I was all set to buy a double din DVD/Nav Head Unit -after researching online I'd narrowed it down to a few units (major brands). Then I walked into an Ultimate Electronics to see them in person and every single screen I looked at was horrible - low resolution, jaggy text, poor color saturation, etc. I didn't spend any time tweaking any of them as I was in somewhat of a rush but for ~$1,000+ head units I was very disappointed. Is just the user interface that looks this way or is it all content (DVDs, Maps, etc). These looked like laptop screens from the early passive matrix days.

I work in the consumer electronics industry (but don't deal much with 12V) and I've seen portable DVD players in the sub $100 range with much better screens.

The carputers I've seen at trade shows have generally looked better also - maybe that's the direction I'll take...

You may want to check out www.mp3car.com for a good carputer reference site...

I'm happy with my Pioneer AVIC-D3, not sure what your looking for,or at. Drew:)

I've got a Kenwood DDX7019 and absolutely love the image quality. Granted, the user menu can be a bit "jagged", but when anything other than the menus are being displayed, its a high quality screen.

DVD's and pics look phenomenal and the displayed album art from the iPod video is of excellent quality as well. The only time these items lack in quality, is because of the source image rather than a deficient screen. I don't have NAV however and couldn't really tell ya how that looks. And as far as I can tell, units from other major manufacturers in the same price range, look just as good (Eclipse, Alpine, Clarion, JVC).

Next time, take in your own disc(s) with various files on it to see how well the unit works. For example, include an MPEG, JPEG, MP3 and if you can a DivX file and even bring in your favorite DVD. Not only will this demo the units performance, but this'll give you the chance to listen to your favorite music/movies through aftermarket speakers that could be installed in your E... later on. :D

Thanks guys, if it's just the menu interface graphics that are bad I can live with that (although why they wouldn't take the extra 10 minutes to make them 'cleaner' is beyond me).

Now I just need to decide if a after market head unit will do what I want or if I want to spend the extra time to configure a computer to do what I want.

MP3car.com is an awesome resource //cleans drool off of keyboard//.
Not sure if I want to spend $2,600 on the computer head unit and then still have to add amps/speakers/sub and probably a larger flip-down screen for the back. I can see this getting up in to the $5K range very quickly!

Thanks guys, if it's just the menu interface graphics that are bad I can live with that (although why they wouldn't take the extra 10 minutes to make them 'cleaner' is beyond me).
Check into the Clarion unit (http://www.clarion.com/us/en/products/2007/multimedia/multimedia_source_units/MAX675VD/us-en-product-pf_1165294767357.html).

IMO, this has the cleanest and most creative menus on the market. It has all the same features as comparable units, but this one DOES look a bit better when it comes to user interface.

The only drawback is that when mounted, the screen sticks out approx. half an inch from the face of the dash. Other than that, its ready to roll!

So what head unit that you looked at was horrible? Did you see the Pioneer D3 and the Alpine W-205?