Quote:
Originally posted by Loki_4Runner
For what it's worth, the Kenwood 8120 has two main advantages over the Eclipse:
1. Nav system is superior. First of all, in the Kenwood it's a flash memory-based drive (think SD card), which means stuff loads faster (vs. the DVD-based drive of the Eclipse) and it's not subject to the mechanical wear-and-tear of a DVD drive in constant use. Also, the Garmin software is just fantastic and has the benefit of being able to load Garmin map updates (in my opinion, best in the business).
In terms of steering wheel controls, the SWI-JACK unit gives me full control over the Kenwood... I'm not sure how it would be different/better with an eclipse. However, one fewer bit of electronics is one less point of failure.
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I used to think that a flash-based memory drive was better than a DVD-based drive for navigation systems. Then my buddy bought the Kenwood 8120 and he started to have some complaints. So we ended up comparing my unit against his unit and after we were finished, he returned the Kenwood and purchased the Eclipse.
So what were the differences?
1- His Kenwood took way too long to boot up after starting his vehicle. My Eclipse boots up in 3 or 4 seconds, whereas his Kenwood took anywhere from 45 seconds to a full minute. It didn't seem like a big deal to me, but he said that he hated sitting still until his system booted up. Supposedly there's a fix for the problem, but after going back and forth with his Kenwood dealer, they could not get it to boot any faster.
2- Although a flash memory drive should be faster in loading routes and maps, it actually isn't any faster than the DVD-based system in the Eclipse. We timed both units after inputting identical routes and the times were within two seconds of each other.
3- Route logic. We accidentally discovered this after trying to determine if one unit was faster than the other. It turns out that the logic used by the Eclipse unit seems to be superior than the Kenwood's route logic. Since were were comparing local routes, we wondered why his Kenwood would come up with routes that seemed to be a longer route, even when asking for the most direct route possible.
Overall, I thought the Kenwood was a nice unit. But in our tests it just didn't compare to the Eclipse in terms of functionality. Take this for what it's worth....just some unscientific tests and comparisons.