First and foremost, no offense is intended for vendors of Clarion products or the Clarion brand. These are merely my opinions and observations, some of which are unique to me. This post is a rant, not a rave. I acknowledge in advance that maybe some of the problem is between the device and the seat.
I installed this unit in August, 2008. Things I absolutely *HATE* about this thing:
1) It only plays 2 GB SD cards. I have a lot more music than that; it's a real PITA to drop an SD card on the floor and try to have your passenger find it when you're trying to change the card at night. This thing should play the largest SD card possible - there are no moving parts so compatibility should be a firmware update away.
2) It does not have a resume function. You read that right. There are no moving parts and the programmers were too damn lazy to write a bookmark to a single non-volatile 32-bit register. So if you make lots of short trips, you're gonna listen to the same damn track over and over and over. But why not use fast forward? See next gripe.
3) It does not have a fast forward or rewind function. Yeah. Seriously. No resume and no fast forward. And no moving parts! Why couldn't this be implemented via a firmware update? You can skip tracks forward or backward, but there is no FF or RW in the actual track itself.
4) It does not connect to your mobile phone on Bluetooth if you're talking on the phone before the unit powers up. Uhh - my freaking headset does this just fine. Why can't this *simple* device do the same thing as every other BT headset on earth?
5) It does not even allow you to to continue to use your handset while it tries to figure out how to connect to your phone - you cannot hear anything and anything you say into your handset will not be transmitted to your caller. Once again, I remind you that that there are no moving parts to replace in this unit in order to fix something like this yet there are no firmware updates that I'm aware of.
6) It does not display the caller's name in its display - it displays the phone number. Even though your phone displays the caller's name on the phone display, this unit feels that it must be easier for you to recognize the caller's phone number rather than the caller's name.
7) It does not dim its ridiculously bright display and key lights at night. Driving in the desert at night with a lot of bright interior lights is annoying. If you want to be on the phone, it's going to be *really* annoying because this sucker puts out enough light to read by. And yes, you can turn it down manually but that's buried in a menu.
8) It does not have quick response to its hard plastic keys. This is really two gripes in one. First, the keys only depress about 1 mm, which isn't really enough. Second, there is about a 100 ms delay between pressing a key and anything happening. Not enough to call it "unresponsive" but certainly enough to be noticeable and just enough to drive me nuts.
If this were my product, I'd be embarrassed to admit it. Don't believe the glowing video review on YouTube or written review on Amazon. I have a sinking suspicion that this product may have been designed by several advanced chimpanzees.
On the plus side, I do absolutely love my Evo.
Living with the Clarion FB275BTB (Total POS)
