You know you’re investing in something pretty special when you go to buy a headunit for your car and you come away with what its creators call a “2-DIN entertainment hub”. This all sounds rather posh, but Pioneer reckon the 3300BT is one of their best sellers of this year – and after a good fiddle and poke around with one, we can ruddy well see why. Eyes down, dear reader, eyes down…
FULL TOUCH SCREEN
Every dot of the 5.8-inch screen is touch sensitive and big-time easy to use. Want to skip to the best part of a track or vid? Just tap the timeline along the bottom and job’s a good ’un – the unit’s already on it for you. See it, touch it: even Pioneer themselves say you won’t need to look at the manual to use it like a boss!
EASILY LINKED TO PHONE
Not only does the unit have built-in hands-free and space for up to 1000 phonebook contacts, but you can browse videos and pics from your phone using the headunit. You can even check for signal if you live in the sticks. Full phone menus are also controlled with ease through the touch screen, so when you’re in your ride, you’ll probably forget mobiles were even invented. Sort of.
CONNECTIVITY
The unit boasts full iPod/iPhone connectivity as well as a USB port, auxiliary dock and that all-important SD card slot on top of the DVD/CD terminal. So you’ll always have access to literally thousands of tunes on the move. Three pre-outs
round the back take care of the audiophiles who want to add subs and amps to their in-car setup. But if not, the built-in 4x50w MOSFET amp will see to a good set of components too. Good musical times all round!
INTERACTIVE SETTINGS
The 3300BT is rammed with ways to customise your unit to personal taste. Graphic User Interface – GUI to you and me – lets you upload pics and album art, via the USB and SD slots, and view them as a slideshow. You can also select your bestest, favouritest images for your background, change colour schemes and even layouts. Plus, thanks to the 8-band graphic equaliser and auto EQ, the unit retunes your music sounds according to the acoustics of your car for best possible output. This thing doesn’t just look good you know!
LINK SEARCH
When listening to your favourite music artist – which in our Lee’s case is a healthy dose of Devlin – just a quick tap of the Link Search button lets the unit scan your entire music collection and play similar tracks according to artist, genre
or album. It’s proper whiz and lets you enjoy related but random tunes. So Lee had hours of like-minded music while saving his 80s power ballads for a rainy day. Result!
PIONEER APP MODE
A simple touch of the App button engages you with the uber-smart Pioneer App mode. It enables you to watch videos from your iPhone as well as play games, surf the net and tune in to internet radio, all with ease from the interactive screen. Careful though: for obvious safety reasons, no videos will play unless the handbrake is on – though audio will still play when you’re on the move.
For more info see Pioneer
