Clarion NX603 (Factory Refurbished)

Ok

This is a good unit for the price. Overall good quality, but not the best.

nx603

Got the brake bypass done. Took about an hour. Love this screen. All ratings are with the brake bypass.

Get the software update

Installed by a certified Clarion Dealer. I was upset that only about 60% of the features were functional.

This is a new model, a sort of half-step between the 602 and the brand new version, the 604 announced in Vegas available in 2014 with voice activation.

Luckily, my installers knew who to call at Clarion and were informed that there was a software update, 'not yet released.'Clarion Fedexed a CD with updated software, which apparently contained 21 'fixes.'

So if you are having problems using the keyboard or downloading your phone book etc. get the software update from Clarion (not on the website yet.)

Anyway, not that's updated, it does what it is supposed to. LInked with my iPhone 4 and my wife's Android whatever with no problem. NIce screen, easy to move about now that they moved on from the swipe. Have no idea why you would want apps from the your phone on the screen, but if you want that, you use the USB connection.

I put this in a 2005 Cadillac Deville which had no digital features, and since the Caddy is purring along, saved me a ton of money since I don't have to buy a new car to get the mp3, blue tooth,etc. It will play a DVD, too, so that come in handy when the wife is gathering in Sam's Club!

Clarion NX603

Just installed the Clarion NX603 in my 2012 Jeep Compass. I had to purchase a Jeep harness connector to enable a straight connection to the existing Jeep Radio Harness plug that had all the power and speaker wiring.
Harness by American International
Metra 40-EU10 Antenna adapter
Metra 95-6511 Dash Kit
MicroBypass Parking Brake Override by MicroBypass
Metra ASWC-1 Universal Steering Wheel Control interface
SiriusXM SXV200v1 Tuner for Car ready Stereo Recievers
Sirius XM Radio FAKRA Antenna Adapter Connector by Satellite Superstore
Everything so far works as advertised, still waiting for the Satellite Radio account to be set up.
The Clarion is a great looking product. GPS and radio work great.

Pretty good

Overall I like the product, though I have a few things that upon a month of use I dislike.

I've yet to get bluetooth streaming audio to work on a fully modern Android smartphone or my friends iphones. Call work great, BT audio doesn't seem to function that well. Same issue over USB connection.

The GPS, terrestrial radio, and DVD/cd player all work fantastically. The GPS occasionally loses signal, but that is likely because of antenna placement not the unit its-self.

My only major complaint is that for some reason, completely unbeknownst to me the terrestrial radio completely lacks RDS support so you can't see the name of song or whatever the station is broadcasting over that channel. This is a strange choice in something close to the top of the clarion line of head units.

Decent Unit

Decent unit overall. Has alot of features but half of them have issues working properly. I have all the proper wires and a Samsung Galaxy S4 which is supposed to work with this unit and does not. A HUGE issue I had and never tried until in the comp lanes is the remote has a pause button but there is no pause on this head unit. The gps loses signal all the time. I feel as if I got the reliability of a cheap head unit. Wish I would have went another route, My Pioneer 4200 was a way better unit.

Solid attempt at high end, terrific audio, clunky controls, bad nannyware

I have a love hate relationship with the NX603.

Things that are great:
Sound quality, general audio controls, basic operations of source control, BT sound quality on calls, flexibility of the unit to attach multiple external devices.

Things that are good:
Navigation is good, not amazing, but solid nonetheless. It is a procrastinator, and waits till its too late to make the turn, then is slow at recalculations. All in all, its no better or worse than most Navi systems.
MP3 tag based organization is not really supported, so you have to make your USB/SD music collections organized the way you want to see them in the filesystem itself. You can't really search anything per se, so you have to plan out the organization of your music.

Whats less than good:
You can't really organize the screen the way you want. I don't use Pandora, but I can't remove it from the screen. The icons for sources are hard to read, and switching sources is an effort in random button presses, hoping you get the correct one. The screen buttons are slow to respond sometimes, which is a challenge.

Whats bad:
Like most of the manufacturers these days, you simply cannot operate the unit unless you are parked on the side of the road. Unless you bypass the parking brake "nannyware" feature, the unit is basically unusable. Clarion used the big hammer approach, and prevents nearly ALL operations from being performed unless the brake is on.

Whats simply awful:
The control of SiriusXM is mostly unusable. The unit integrates fine with the SXM outboard tuner, but unfortunately, you simply cannot navigate the stations. And whats worse, the "parental controls" decide FOR you what stations you need a PIN for. You cannot even decide for yourself. In other words, if you want to listen to a comedy station that the head unit has locked, you have to pull over to the side of the road, put the parking brake on, and then change the channel. I kid you not. Simply unusable. I'm working with Clarion tech support now and reported this as a bug, but we'll see if anyone there cares.

Clarion NX603

Sound great, very good features, exceeded my expectations. Very easy to install.