There and Back Again A Review of the Pioneer AVIC-N1

Matt Freeman — Jun 08, 2004

Article contents
Page 1.   Introductory thoughts on the AVIC-N1
Page 2.   Testing the AVIC-N1's audio section
Page 3.   The AVIC-N1's big navigation test, part 1
Page 4.   The AVIC-N1's big navigation test, part 2
Page 5.   Vehicle Dynamics specs
Page 6.   Don't forget — it plays DVDs, too!
Page 7.   Installing the AVIC-N1

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Oh Yeah! It Plays Videos, Too!
Lost in the shuffle of its incredible navigation (and great audio) performance is that the AVIC-N1 is, in fact, a DVD receiver. And a dang good one, at that.

I tested its DVD capability by parking the car, engaging the parking brake, and popping in the Deluxe Edition of the first film in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (now you see why I opened this review with a Hobbit metaphor), one of the more stunningly beautiful films ever made (in my humble opinion).

The picture quality impressed me quite a bit, especially considering that I'd had my grubby fingers all over the display, using the controls (one of the drawbacks of touch-screen controls, I think); Pioneer's special anti-glare screen coating minimizes the potential obscuring effects of fingerprints.

The AVIC-N1's LCD monitor is quite satisfactory for DVD viewing. (And, yes, you're correct: this is not a shot from The Lord of the Rings.)

Epic films like this certainly lose something when shown on such a small screen, but still, it looked fantastic. The colors were vibrant, the picture crisp. And while I missed the discrete channel separation of my home theater (you can connect the AVIC-N1 to an optional surround-sound decoder and install a 5.1 setup in the car), the soundtrack still sounded authoritative coming through the front and rear speakers.

I was a bit put off at first by the fact that the AVIC-N1 doesn't come with a remote, as I'm thoroughly accustomed (as I'm sure most are) to controlling a DVD with one, but I quickly found out that the touch-screen controls do just nicely. When you touch the screen, the DVD controls appear; there are three sets of them through which you can toggle back and forth, each of which offers a different set of operations. With them, navigation through the DVD is fairly simple, making a remote unnecessary, which I'm sure keeps costs down — and that's a good thing.