Io play 2 vs bury vs parrot

[surveyor]

Need to update my workhorse with a car kit for phone and streaming music.

Have a streaming parrot in the BMW and the sound is not great. Anyone tried the others? The io play in particular makes a thing about its amplifier which in numbers is bigger.

Cheers

[SimonD]

Hiya,

I have an IO Play 2 in my car. Used to have a Parrot CK3100, but upgraded as I wanted streaming music. The wife has a MKi9100 so I was able to compare a lot before buying.

Some bonuses of the iO:

The build quality is a LOT better.
The controller has a light sensor in it so is able to dim the display at night.
The audio quality is heaps better, particularly at higher volumes.
The controller is lit.
It's much faster to boot up than the Parrot.

The only two things against it are that the controller isn't wireless, meaning you can't mount it on the steering wheel, but that may or may not be a priority for you. And the USB port is for firmware upgrades only, not for streaming music. It does have an iPod/iPhone/iPad connector though.

Definitely worth the money IMO.

I've no experience or the Bury units though I'm afraid.

Hope that helps.

Simon

[surveyor]

That does help thank you Simon... Cheers

[ArsE92]

What car is it? Might be easier to replace the head-unit with a decent Bluetooth one. A nice integrated solution will always work better.

[IAN1967]

I had a Bury in my last 1 series, best part about it was that you could connect 2 phones at once.

The music side of it was poor though.

[Remagel2507]

ArsE92 said:

What car is it? Might be easier to replace the head-unit with a decent Bluetooth one. A nice integrated solution will always work better.

+1 I would go with this option if you can, which car is it for ?

[Geekman]

I had a parrot in my last car and it was very good, felt well put together and worked well. I've got a bury in the car I drive atm and its got a lot more features but feels cheap and the voice control is pretty useless

[AnotherClarkey]

We have the IO play 2 in the IQ - very impressed. Connects two phones at once and has decent audio quality and volume. I suspect that it struggles to charge an iPod touch though, if doing lots of short trips it gradually runs down.

As an aside, this would be a great, discrete, solution for a classic car.

[andygo]

I've a i9000 Parrot. Fitted it myself, works very well. Put all my itunes music on ansd card which slots in the back of the display. I can also bluetooth my iphone to it to play music from it as well. Its also got leads for usb and audio in as well which pass through to the glovebox. Mutes the radio when on a call.

I preferred it to a bluetooth radio as I quite like the radio I have already and I can take the hands free kit with me when I flog the car on.

[surveyor]

It's for a 2001 E class with Comand.

I've got a replacement double din in there and to be honest the fit is not as good as I want, the canbus adapter won't work, the SatNav does not include HD Traffic (my cock up although well hidden), and the 'perfect condition' manufacturer refurbished unit loses sound on occasions.

I'm not keen to spend money on another head unit after this experience...

[Seb d]

I've got an IO Play 2 and I love it, superb performance, can't fault it really

[ArsE92]

surveyor said:

It's for a 2001 E class with Comand.

I've got a replacement double din in there and to be honest the fit is not as good as I want, the canbus adapter won't work, the SatNav does not include HD Traffic (my cock up although well hidden), and the 'perfect condition' manufacturer refurbished unit loses sound on occasions.

I'm not keen to spend money on another head unit after this experience...

Ah I see. I can understand if you've already been down that route you might not want to go there again.

In our case, in my wife's MINI, we put a nice single-DIN Alpine in there that cost £180 including all the adaptors and it works well.