XAV-60
3.3
5
12
12
Waste of Money
Negatives
Sluggish menu animations (seems to studder at times, no way to turn them off)
RDS (displays only 1 word or 2 three letter words at a time', displays the first word of the stream in the presets list and hides the frequency, might not actually identify the station)
can really mess up your clock if you have CT on
Start up warning/disclaimer
Resistive touch screen isn't very sensitive
If you in a nested menu, there's no way to quickly close them all (no exit button)
USB cord has a ferrite core around it (hard to snake it through the small openings in the dash)
The AV inputs are spread across every cable in the head unit (not very logically grouped)
Clock is really small on the screen
Positives
Great sound
Great screen picture
Easy to use
Lots of inputs
Rotary knob for volume
Ejects disc when powered off
I was (and potentially still am) looking for a head unit with great sound, a high resolution screen, composite AV inputs, and a rotary volume knob. I, like everyone else, want my car stereo to foremost sound great; otherwise what's the point of aftermarket? The high resolution screen and composite AV inputs were for my Soundgate ZNCBLPAK to wire my Zune directly to the unit and be able to navigate it on the screen of the head unit. And the rotary knob for easy and accurate volume adjustment (my last head unit, a JVC KW-AVX720, had only the bottom row flat buttons due to the 7" screen and I found that annoying). I didn't need satellite radio or navigation, but HD radio would be nice.
Looking at the specs of the Sony XAV-60 I thought I found my perfect head unit. Because it was new, the only non-Sony information I could find were just the product pages from Crutchfield and Amazon but didn't include any reviews. So I took a leap of faith and made the jump.
Installation was fairly routine with two exceptions. First the USB cord has a ferrite core around it. That's great for keeping a clean signal, but really bad for trying to snake it through the small openings and crevices in the dash. Second the AV inputs are spread out across the back of the unit. With the video inputs directly on the unit and the audio inputs on a separate wire set that plugs into the back of the unit. Also, for the first 10-20 starts it displays a warning message to obey your local driving rules and before you can use the unit you must click the OK button. Nothing terribly bad, just inconvenient.
The first thing you notice about the Sony XAV-60 once installed, is it's a beautiful looking stereo. The design is very clean. The screen is high resolution (compared to other head units) and very crisp with colors that pop. Because it doesn't have a fold down screen, it mounts fairly flush with the dash using an aftermarket mounting kit and blends nicely with my CR-V.
Second, that audio is really good with lots of options for user configuration. The only thing it's missing is the ability to have it automatically adjust the volume with acceleration and road noise. This is found on both of my Honda cars' factory stereos and is very nice, but must be complicated to add to aftermarkets (since I haven't seen it as a feature anywhere). I currently only have the low quality factory speakers and it still sounds great. Can't wait to see how it sounds with the two pair of aftermarket Alpines ready to install.
While navigating the menus and head unit though, the disappointment starts to build. The biggest and most prevalent issue is that the menus and controls are SLOW. So very slow. Almost glacial at times. The menus and overlays that pop up are animated and when they move usually studder and jerk. Seems like Sony either has really inefficient software or underpowered hardware. There is no apparent way to turn the animation off either. If they were just to appear on the screen instead of sliding out, I would be much happier with it.
Along with the slow menus, the screen is a resistive touchscreen (capacitive is still too expensive to use?) and is not very sensitive. The lack of sensitivity combined with the sluggish menus can cause some real frustration in trying to navigate. For example, the radio menus have two layers, a base one and various secondary ones for presets or other radio options. When the menus are slowly moving, they don't respond so you might end up in an endless loop of trying to showing and hiding menu items.
I hooked up my wife's Sony MP3 play thinking I would get really fast response and navigation. Wrong. Slow slow slow. It just takes way to long to show the contents of what you select or to scroll the list. Same with MP3 CDs.
In summary, this is a beautiful looking stereo that sounds great BUT it has some serious issues with software. Issues that at times are so bad that I almost wonder if I have a counterfeit or defective unit, because I can't imagine the issues were noticed by testers or quality control. But 98% of my issues with the Sony XAV-60 could be fixed with a firmware update to the unit, and hopefully at least Sony was smart enough to include this functionality.
May 16, 2011
slow, and lacking support
the clock is way too small, its very hard to tell what time it is without squinting my eyes.
Very slow response time, loading screens take too much time to load, sense me is slow, usb is slow, its all too slow,please fix this with a firmware update if possible.
also there is not enough documentation or support for what type of video files are supported, what formats and codecs are allowed.
considering the screen size,the space is not used very efficiently, the radio stations and names of songs and such only display on one line, and the rest of the space around it is unused, it does not make sense.
its a great head unit, just fix these little problems, which i dont believe are hard to do , a simple firmware update does not require too much effort, especially from a big company like Sony, please stand behind your product and satisfy your customers.
January 14, 2011
THE single WORST stereo I have ever owned.
This is the worst stereo I have ever owned PERIOD. I hate it! IT DOES NOT WORK RIGHT WITH IPOD AT ALL! I have three gens worth of IPods and it says not a supported device on my IPod every time I hook it up. Doesn't do the SENSE ME setup for any IPods period. Playlists are hard to find, and take FOREVER to load. This thing is slower than DOS! I WILL NEVER EVER BUY SONY AGAIN AND I ADVISE YOU TO DO THE SAME! It would be cool if they would just do an update. I have owned alot of decks, and this is the first time I'm taking one out in the first month of owning it because it was so WEAK! UPDATE!UPDATE! OR $BACK PLEASE!! Sincerly,
I HATE SONY PRODUCTS NOW, DAVE!
December 6, 2010
Major disappointment
I am loyal to Sony products almost to a fault. So when I was ready to replace the factory radio in my Tahoe, I didn't look far beyond my favorite brand. I wish that I had. This unit has a lot of features, but very few integrated into the basic set up or anywhere near as functional as they could be. The warning that comes up when the unit starts requires action to clear the screen before using the back-up camera. It should go blank when the camera comes on. The 6.1" screen is underutilized when displaying song or station info. What do we have to choose between title, artist or station? Why can't it display all? It has plenty of screen room. And the clock. Worthless. There is no glancing down to check the time. The driver is put in danger if you have to check the clock on this unit. Again, the screen has so much unused space that the clock could easily be displayed at a much more functional size. I was amazed when I went to install ithis unit at all of the additional parts and interfaces that I needed, which nearly doubled the cost of the unit. Why is there no check list so that all the accessories to activate the features could be gathered in advance? As you can tell, this is my first changeover (wouldn't say upgrade) since the days of installing a "new" cassette deck in my Mustang II. If I had to do it all over again, I'd learn to live with the factory radio. Loyalty just took a big hit.
August 27, 2010
