Pulled the trigger on a JK1001 radio

[Timmy]

Just as a follow-up. I can't recommend the Jk1001 any more, it is just not refined enough, too many stupid design decisions. For instance, they chose to make the right "dial" button the mute button, while the dial portion of the button is the radio frequency change. So every time you go to mute the system you pretty well accidentally also change the radio station. Why they chose this dial button to mute instead of pressing the volume dial button is beyond me. Everyone who drives with me presses the volume dial button first to try and mute the radio when they want it muted (because that is the most obvious button you'd try first if you never saw the system before) but pressing the volume dial button does nothing.

Then there are 6 other hard buttons on the face of the unit that each have functions. The only two you will EVER push are the Home button to get back to the home screen, and the NAVI button launch to the Insane Nav program. The other buttons you will never touch and wonder why they wasted their time using such precious button space on such useless functions like the "LOUD" option, the AMS for programming the radio to the best radio stations in the area and the DVD button, because lord knows we all like to watch movies from a flippin DVD while we drive, right?

I've considered writing up a constructive criticism review of the unit in hopes that maybe it will move Insane Audio to try harder, but I haven't had the heart to do it yet. I'm amazed the guys tackled creating their own radio, that feat alone is huge. I can't even imagine attempting that between designing the hardware and getting Android to run on it. I sort of don't want to knock the wind out of their sails, but on the flip side, I'm literally dumb-founded that as a company that had 100% artistic license to design this any way they wanted that they made so many poor design choices. They just really made some stupid design decisions that basically make it not very nice to use.

I am continually on the fence about getting rid of it but then I look at the market and I don't like any solution, include the Mopar ones like the 430n that I used to have. Then I use the topo apps that I have loaded on this and remember why I keep it, because for off-roading, it rocks, and I liked using Google Maps for navigation, and it still has a lot of potential with things like on-board dash-cam recording and other cool apps that can be loaded.