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The PIONEER AVIC-X910BT 5.8-Inch In-Dash GPS Navigation receiver with DVD playback, bluetooth, convenient turn-by-turn voice guidance and built-in maps that put the world at your fingertips. This includes major points of interest, such as restaurants, ATMs, gas stations, entertainment venues and more.

Pioneer has re-named a slightly modified AVIC-F900BT to the AVIC-X910BT, as well as the AVIC-F90BT and AVIC-F700BT. Hardware changes are a new DVD drive, a new Apple chip to support new Apple devices and a minor update to the faceplate. The software changes (which are available, for a fee, from Pioneer for existing F-series customers as a 3.0 update) include:

- An update of the Windows CE operating system that runs underneath the user interface, which is responsible for the increase in responsiveness of the unit over the F-Series running on version 2.0.

- Updated navigation software from iGo 8.0 to iGo 8.3, this gives all the new map features advertised, like heading-up in 2D map mode and traffic signs.

- It now responds properly to steering wheel inputs with a remote adapter by going through pre-sets instead of incrementing the tuner.

One feature listed in the book is the display of incoming Short text messages (SMS). I have yet to have incoming SMS notifications display on this unit. The unit itself promises a lot, and in most ways, it does. Spec-for-spec, there’s no unit (apart from Pioneer’s own Z110BT) that comes close at *any* price. The nearest the competition can come is the Kenwood DNX9140, however, its voice control does not allow true voice commands, which the Kenwood DNX9140 responds very fast to voice control, it requires you to be looking at the screen and giving commands like “Line 4″, “Next Page”, basically just duplicating pressing the screen with your fingers, except you have to talk instead of poking where you’re looking.

The AVIC-X910BT delivers on most all its promises, but the main gripes from the previous series still exist, which are well-covered in reviews of the F900BT, F700BT and F90BT. For the price, this is an impressive unit.

I really like the PIONEER AVIC-X910BT and would not go back to the portable Garmin GPS, although we still have it for use in our other vehicles and when we are hanging around planning a trip. It’s great having the GPS built-in, many times we are out running around and decide to go some place, we can enter whatever we want to find right in the GPS and it tells us where it’s at.