Home > Consumer Reviews > Kenwood Excelon DNX8120 - Navigation system with DVD player, LCD monitor, digital player and radio

Buy this stereo! This thing will do anything you want it to. It's awesome! Sounds great, easy to use, so many features, wow!

Pros: Good Sound, great image; you can customize the interface, i actually connect this unit to my Zune and sounds great.Great Equaliazer, phone interface and Sound Dolby Pro Logic options.

Cons: Bluetooth doesn work perfect, the unit comes with the version 1.6 of the firmware i decide to update the software to the 1.7 and i can see some improve, but sometimes my phone disconnect from the unit.

The boot time of the units its acceptable but will be great if occurs a little faster. i have a Volvo s60 i change my OEM Stereo, everything works fine, but have to buy the dietz Interface 61301 to enable my steering Wheel control and my rear detectors.

Like many others, I read lots of good things about DNX8120. After the initial excitement of a new gadget is over, it is now becoming pain in the neck.

Mostly problems are small but very irritating.

1. The physical buttons are so small and text is not readable during day time. During night, you get to read the text because of the blue light glowing from inside. Physical buttons are very uncomfortable to feel. It hurts to use them.

2. Every time, I start my car or hang up on phone, last song from IPOD or USB drive starts playing again. No matter what you do, iPOD or USB starts on its own after phone call ends. I go out with my friends to lunch, we laugh when suddenly system starts playing IPOD after ordering carryout.

3. Bluethooth connection with my iphone stays for maximum of 5 seconds. Display shows that you are not connected to any phone. However, when call is received or dialed from your iPhone, system recognizes the iPhone and gets engaged. In other words, dialing from screen is not possible.

4. Sound Quality of iPhone is horrible. Horrible is a mild word to describe the sound quality. I have latest bluetooth firmware (1.70). Sound quality is so bad that I have to switch to phone instead of the system. Believe me, it is not just my problem, every users of iPhone is talking about it. Just search.

5. UI design is so bad that you have to click 3 to 4 times to reach TEL button. TEL button brings phone screen.
UI in general reminds me of 'DOS' days (specially line based rectangles). At $1200-$1600, one can expect a decent user interface. When in Device mode like IPOD, there are few short cut buttons. TEL button is on second page of shortcut buttons. I wonder, when there is a room on first page, why some one thinks of hiding important choice like going to phone screen.
You get so much involved in getting to do what you want, it is definitely NOT 'distraction-free drive...'

6. Mute button also named as 'ATT' does not fully mute the volume. I could still hear songs but volume is considerably reduced.

7. Garmin UI is decent. In order to get to my favorites, I need to click on Menu->Where To -> My Locations -> All Categories -> favorite. Is it really essential? There is no one single path to reach phone screen while navigation screen is running.

8. You can not play videos (DivX, mpg etc) or see pictures from USB drive. One of the reviewers web site mentioned that you can watch photos from your camera directly using USB port. It is not true at all. You can only listen to music from USB drive. No videos, No photos just music. It does not make any sense.

Documentation , there are no documentation about any customization that is advertised.

Support, there is almost no support on Kenwood web site about latest firmware updates etc. I am sure, people are nagging them about various issues.

It seems that I am critical of even small problems like 'mute' button etc, it starts getting in to your nerves after few days of initial excitement. For Kenwood, it should be easy to solve such small inconveniences and if they do, it is a great product.

It seems that Kenwood did not test the product, if they did, I recommend not to buy this product,

The 8120 is very expensive all by it's self. Don't forget about all your excessories, install items, and the install price it's self. I bought a refurbished model and saved $250. I only installed the iPod cable and it still set me back about $1400 installed.
I have the Bose system in my 2005 Tahoe and it seems to be a little touchy. The volume is much lower than stock, and, even after setting all the speakers to zero db. I still get a crackling noise at max. volume. I've even bought new speakers, thinking my stock ones were blown. They weren't, so I'm going to try bypassing the Bose amp. next. The separation seems to be better. However, based on this alone, I wouldn't do it again. Unless I was ready to blow another $1000 or more for speaker and amplifier upgrades. Even though I'm having these problems, I don't blame this unit. This really is a top notch receiver, and, once I get the kinks worked out, I'm sure it will perform perfect.
The Navigation seems to perform in true Garmin fashion; Really good! Garmin is rated #1 buy all the review sites. I haven't really had a chance to play with the navigation yet, except it seems to be pretty accurate in most cases.
The iPod control is very cool. I'd almost venture to say it's better than the iPod it's self. I have the 3rd generation nano and even the album art work shows up. It has a scroll bar on the left side of the music menu which alows you to quickly jump through your vast library. And if you have video's on your iPod, you can watch them. I'm kind of new to this game, but, I can't imagine getting a better interface.
The bluetooth connection is also pretty complete. I have the razor2 with verizon, and it downloaded my whole phonebook. I'm told by those I've called I sound pretty good. Onstar definately sounds better though.
I'm giving it 5 stars becuase it won't alow me to give it 4 1/2. The only negative being the price.

I recently bought the DNX8120 for my truck. I was really apprehensive about dropping such a chunk of change on something that was really getting shakey reviews most of the time. I have now had it for over 2 weeks and I can honestly say I am not sure why it was getting such mediocre reviews. This thing kicks A$$. The Garmin GPS is dead on accurate and there is an exceptional amount of info stored in this thing. The Sirius option that I got with it was programmed in about a 5 minute phone call to Sirius. The sound quality is out of this world and the 13 band EQ is actually a blast to toy with. At first glance you would think that you would need a degree in computer engineering to run the thing, but it is actually very simple to use if you know anything at all about opening programs on a computer. I am no whiz by any stretch of the imagination, but I can navigate from one section to another with relative ease. The bluetooth works excellent and you can hear the person on the other end loud and clear. If you have the cash to spare, this is the unit to buy in my opinion.