Made Entertaiment on Your Car

I have had this unit installed in my car for a couple of weeks now. The authorized Parrot rep that did the install (and who apparently knew what he was doing) had no trouble at all, and the unit looks clean installed. If your Parrot installer says he doesn’t think it will fit in your car, go to Parrot’s website, and find another installer.

Having used the unit for a couple of weeks, I am very happy with most of the features. The bluetooth works seamlessly, and it should, considering other manufacturers like Alpine and Pioneer use Parrot for bluetooth technology. I have had no complaints from the people on the other end of the line, in fact, most of them can’t believe I’m in a car. My wife owns the Minikit by Parrot, and she says the bluetooth works great for her as well. I use the radio with a 3G iPhone, which works fantastic because the music streams through the bluetooth connection. For some reason I have had trouble getting Pandora radio to stream through the bluetooth, not sure why, but I guess I could use the aux in if I wanted to listen to Pandora.

The radio stations (particularly the AM ones) start out snowy when I first turn on the car, but once I change the station and then change back it clears up. Not sure why it does that, and since that’s an easy fix I wouldn’t consider that a deterrent to buy the unit. The unit did freeze once on me when streaming music through the bluetooth and trying to use the aux jack on the phone simultaneously (just experimentin’), but resumed working with a reboot.

One more pro with this unit is the fact that you can update the software whenever Parrot releases a new version, so hopefully any bugs will be worked out with later releases.

All in all, this is a clean looking unit, that does what it says it will do, and is reasonably priced. I wouldn’t recommend it to my grandpa, but you might like it, especially if you have a later generation iPhone (3G or 3GS). I’m giving it four stars because of few hiccups I’ve experienced so far, but if Parrot releases a software update that fixes those I would give it five.
Rating: 4 / 5

I received mine through Amazon reseller – arrived as promised, on time and as described.

3 stars are meant for overall experience – i.e radio died 6 days after install and it took more than a week to get a replacement from Parrot. (reseller absolved it’s responsibility for the dead radio with quoting some fine print – so read it before you buy).

install: standard – the faceplate is larger than normal, but fit my van OK. check your dash if you have some extra room around the standard single DIN slot. Microphone went in fine, no accessories connected and car antenna went in with an adapter – I have a short euro sized antenna lead.

function: OK – If you expect a good “hands free” performance – this is the one to get! I used G1, Droid and Nexus One to connect – all telephony worked acceptable, with phone book sync and voice commands. 5 Stars here.

As Bluetooth Audio devices: some glitches, disconnects and even freezes that required the removal of the faceplate to reset the radio. Overall acceptable – 4.5 stars

As a AM/FM radio – very good! Finally was able to hear some quality from my lacking outside antenna! 5 stars

Appearance – dated: The little screen color schemes, fonts and wallpapers scream mid 2k – the buttons stick a bit on the faceplate, feel cheap.

Updates – One major advantage of this is the ability to upgrade the OS – I quickly got the latest software patch directly from Parrot and installed it. I run only Linux, so Mac instructions worked fine, no need to get the bloated Parrot updater, even for windows. The radio appeared to function better, more stable in Bluetooth as well.

Usability – I used this with everything but the IPod/IPhone – all as described. Parrot radio through Bluetooth as well as media playback from the phones. USB stick was fine – never did get to see the album art on the radio. Have not tried playback from the SD card. Updated the available wallpapers through Bluetooth push – all is well.

Have to give usability 1 star – since for the last week or so I did not get to used the radio. It died without any warning, would not power up, checked the fuse in the back, the van fuse for the radio – all OK. The faceplate has a mini USB port that I have plugged into a pc, just for curiosity, the faceplate powered up and appeared to await updates. After radio died – the faceplate did not powered up on plugging into USB – so I assumed it was dead for good. Contacted Parrot for replacement, which is on the way now for over a week.

Buggy radio- but overall possibly the best hands free device that I have seen.
Rating: 3 / 5

This car stereo has lovely, innovative gadgets that work quite well. The previous model, the RK8200, was utterly crap. But all issues are dealt with in the RKi8400.

Connection of the faceplate now uses a strong magnet to keep it in place. A clean, simple and strong connection. Also, the jog wheel has a more professional design, while frequent updates keep the firmware fixed.

Connection with the i-pod is smooth and fast. No lag at all. The sound is great, it displays all play-lists and album covers. It also supports text for languages other than English, just like the i-pod itself (i.e Greek).

Voice recognition has come a long way with this stereo. You no more need to “train” it to recognize contacts when you call them. It has a built-in voice recognition system and it’s quite accurate!

Only problem is, you sometimes need to really shout out the name in order for the system to receive it. And the volume for the telephone call instructions and the radio is the same, which can be annoying if you want the radio turned down low but decide to make a call, because then you can’t hear the instructions.

Other than that, I am very happy. I have only had it for a month and I hope it continues to work as well as it does. A last positive aspect is the service I receive from Parrot whenever I need something. In Europe at least, they are very helpful.
Rating: 4 / 5