Alpine iDAX305 Radio / digital player FullDIN indash

Unusable, poorly designed rubbish
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
Alpine iDA-X305 – Radio / digital player – Full-DIN – in-dash – 50 Watts x 4

The iDA-X305 is the worst car audio product I have ever purchased. It has a lovely display, but it is only usable if all you want to do is listen to the iPod. Sound quality was dreadful, but this may have been be a setting or installation problem. The manual and settings are in some sections largely incomprehensible. However, the main problem is that the user interface is impossible to use safely in a moving vehicle. Want to find a radio station? Select the menu. Scroll. Try to read the display. Every bump on the road means the scroll with the main jog wheel overshoots or undershoots. By this time your eyes have been off the road for too long. Even as a passenger I found the controls to be too difficult to use if the vehicle was moving. My car is a sports saloon, so this is possibly partly because of the stiff suspension, but the unit is in any event a road hazard. The jog dial is glacially slow – want to increase the volume? Be prepared to turn the wheel and turn it and turn it. Too bad if you need to drive at the same time. It also has a cute feature where the angled shape of the selector means it tends to slip into a dead spot between functions where it does nothing. Want to get there faster? Push the jog selector in all the way. This activates a fast forward function. Only problem is, the fast selection it is so slow you’ll need time lapse photography to see it change. Since when are fast forward controls slower than the normal speed?

The unit was clearly faulty – the iPhone generally did not connect unless one pulled to the side of the road and turned the ignition off and on several times, but Alpine had no intention of doing anything about that. It was suggested that the bluetooth unit may have needed a software upgrade, but no help was forthcoming in doing this. The Alpine rep told the installer the problem was that I was too old to understand the unit!!!. This has been a terribly expensive exercise in frustration. In addition to expense, there has been the loss of days while the problems were debated and the unit removed and replaced with something that actually works (not another x305).

What I have learned from this is to be very careful to evaluate the performance of these items against your needs, and don’t be swayed by the ‘gee whiz’ reviews, often by people who have only assessed them in a showroom. Technological progress is not inevitable. Oh – and stay away from Alpine. There are some marvellous units out there that do a great job without the expense, and whose manufacturers are pleased to help.