Seems the stereo head unit in my Octavia is slowly dying and I’d like something with a bit more functionality. Ideally bluetooth streaming of music from my (i)phone and calls. Not fussed about multimedia or touchscreen stuff, and I don’t want something that looks at home in a chav’d up Corsa.

Any recommendations from those in the know about this sort of thing?

I just put a Panasonic Appradio in our car – does the music and hone stuff (not music via Bluetooth, though I think that’s possible), plus it can use some apps on the iPhone like GPS.

Ben, just googled it. Pioneer. Looks good. Ta.

And I also learnt it’s not some pseudo-italian made up name, as I’d assumed!

IMO go with branded, there are a host of mad ones from far away lands on ebay that look nice in theory but are a bag of sh*t.

i learnt the hard way!

Hmm looks good – lack of bluetooth streaming is a bit of a pain. Do you have to hook the phone up via cable?

I think the Appradio 3 has Bluetooth music streaming – I’ve got the 2 which doesn’t. So yes, you connect via cable.

A downside is it works best with iPhone 4/4s – iPhone 5 doesn’t have the analogue video out so it’s a bit more faffing about.

What I’ve got is my old iPhone 4 permanently in the car, connected to the Appradio and storing all the music and car apps. Then the iPhone 5 in my pocket uses the Appradio for calls via bluetooth. Works well for me – and for total geeks having DashCommand on the screen is very cool 😉

Hmm, got a bit of interest in this myself. Can you via the apps from the phone on the headunit? Sounds like a cool way of getting my iPhone TomTom GPS into the car properly

Unfortunately there’s only a limited range of apps that’ll work with the Appradio, and Tomtom isn’t one of them – so I’ve started using Navfree which is actually pretty good and integrates very well on the Appradio screen.

The Appradio also comes with an add-on GPS antenna which can go various places but I’ve stuck on my dashboard, and it makes a noticeable improvement to the GPS reception.

The slight faff – and this is more Apple’s fault than the Appradio’s – is you have to press a confirm button on the phone to allow the Appradio to use the phone’s apps.

Ok thanks. Might have to investigate as obviously paid up for the TomTom app so would rather not ‘bin’ it for something else. Annoying as there seems to be very little choice. JVC do mirrorlink but its non-apple…

If it’s an option for you, you could jailbreak the phone and get the Tomtom to display on the Appradio that way.

I’ve found Navfree to be as accurate on average as Tomtom, though.

Not a JVC.

Put one in the golf and it has a very painful response speed when skipping iPod / iPhone / USB
tracks on the touchscreen.

Depends what your budget is.

If you fancy OEM look but expect better sound quality then Kenwood DNX520VBT. Will tick most of your boxes.