I got an ALPINE CDA-9827 and the Alpine iPod interface. While I like the audio quality, and the fact that it charges my iPod, I think the interface is garbage. It is like putting a Ferrari engine in an old VW bug. Why you ask?

And my reasons. Well the navigation is awful. I was prepared for the 8 character screen, though if the unit scrolled when you were selecting so you could see which playlist by which band it was, it would be much more usefull. And if you get the wrong playlist, you have to go all the way back to get to the right one, and that takes a long time!!

And to my biggest complaint. Searching. Instead of a smooth scroll through your playlists, this thing is so damn slow. It goes one playlist per turn, no matter how much you turn, and you must stop and turn again to go to the next one. And I have a lot of playlists. It takes minutes to find a playlist that isn’t in the beggining or end. I want to scroll quickly through my playlists, not this one at a time thing! This is ridiculous, especially when you can’t tell which one is which.

In fact I have found it is so hard to find the right playlist, that I have taken to going to the playlist on the ipod, and getting it to play, then connecting it, so it goes to that one.

Now I like the audio quality, and that it charges the iPod, and it can navigate within a single playlist alright, but when searching other playlists this thing is useless.

I would have preffered a better stereo head unit, and just used an Aux input and then plug the iPod into my cigarette lighter for power.

Really the interface feels so slow and bad, I think this thing is awful!