Small in Size, BIG in Sound Quality!
With a name like XW NAV1, you would expect Pioneer to have their product’s design to be futuristic or avant-garde, but really, the design of XW NAV1 really does look apple-rish or apple-friendly and you know immediately it’s meant for iPod, iPhone but not the iPad.
As per most dock you can find in the market, Pioneer’s NAV1 uses a standard docking set-up for an iPod dock, placed directly in front of the speaker. A small LED indicates the present set-up, and sits below the controls from the top. One of the extra features you can find is slot for CD/DVD drive(which most after-market iPod speaker are lack of), power on/off switch, function buttons for play/pause, stop, eject and volume, and last but not least, a hidden USB port that sits below a small plastic flap, which looks quite flimsy to me.
Pioneer’s NAV1 remote control comes in full size, like those you have for TV, with directional controller buttons, volume buttons, etc, which looks quite impressive to me, given that most iPod docks remote control are really small in size and very difficult even to adjust the small little buttons on them.
Pioneer are known for their home & car audio systems, so the first perception that I have in mind for the NAV1 was just another gimmick blasting out the tunes you keep in your iPod, but am I very wrong.
The tunes coming out from NAV1 was almost perfect, delivering smooth audio across a variety of genres with minimum distortion when we blast at high volume, and also, it depends whether you have the surround sound being turn on.
For me personally, I had a blast with the NAV1, as it does deliver the smooth sound quality I’m looking for in a iPod dock. The structure and exterior looks wonderful with minor setback, if it only has digital radio, that will make the NAV1 complete.
We did try using USB drive to test on the NAV1. We notice the menu options was quite slow when you choose your track on screen, and every single selection response lag behind couple of seconds. Perhaps Pioneer might want to rectify this situation? Of course, if you are using iPod, I bet those problems do not even exist.
Next, we connect NAV1 to our TV in the office, and it’s pretty straight forward especially NAV1 comes with HDMI out for DVD only, and immediately, we have a wonderful DVD play back on our screen, watching movies. However, when we try using the iPod video sources, we were surprised that it’s not really supported and image a little blury. What a waste…anyway, nothing is perfect.
Retailing at an affordable price of S$399.00, the NAV1 was a steal when compared to some of it’s direct competition in the market. Having more features as well as aesthetics’ are quite soothing to the eyes, especially when it’s available in white..hmm..
If you're in the market for an all-in-one dock and can utilise the DVD playback as well, then the NAV1 is worth considering.
Really, die die must try..no kidding!
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