very disappointing

O.k., the DEH-55BT gets a star because I can make and receive calls over bluetooth, and the sound quality is good at both ends of the call. But sadly Pioneer's mastery of bluetooth technology goes little further than that.

Before I bought this unit I took the trouble to download the manual from the Pioneer website and studied their 'phone compatibility list to make sure it did what I wanted. But I was grossly misled. So here is what I wished I had known before I bought it.

The Nokia 6230i, according to their compatibility list, is just about as compatible as it can be. But transfer of the 'phonebook to the Pioneer unit does not happen like the manual describes. Only after contacting support (no courtesy of a reply, just a link to pre-prepared answers that might help) did I learn that I have to transfer numbers in ONE AT A TIME, in a TEDIOUS PROCESS. Subsequently I discovered they are better transferred in alphabetical order, because the Pioneer won't sort them !

Pioneer arrogantly blame Nokia for this"there is a limitation on the phone (all Nokia's) not the headunit", but this is simply not true, because I have a TomTom GO700 navigator that has absolutely no trouble transferring the whole of the 'phonebook from my 'phone in one simple operation. So it would seem that it's Pioneer that haven't cracked the technology yet.

As Pioneer didn't bother to reply to my question, I still don't know why the signal strength isn't shown, in spite of the compatibility list specifically telling me that it is.

As an FM car radio, it is actually very good indeed. Unfortunately in my VW it needs an external aerial booster to get anything at all on MW/LW, the booster I have found so far certainly gets MW/LW up to scratch, but at the expense of making FM more prone to crackles.