The Pioneer AVH-211EX is considered by Pioneer to be an entry-level double din car stereo. But do the specifications and features of the AVH 211EX match the characteristics of an entry-level car stereo? I think not.
In this Pioneer AVH-211EX review, we will be looking at what the car stereo has to offer, where it lacks, where its benefits lie, and much more.
Pioneer is well known for its high-quality car audio products and fantastic sound quality. The AVH-211EX is designed to improve the quality of entertainment you get in your vehicle and meet your needs.
The Pioneer AVH-211EX comes with more than just the basics of car stereo and does not leave anyone out. Unlike many head units in the market that leave out those who love a touch of the old, this one ensures it does not, by including a CD/DVD player.
With this AVH-211EX you are spoilt of choice on how you would want to get entertained while on the road. You can stream from your smartphone, play from a CD or a DVD, or a USB stick.
Review At A Glance
Product Name: Pioneer AVH-211EX
Product Description: It is an entry-level A/V multimedia receiver carefully designed to take care of your entertainment needs while you are on the road. Connect it with your smartphone as it works well with both Android and iOS. The AVH-211EX features a wideband Speech capability, which drastically enhances the sound quality of phone calls by offering double the frequency bandwidth.
Summary
If you are looking for a budget A/V receiver for your car, you can consider the Pioneer AVH-211EX. It includes all the basic features – Radio, Aux, Bluetooth, etc.
The built quality is very good. You can check the customer reviews on Amazon, the AVH-211EX has got the majority of positive reviews as it is worth every penny.
Overall
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Features
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Ease of use
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Built Quality
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Sound Experience
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Price
All these and Pioneer’s reputation for impressive car audio systems point you to a mid-level solution for your car’s audio system at the price of an entry-level solution.
What’s in the box?
It comes with the double din car stereo with a 6.2″ display attached to a CD/DVD player. The screen is bright enough and offers you several multi-color illumination options to choose from. The design of this car stereo makes it easy for anyone to install the new car stereo in their car. Easy installation is made so by a wiring harness at the rear of the double din unit.
This Pioneer’s head unit also comes with remote control. This allows anyone sitting in the vehicle easy controlling of the car stereo. Pioneer provides lithium batteries. They guarantee that the remote control will last for long before a replacement is needed.
The head unit comes with a rear USB input. To access the back end USB port, you will need a cable from the backend of the head unit to the front of your vehicle. Pioneer thought of this and included a 5-foot extension cable.
The cable is designed for plugging in the rear USB port and fished from the back end to the front of your vehicle.
The extension cable is long enough to allow you to plug your smartphone to the car stereo without it being in the way or mess things up in your vehicle. This also ensures that the front-facing USB port stays available.
A dedicated external microphone is also included in the box. The microphone is attached to a 13 feet cable, which makes it possible to have the receiver positioned anywhere you would like. This guarantees you quality audio and excellent feedback.
There are a few auxiliary items that come in the box like dedicated mounting hardware, a quick start guide, and an installation manual that is quite easy to follow through. The Pioneer AVH 211EX wiring diagram is easy to follow and of great assistance during the installation of the head unit.
- Touchscreen controls.
- Bluetooth & Remote control.
- Backup camera ready.
Features
Android Compatibility
Android users on Android’s 4.0 operating system or later can listen to music on the AVH 211EX without the need for an app. The process is made simple by Android’s Media Transfer Protocol (MTP). MTP allows the Pioneer AVH 211EX to recognize your android smartphone as a music storage device.
With your smartphone connected to the head unit via a USB cable, you can access your audio files and perform functions like play, pause, repeat, shuffle, forward, and rewind. The metadata information about a song will get displayed on the 6.2″ screen.
iPhone compatibility
This head unit allows direct control of the iPhone or iPod. Information about the song, artist, album, and time gets displayed on the 6.2″ screen. The cable connection not only keeps your iPhone or iPod charged by providing a 1 amp of current, but also gives you clean and clear sound thanks to the direct digital signal.
Bluetooth
The Pioneer AVH 211EX comes with an in-built Bluetooth feature that is easy to pair. Any Bluetooth enabled phone can effortlessly be paired with the AVH 211EX. If a Bluetooth registered device is near the head unit, an auto connection function easily pairs the two.
The Pioneer AVH 211EX comes with Bluetooth hands-free profile 1.6. The hands-free profile 1.6 adds support for wideband speech. Wideband speech capability improves the quality of phone calls by doubling the frequency bandwidth. Phone calls with the wide speech bandwidth capability are of better quality compared to those without.
The built-in Bluetooth has the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile that allows for high-quality audio streaming from an audio device to the head unit. Audio controls like play and pause are made possible by the Audio/ Video Remote Control Profile.
With this Pioneer’s AVH 211EX, Bluetooth wireless technology has made life in the vehicle a lot more comfortable with simple pairing, wireless audio streaming, artist and album song search, and hands-free calling.
Rear Camera Ready
The Pioneer AVH 211EX comes with a dedicated camera input for receiving the rear camera feed. This makes it possible and easy to add a reverse camera to help you with rear visibility while packing or reversing. With this, you can back in faster and with more confidence. The integration process with your camera is made simple by the camera input on the rear of the car stereo dedicated to receiving audio-visual signals and wiring harness.
If your vehicle already has a reverse camera installed, connecting it to Pioneer’s AVH 211EX is straightforward and easy. This will help you with rear visibility through the camera’s feed on the 6.2″ display. You can use it as your backup camera.
Multi-color
The car stereo gives you the power to choose in the colors you want in the head unit. You can select from among five colors for the display. The colors being blue, red, amber, green, and violet. As for the illumination of your head unit, you can choose from 112 colors. This allows you to match the colors of the Pioneer AVH 211EX to that of your vehicle’s interior lighting or have the colors change automatically.
It, however, lacks in the number of background images you can use, and it only comes with two.
Expandability
The car stereo comes being steering control ready, and with the right adapters, you will have seamless control of the stereo from the steering controls. You can use the well-known Axxess ASWC-1 steering wheel control adapter to connect the steering controls of your car to the Pioneer AVH 211EX. PAC controlPro will help with the programming of your steering control interface. Both are sold separately.
The stereo comes with a dedicated backup camera input that is for general rear-view cameras with an RCA composite input. It also comes with a rear RCA video output for use with other separate screen displays and devices.
This head unit can be connected to other video auxiliaries like video cameras and game consoles.
Specifications
Display
This double din head unit from Pioneer gives you a 6.2″ display, 800 X 480 screen resolution, and a 16: 9 aspect ratio. The display is a clear resistive touch screen that can be customized with five display colors, 112 key colors, and the display customization has only two colors. The brightness of the display can be controlled.
Digital Media Playback
Unlike many car stereos that just include USB stick support, this head unit also includes the CD/DVD playback. The Pioneer AVH 211EX does support a wide range of media file types. The head unit on CD, DVD, and USB supports MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and AVI, to mention a few. There are a few additions to the USB, and these are WMV video playback and JPEG photo slideshow viewer.
Tuner
The Pioneer AVH211EX head unit comes with 18 FM and 6 AM presets. It comes with a Best Station Memory, Local Seek Tuning, and RDS.
Shortcomings
The only shortcoming that stands out is the lack of Android Auto and Apple car play support.
Conclusion
As seen in this review, the wealth in features of this double din head unit qualifies it to be a mid-level solution for your vehicle’s audio system at the price of an entry-level head unit.
Upgrading to this Pioneer’s head unit will save you money and give you high-quality sound without necessarily upgrading your speakers.
The Bluetooth connectivity is simple and works fast, making audio streaming from your smartphone quite easy to do. It also gives you high-quality hands-free calling.
The remote control included with the head unit makes it easy for anyone seated anywhere in your car to access the AVH 211EX.
With this head unit, the luxury of playing media from CDs or DVDs is given to you by the availability of the CD/DVD player. A result of their intuitive design is that the player does not take up much space nor get in the way of anything.
Compared to the many entry-level car stereos out there, the AVH 211EX picks up more radio stations.
It has an instant shut off button that shuts off the display, but the music does not stop. This is a great feature, especially when driving at night.
Purchasing and installing the Pioneer AVH 211EX is a jump towards better car audio experience.
