Product Reviews

I installed it in a 1986 60 Series Landcruiser, and it has brought an 80’s car into the 2020’s with the CarPlay functionality.

Taken from Sony.com.au

Have older car. This fitted perfect and has great sound and features.

Taken from Sony.com.au

I just put this in my car that we are passing down to our daughter. Want her to be as safe as possible behind the wheel. So far I really like it, it’s only been day 2. My problem is your website. I keep trying to upload my proof of purchase and your site never moves. Stuck on *Add proof” part.

Intermittently failed since day one on Apple Car Play. Weblink worked initially and then it failed. Currently am waiting on new cables to be delivered that apparently work better. This should not be showcased as compatible with apple products.

Taken from Sony.com.au

If you’re looking for a fantastic replacement for your ageing vehicle’s single DIN stock head unit, don’t look any further than this. Poor reviews literally have to be operator error and/or people too lazy to fix their problems. I replaced my ‘05 Dodge Dakota radio with this unit. Even before replacing the stock speakers, the difference in sound quality was very impressive. Wiring this sucker is a breeze if you have any idea what you’re doing, and the optional preamp 5v outputs (in case you are bypassing your harness wiring) are another beautiful perk. The EQ and subwoofer controls are all very impressive, and the options for both low and high pass filters work very well for integrated crossovers. If you’ve ever seen a Dodge Dakota radio from this era, you’ll know it has a weird size and is terribly placed just under the center vents but above the climate controls, with a big ol shifter shooting out from the steering column almost right in front of it. This makes installing a decent double DIN or fold down style touch screen unit nearly impossible. I cannot stress enough how easy SONY made it to pop this sucker in. It looks like it was MADE for my truck. The glare is not bad at all, and while everybody else complains about the resistive touch screen, honestly I was blown away. I’ve owned plenty of low end touchscreen models (and even some twice this price) that had absolutely awful lag and choppy response to touch. This bad boy is incredibly responsive and fluid as it gets. I could not be more impressed with this product. The *ONLY* issue I had was an issue where the touchscreen would become unresponsive at high volumes. Called SONY support who promptly sent me out a new unit, which is functioning like a dream. I can’t say it enough times. If you want an Apple/Android linkable head unit that crushes the competition for a steal of a price, snap this thing up. It’s incredible.

This receiver functions good but it looks a little TOO simple. If you buy a custom radio u want it to look custom. How about some menus that are more dynamic and detailed with sleek design and maybe a real time spectrum analyzer? Not boring huge button oem style simple designs. And where is the album art for siriusxm!? What is this? 2006? Also when deciding on crossovers for the speakers, why doesn't it specify for front and rear individually? I like high pass 150hz in front and full range in rear. It should have the tuning capabilities similar to pioneer radios to really dial in the sound quality. Every EQ setting should stay with every source too. Sirius quality is garbage so I need to blast the eq, but streaming audio is fantastic so I would need to have it backed off. I should be able to keep EQ settings for each while changing sources. Where's the loudness setting too. I miss that. Keep the updates coming sony. You're almost there!

I have owned this radio for about 6 months now. It will only connect to Apple CarPlay about half the time. You have to constantly unplug and plug in the cord to get it to work when it is working (and I've tried multiple cords and phones to troubleshoot). Also, the "ant-glare" screen is a joke! When you are driving towards the sun, you can't see the screen at all because of the reflection off of you and the rest of the car. It shows 10 times the glare than a regular screen (I thought the other reviews were made up). I have also owned the 5000 model in this vehicle and the clear screen is much better than the "anti-glare".

Screen is low resolution and glare is horrible. Sounds good. Here's what I wish Sony would build and if they did, I bet it would sell like the PS5. Large screen (8", 9", 10" 11"...etc. Like the competition!) with high resolution. Make a floating screen version and one that mounts in dash if someone doesn't like floating screens (like Pioneer does). Built in 4x45 watt rms amp (or better?). Wireless Android Auto/Carplay. Maestro RR compatibility.

Verygooooooooooooooooooooooooood perfect 8.95 8.95" (22.7cm) Media Receiver

Great radio clear sound,bluetooth,and phone.Versatile installation.

Issue with connecting via USB port, multiple new cords, tried updating with new firmware and it will not recognize the usb. CarPlay cuts in and out and people are complaining when I talk through Bluetooth.

I upgraded from the Ax5000 and I love it!!!!!! It works flawlessly!!!

I’m a Sony retailer and installed this in my demo vehicle. I love this radio. Sony is the easiest of all brands to operate. The sound quality is so much better than some other brands and while it’d be nice to have maestro compatibility (coming next year) it’s not a deal breaker on most vehicles. I’ve sold many of these and so far haven’t had any complaints. Keep up the good work Sony.

I have been a pro installer for 20 years, and I installed this radio in my truck. The other reviews are very misleading. Updating the firmware will unlock many features others are complaining about not having, such as mirrorlink and customizable backgrounds. Those complaining about freezing and not working properly, need to swap their phone cable. A cheap or worn out cable will give these problems. This radio is fantastic, and has a 3 year warranty. Great job team Sony

Doesn’t always work freezes always takes a while to connect very problematic looking for a new radio

Screen is large and the system offers everything I need to include Carplay and WebLink (mirror your phone). In a Camaro, it’s perfect!

I bought this unit specifically for Apple CarPlay. First issue was it did not come with a cage, which the installer told me was highly unusual. I don’t think he even believed me...just assumed I had taken it out already and lost it or something. I have no ideas where to find or buy the cage, so the unit just sits slightly loose in the slot. When the unit is working, it’s great. The problem is it will intermittently drop the CarPlay connection during use. I’m using the Apple lightning cable, and I know the phone is still connected, as the music continues to play. However, the CarPlay interface will crash and default back to the Sony home screen, only without the CarPlay icon at all. The only way to get CarPlay going again is to completely cut the power to the unit to do a full power cycle, which requires turning the vehicle off for about 60 seconds. Very strange, and irritating on road trips.

Bought a new motorhome with this unit 2 weeks ago. Won’t work in several ways. Volume won’t work. Won’t turn off, home button won’t work. What’s worse, can’t get RV dealer to do anything

Screen catches a lot of glare. Can only store one phone Bluetooth profile. Does Sony not know that more than one person might own a car thus wanting more than one phone to be able to connect to Bluetooth? In other words - my wife's phone is synced to the receiver. If I'm in the car by myself and want my phone to connect to the receiver I have to delete my wife's phone first. In addition the screen catches a ton of glare. Finally, satellite radio doesn't buffer at all so as soon as I go under an overpass I'll lose my signal.

I had this unit in my Jeep Wrangler for about a month and I loved it! Until today. Completely started to spaz out and now I cant even listen to any music. So disappointed with Sony. Money back please!!!

I wanted an alpine but the car stereo place talked me into this pile of junk. You get what you pay for. Total waste of money!! This radio never works right. Doesn’t connect to CarPlay right away I have to unplug and plug back in multiple times. Screen freezes on opening message so I have to shut my truck off and turn it back on. When I can afford the alpine radio I’ll be running this over with my truck. I HATE THIS RADIO!! $7k stereo installed in my truck and I can barely get it to work.

I bought this about a month ago from BestBuy and had them install it in my Dodge pickup. 1st issue is the screen. A lot of daylight glare no matter which way they tip it. One design flaw is no way to angle towards driver which would reduce issues. 2nd, when using Android Auto and touch the screen and pull up my contact list, after clicking a contact to place a phone call it just sits there. I can go to the handset and place the call without issue or disconnecting the (factory) Sync cable. 3rd, I receive a text message, play it but when I go to reply, the unit says the signal is not stable enough (while streaming Pandora without a buffering) ??? Again, I can do this multiple tries with same error but go directly to the handset and reply without issues. 3A) Hit Google mic, say, send text and it throws an error message. Go to the handset and hit Google mic...no problem. 4th, no way to move app icons to order you would like shown on screen.

Sony quality shines on this head unit. Unfortunately, the lack of idatalink integration is a deal breaker for me. Not quite sure why Sony only offers it in the AX210.

I do like the radio, but it is not as good as it could be. I do like the screen, but it really needs to use all of the real estate better. You have this beautiful screen and Sony just ignores it. I would love to see a more dynamic screen that is interesting to look at. It does not do a lot to allow you to customize the screen. There are five back grounds and there is no way to put your own on the radio for the screen. It would be be very nice to have an equalizer display on this big screen to show you what is playing. Granted you do have equalizer customization, but nothing to show you what the music is peaking at. There are brightness controls, but I found the auto dimming for night driving to not work very well. I would like to be able to use the ATT button to flip between night time and day time modes. I don't really have any reason to use the ATT button. (It cuts down the audio input.) I wish it had more radio memories, especially for satellite radio. I filled the 18 selections up on XM and FM. It would be nice to have a phone app to control the radio. It does come with a remote, but I don't use it. I would really like to be able to tilt the radio at any moment instead of using a screw driver. You are not able to tilt this radio towards the passenger or the driver. There is a lot of kick back on the screen having high resolution or not having a better touch screen. I give that a pass. On the other hand having a user accessible video / audio in would be a real plus. There are adapters for this. It will play video off of the USB drive. For a car, I am not sure if there is a good use case for watching videos, but it is fun to do so. The sound is good, but I will probably need to replace the speakers to make this shine. I put this in a Toyota Prius V (2015) and the install took about 6 days to get right. I will cut Sony and the installer some slack, since it was the first install of this radio for the shop. What I like: The screen is large and bright for daytime use. The mounting is very customizable in height, depth, and vertical angle. (No Horizontal adjustments.. I bought this for Android Auto, (Goggle Maps) and it works. This also has Apple Radio. Sound quality is good. What I don't like: XM is not built into the radio. The auto cut over for night time brightness is not very good. The displays are not very interesting or very customizable. The Factory buttons for the radio / phone / etc on the steering wheel mostly work, but the radio gets lost when you are trying to change stations. It some times work, and some times takes several seconds, and some times doesn't work at all. This appears to be context related. Not having Bluetooth Android Auto. The phone and audio do work on Bluetooth, but my biggest use case for this is Google Maps, so I use the usb connection for the phone. There is only one USB port. You have the choice of using the USB Android Auto or a USB key fob for music. I wish I could leave the back up camera on all of the time if I wanted to. This is probably more of a Toyota problem. So in essence, I do like the radio, and it meets my needs fairly well. Toyota wanted $200 for updated maps, so I bought a new radio that lets me use my phone. However it is kinda boring. Why make this big screen if you don't put any eye candy on it? I hope they update the software on it on the next firmware release. At the very least they could make an Android Auto front end that is all customizable. Would I buy it again? Yes. If I already had Android Auto (Or Apple Radio), I would give it a pass. Toyota is putting Android Auto on some of the new cars. (Along with other car makers)