Eclipse AVN2210x Review

[N715DP]

This is mostly for those searching - or it can spur a discussion, I'd have no problem with that

I bought the Eclipse 2210 shortly after it came out. I have posted on here a couple of times about it, but nothing major. That was in June of last year. After 9 months and one replacement, I posted this review over at Crutchfield (I didn't buy it there but I posted a review anyway). I gave it 3 out of 5 stars - I thought about going lower, but it does do what it's supposed to (most of the time), my gripes are mostly about ongoing support, development, crashes, and bugs.

Just Okay - Bugs, Software Support, Missing Features
Written By dave, harrisburg, pa on Thursday, April 03, 2008

First, I had a 2210 installed last June. The price was steep at the time - $800, but that's what you get when you are an early adopter - unlike crybaby iPhone owners, I didn't expect a credit when they lowered the price a month later.

The first unit I had was defective - the eject/crash issue. It appears the first production run of these units had a high failure rate as a lot of the early adopters I have spoken with had the same issue. My local shop as well as Eclipse handled the swap/RMA perfectly.

The replacement unit has not eaten a disc yet, but it still crashes from time to time. Complete reset - as if the pin-hole button was pushed, but it wasn't. This isn't a huge deal other than losing audio setup and station presets. Still, it's a bug that needs to be fixed. I can not find any common time/situation when it crashes, other than it's always when the car is started.

I have only one real gripe with the Eclipse portion of the HU - no scan. Crazy, right? A HU without scan. Seek is there, no dice on scan - search the web, the manual, nothing.

My biggest problem is with TomTom in general. Their software support for the DUO PND is horrible. Updates are few and far between and do nothing to enhance the device. Development on the TT side seems non-existent. New maps don't exist, and from what TT people tell me, they never will. New software features and/or updates to existing features don't exist. The TT Home application only sort of works with the DUO - and never will fully (again, according to TT reps I have contacted). Some basic things like telemetry data and trip tickers don't exist - something the competition like Garmin have had since day one.

It appears to me that this device as a whole was rushed to market to be first. While being first is good, doing so with an inferior product, or doing so and then not putting any support behind it is a bad way to conduct business. At this point, I don't anticipate ever purchasing a TT or Eclipse product again.

I hope someone finds this useful.

 

[N715DP]

yet another smack in the face for Eclipse owners... received an email a few days ago that looked like this at the top:

I am sure most of you have seen it/received it.

I was intrigued by the statement in the email "for all TomTom devices"... yeah, not so much... I hopped over to the TT site, and I get this:

version 675 has been out for ever, and it's only a minor update to 665.1293 that shipped with the device when it came out. perhaps there is a lawyer in the house that can tell me if this can be considered false advertising? I want to get rid of this thing but I have no form of recourse with TT or Eclipse despite the fact that their product(s) suck.