Kenwood DNN9150BT

Very good unit – It works perfectly, it’s an amazing unit. I have had this for many years and so far it’s been the best audio and video unit I ever had with gps, apple and android as well.

Avoid at all costs – I bought this unit less than one year ago to replace failing head unit in Toyota Prado. What a mistake. Thought I was buying a high quality well manufactured system. In my younger years Kenwood was a name that represented quality, this is no longer the case. Where do I even start on this...GPS, it has a Garmin system installed (and it was the… Read more

main reason I bought it), incredibly slow, start your car up and expect to be sitting there for 3-4 min before GPS will boot (by which time you may have been well and truly on the road), you will find yourself having to think ahead of the journey, eg I need to get in the car 5 minutes before family gets in just to get GPS set up, and of course the moment you turn car over power is dropped to head unit and you will be waiting several minutes before GPS starts again. Making things even more fun...Garmin in all their wisdom do not really seem to support this like they do their standalone systems, eg no lifetime map updates, not even one year updates, what you buy is what you get, (for me this was a map that was over one year old), you want a map update get ready for well over $300. Very small POI database, and I have failed to work out how to add more, even though following all the Garmin procedures for doing it.

Now onto the other technical failures...playing MP3 from the USB sticks, the moment you cycle power to the unit you have a 50/50 chance it will remember its last known location and instead will revert back to the first track. Multiple correspondence with Kenwood Asia and was basically told "we are aware but can do nothing to fix it"

AV out option, (again I bought this unit so that I could tap it into my rear seat display screens and have kids watch MP4 movies from memory sticks)...sorry not the case, the unit can play MP4, but it will only do this to the front screen, and will not allow you to transmit this to the AV out signal...again confirmed with Kenwood...

Lock ups..Seems to suffer relatively frequently on system lock ups, my situation maybe causing it, whereas others may not see it. Upon starting car, I need to reverse out this immediately turns on rear camera signal, while the unit is booting up, the result is probably 20% of the time the unit will lock up and not deactivate the rear camera, I then need to power down the unit to get it working.

Slow boot, even though mentioned before this is worth mentioning again, I have timed this, from power on you will wait about 90 seconds before music will start playing from a USB stick (even if it is the first track again !), radio a little faster, and GPS well no point going back to that!

Screen layouts, probably getting a little particular here, but seriously I would say that Kenwood has several groups working on each factor of the system, from GPS, DVD, Radio, Telephone etc., and I am convinced that they have never actually spoken to each other. Methods of navigating through the system are not consistent, return buttons that do different things on each screen, search functions that are confusing, menu buttons that take you to odd locations. Kenwood need an overall system integrator/tester to get on top of this, it is awkward, inconsistent and simply a pain in the back side to navigate.

I should also add that support is very poor, the only contact I have managed to achieve is a Facebook group called Kenwood Asia, as responsive as they are they are not able to solve any problems.

This has been a great disappointment for me, after reading all the specs of each supplier, and thinking Kenwood was a brand of excellent quality, I am upset that I forked out about $1800 for the top of the line unit. I am so annoyed that I am considering reinstating my old Toyota head unit and buying a standalone GPS to solve the failing GPS, would have saved me a lot. I wanted an all in one unit, in the future I will not be buying a Kenwood.

Don't waste your money on this! – I bought the Kenwood DNN9150BT in September 2015 for $1,700 since I was after a new Multimedia System to replace the stock radio from my Jeep Wrangler JK 2015. A Kenwood Sales Rep informed me that this model is their flagship model this year and it would work and fit well in my Jeep Wrangler. I also bought the WIFI Dongle Adapter which was… Read more

required for the Wireless "Air Mirroring" however at that time only compatible with Android and not with my iPhone. I was told that this will come with the new software update and now nearly 1 year later I am still waiting for it. After contacting the Dealer again I was told there is a new Dongle especially made for Apple phones which would cost an extra $130. Rip-Off!!

In terms of performance of the radio itself I can say it is comparable to a Windows 95 computer and it takes ages to boot up. Same for the reaction time of their touch screen. Everyone who is used to smartphones or iPads nowadays (which are by the way far more capable than this Kenwood radio but only cost a third of the pricet!!) will be disappointed. I regretted the purchase right after the day of installation but I couldn't be bothered to get my car into the workshop again to get everything changed. Now, 10 months later it suddenly doesn't boot up anymore and instead I can stare at a black screen on my daily drive to work. We checked the fuse and tried the reset button in front of the display but nothing helps. I was told to bring it into the workshop so that they can send it to Kenwood for repair which can take a few weeks. One thing is clear to me that a Kenwood radio will never ever be installed in my car again. I rather invest a little more into the Alpine system or similar and get much value for your money.