT. Buyer be warned.

I use this unit in my car in the Alpine head unit. When I travel and rent a car I bring the Blackbird and adapter with me. This feature I like. I hate the lack of support however. It does not exist.

If Alpine had just helped me out and showed a little concern the rating would be much higher.

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Summary: Blackbird interface written by bargain basement Chinese software company. Product designed for use in Europe and China, doesn't work very well there, and then slap-dash jimmy-rigged to work in ...

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Summary: Blackbird interface written by bargain basement Chinese software company. Product designed for use in Europe and China, doesn't work very well there, and then slap-dash jimmy-rigged to work in the U.S. Once you buy a Blackbird II, the only way to minimize the financial hit is to make sure not to get a littering fine when you throw it out the window.

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Summary: Unfortunetly, I bought the head unit first - I'm still getting rid of it. This is my fourth nav unit in about 8 years so I know what to ...

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Summary: Unfortunetly, I bought the head unit first - I'm still getting rid of it. This is my fourth nav unit in about 8 years so I know what to expect. Miss an exit? rerouting will take always you back 5 miles to the original exit. I was told by the dealer that was an issue with the previous one and just to cancel the destination and restart it. Yeah, That,s why I paid so much for it.

It tells you to take a left at the next exit when the screen clearly shows a right turn.

You really have to be watching the screen as mostly all nav units today will alert you at every turn within a realistic distance to the turn. Not this one, have a couple of highway entrances close to each other. Take a guess. The more I use the more problems I find.

I had an old Navman from years ago, before navigation was popular. I thought I was upgrading. Wrong, even though the maps were outdated it was much better. I regret I gave it to my parents when I bought the new one.

Bluetooth, even when installed in the head unit, the sound quality is POOR on the other end. NOT even usable really. Everyone asks me what am I talking on? Way too much background noise.

I CHALLENGE SOMEONE NOT AFFILIATED WITH ALPINE TO GIVE A GOOD REVIEW!!!!!!

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Summary: The battery runs out quick. The software sucks. This GPS is not as accurate as I thought it would be for the price.
This Alpine oftens shows me the right
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Summary: The battery runs out quick. The software sucks. This GPS is not as accurate as I thought it would be for the price.
This Alpine oftens shows me the right street except being in the wrong part of town!!!!!This Gps gets confused between North , South, East, West. This would probably be best used in NY. East 35th st..... More like ariving on West 35th st.!!!!!! This Gps often hangs, and once in a while will not power up, with a full battery!!!!!!!

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Summary: I really wanted to give Alpine high marks for this unit, but i just can't. Buy a garmin instead.
I originally purchased an Alpine B100, and paid full price
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Summary: I really wanted to give Alpine high marks for this unit, but i just can't. Buy a garmin instead.
I originally purchased an Alpine B100, and paid full price for it when it came out. I was thrilled at first, then noticed its lackluster performance. Many of the original issues were rectified, but the unit quickly devalued months after I bought it to half the price I paid. After 11 months of ownership, my B100 was stolen out of my rental car in St Louis. I pondered buying a different make, but when the insurance man told me about an upcoming Blackbird 2, with enhanced features, I was ecstatic, and waited patiently, (and waited, and waited) for its release and shipment. I finally got my new and improved version of the Blackbird.
Well, I also pondered getting the IVAw205 head unit to dock the BB into. Not only am I not buying the IVA W205, Im regretting seriously buying a second Blackbird, shame on me. After using my Blackbird B200 from Novemeber 2007 - February 2008, maybe, 3.5 months, my Blackbird's internal antenna fails to connect to satelites. It "sees" them, but does not connect. This problem developed while I ate dinner at a restauruant I used it to navigate me to. After dinner, it failed to be able to guide me back.
So, I now need service. Despite registering my product online with Alpine's website, it has taken me up to 9 or 10 phone calls to Alpine's support, to arrange a return for repair. I still do not have a confirmation number or a return box, evidence they have acknowleged my calls and problem. On two occaisions, I got a recording that stated their call volume was too high, and I was disconnected. On another call, I was told it was the support department's lunch hour, and to call back later. On the last 3 calls I made, the voice recording says that the wait time is......and the actual time turns out to be at least twice or three times that long!
As for the IVA-W205, priced at a whopping $900, paired with $750 for the Blackbird, that self reboots sometimes, has short battery life, and does not sound all that very well for a high end audio company like you expect Alpine car audio to be, the combined price is just too much to swallow. I shopped around at Christmas time to see if the $900 head unit would be on sale or discounted, it had been out for a year by then. No sales, no discounts. I was told, that to make the overall rice for the headunit and nav unit lower, Alpine was working on a display-less Blackbird to dock inside the W205 headunit, which would retail for around $400, enabling them to keep the head unit price point high.

I can deal with the Blackbird making some quirky mistakes. I will hope that Alpine will issue a firmware update to correct those.
I can deal with their attempt at keeping the price high on the head unit, "charge what the traffic will bear" is the old adage, if they can get it, they will.
What I cant deal with, is their ineffectual, slow, limited, and poor customer service. It should not take me 10 phone calls to affect a repair. If I registered the unit online like I did, with my first phone call, Alpine should know my name, my unit's serial number, when my unit was bought or registered, my address, and all of that, and have taken steps to correct my problem inside the first week, or even same day. Not spread out over a months time and 10 phone calls.

I travel for work, Im not always home, thats why I have a GPS in the first place. Alpine doesnt seem to care that much. They already have my money. But, they don't have yours yet! So if you are reading this, please listen, the Blackbird is stylish and sexy, and you are tempted to buy it. But heed the warnings of us dis-satisfied consumers, and buy another brand. If I disuaded 1 person from buying their product, I will feel better.
Joe

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Summary: I used the unit very little the first 3 months I owned it. The next 3, I used it daily, and it would work for 2 weeks then I sent ...

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Summary: I used the unit very little the first 3 months I owned it. The next 3, I used it daily, and it would work for 2 weeks then I sent it to alpine for repair. The even swapped units and it still failed within two weeks. If you need a paper weight and don't know what to do with $600 buy it. If you want a GPS unit look elsewhere. Very disappointing unit. I was exclusively and Alpine customer for mobile electronics until I owned this unit. No longer, not the same quality Alpine has been producing.

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Summary: I bought this GPS unit about 8 months ago to use with the IVA-W205 head unit that I've had for about 10 months. I love the clean OEM look ...

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Summary: I bought this GPS unit about 8 months ago to use with the IVA-W205 head unit that I've had for about 10 months. I love the clean OEM look you get by having the unit dock inside of the stereo and that was really the main reason I went with Alpine, that and I've always loved Alpines products. I got the Blackbird when it had just been released and there were hardly any reviews of it. I should have waited for more reviews because I find a lot of people experiencing the same problems Iâ??m having. About 3 months ago I started losing signal while driving, it seemed as though left turns would make it better and right turns would make it worse. So I thought it was either the external GPS receiver connection to the stereo or the docking connection between the GPS and the stereo because taking the GPS out and using it always worked fine. I had the stereo and GPS installed by a shop so I took it back to them. After they did some troubleshooting they determined that the head unit was faulty and swapped it out with a brand new one â?? something they surely did not have to do, they could have just sent it back to Alpine for repair and I would have been without a stereo for who knows how long. That seemed to solve the problem, at least for a while. Now instead of losing signal intermittently, it sometimes takes 2, 5 or 20 minutes to find the signal and start tracking my location. Again taking the GPS out of the unit solves the problem and once it lock onto the signal and put it back in everything works. It seems to only happen the first time I use it after it has been off for a while. Here are some other issues I have with it:

1. About 1 out of 20 times you start it up, youâ??ll get a flickering white screen, meaning youâ??ll have to take it out of the unit and hit the reset button. (A common problem).
2. Also about 1 out of 20 times you have a route set it decides to reboot it the middle of it and when it comes back on your destination is gone and some of the setting go back to there default, like the zoom level and the map view.
3. Thereâ??s no way to set a route and save it. You can only save a destination and the way it takes you there may not be the fastest way, like avoiding known traffic areas.
4. If there are two somewhat equal ways to get somewhere and you choose to go a different way than it has picked for you, it will continuously reroute you, back tracking for miles after youâ??ve passed the way it wanted you to go.
5. You can not receive traffic information while its docked in the stereo unless you install an antenna Y fitting, which it does not come with.
6. I have been unable to find any map or firmware updates through Alpine or even where they would be if there were some.
7. The few times Iâ??ve used the GPS outside of the stereo the battery life had been pretty short, 1 to 1 ½ hours is about it.
8. The nag screen at every start up gets very annoying.
9. When switching from any other source back to the Nav, there a delay of about 5 seconds where you can not use any functions until the source screen goes way. Switching from Nav to any other source there is no delay.
10. The ability to insert a SD memory card to listen to music is cool and easy to navigate through but any time it reroutes or thinks youâ??ve gone off course the music is paused while it figures it out.

Other than these items itâ??s not the worse GPS unit but the price is too high for what you get. I guess you have to pay a premium for the clean look.

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Summary: Recently purchased the Blackbird B200 and the W505 double din head unit. Head unit isn't installed yet. I needed a bluetooth system for my car because of California's ...

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Summary: Recently purchased the Blackbird B200 and the W505 double din head unit. Head unit isn't installed yet. I needed a bluetooth system for my car because of California's upcoming law requiring handsfree phone calls while driving.

What Alpine doesn't tell you is there unit may or may not be capatable with your phone. Bluetooth is not a standardized technology yet and therefore Alpine takes the stance that it's up to the customer or the phone manufacturer to ascertain compatiblility.

Alpine's attitude is "we cant make sure our product works with every phone on the market". My phone a Blackberry Curve only transfered the first 3 number of the 575 in my contact list. RIM says its a bluetooth issue and lack of standization. Long story short neither company will take responsibility nor will either offer a solution because ther is none.

Bottom line i will either send the Alpine equipment back or change to the new iphone which does work with the blackbird.

Before you buy make sure you phone will sunc with the balckbird.

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Summary: I spent over $3000 for head unit and blackbird and have an authorized dealer install my Alpine IVA-W505. The blackbird GPS gets confused easily and will tell you to take ...

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Summary: I spent over $3000 for head unit and blackbird and have an authorized dealer install my Alpine IVA-W505. The blackbird GPS gets confused easily and will tell you to take a left instead of a right or can find where you're at.. shows me driving where the blackbird says there isn't a road when the interstate should show up at least. It's hard to program in an address. The points of interest are inaccurate or non existant. There are no updates and the maps are outdated for this NEW product. My daughters TomTom ONE outshines this piece of junk by far.
I called Alpine USA to ask for updates. They are in California and aren't aware of any updates nor any that are coming up. They also aren't sure if the updates for their (overpriced and inaccurate) blackbird will be free of charge or will probably cost, "dude."
BUYER BEWARE! This GPS is moderate to poor but livable if it weren't for the very poor customer service through AlpineUSA.
In addition, the "approved" sales and service team who installed the head unit lost my owners manual. Alpine USA has a link for the manual but there's nothing there. I ended up going to Alpine England online and found the manuals on their site.
I will remark on the head unit IVA-W505 in it's own review. It's ok but the screen has terrible resolution, can't be seen in daylight, dimmer works sometimes for night driving but not well, looks like it has some other cool features if I had some customer support. I don't dare call Alpine USA again, "DUDE!" I can't update it either. The ipod works well with it but it's not impressive either.
I will never purchase anything Alpine again. Never say never you say! I mean it this time. Bad taste in my mouth that I paid hefty $$$$ for.

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Summary: Love the hide away in the head unit, or portable feature, with FM rx if you want voice nav in another car. fast HD re-routing
built in bluetooth, for hands
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Summary: Love the hide away in the head unit, or portable feature, with FM rx if you want voice nav in another car. fast HD re-routing
built in bluetooth, for hands free in the car with phonebook xfer, caller ID. can hear fine with the windows rolled up. lil bit of noise depending where you have the mic. Its looks like a standard mic jack if you wanted/ or needed a better mic.
Ive tried many GPS's and have yet find one that uses a perfect routing system. And Navtec traffic was not working great with the unit.
But for a 2x din head unit with GPS (and portable) and blue tooth, and HD. Alpine was and prolly still is the only choice.
Thank you Alpine!

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