JVC KW-M740BT Apple CarPlay, Android Auto 2-DIN AV Receiver (No CD Drive)

This was the fourth head unit in my car, after Kenwood DDX9904S, Alpine ILX-207, Pioneer MVH-2300NEX. Each of these had pros and cons, but the JVC has the most pros least cons.The quickest to boot up (7-8 seconds), JVC has a minimalistic home screen, and only three buttons. Although the screen is resistive, it is very responsive and close to the feel of a capacive touch screen. You can seek up/down by swiping right/left on any screen. Similarly you can go next/previous by swiping up/down, and adjust volume with circular gestures clockwise/counter clockwise.Sound quality is amazing, DSP options are similar to the Kenwood. Great equalizer and crossover customization.When reversing right after starting, backup camera comes on instantly, though the guidelines take a couple of seconds to show up. Otherwise, the guidelines show up instantly.After startup, the annoying safety warning pops up, where you can either ok it out or wait 10 seconds for it to time out. I was able to upgrade firmware with no issues. I also changed the default JVC splash screen to my car’s logo by following the same procedure as with the newer Kenwood units.Integration with bluetooth, CarPlay, WebLink, and Waze is excellent with no problems to report. I was able to adjust Bluetooth echo and noise canceling to a very clean voice on both ends of phone calls.

Blown away by the feature set and audio quality of this unit for the price; installation is easy; included harness is adequate, has correctly color-coded wiring and the manual is easy to understand and includes a great wiring diagram.Touchscreen is Resistive but you'd hardly know it; it is incredibly responsive, and the interface is fairly intuitive.As I've seen with most head units, some of the phone-integrative features can be hit-or-miss and performance can vary depending on phone type and OS version, but the meat-and-potatoes features like bluetooth audio, Pandora functionality, etc. work great.Some spotty performance on first install concerned be, before I checked and noticed the installed firmware version for the unit was several revisions old; a quick search led me to JVC's page for firmware downloads, and within minutes I had the latest revision, downloaded to a USB drive, and the update process was quick and painless; performance improvement was immediately noticeable; it is nice to see a company showing efforts on this end.Pros: Great Audio Performance, Great Screen, Good Interface, Can have two active phones at onceCons: Some flaky app behavior, lack of standard Aux input (utilizes AV-IN instead)

Great price for what you get. There is a little learning curve with using my phone with it. Android Auto works the best for my purpose, my phone does have to be connected via USB but I'm ok with it. MT wife's IPhone connected itself via Bluetooth but my LG G7 was more finicky. I used the maestro Rr for steering wheel controls and their wire harness for it all. I am having a little issue with the truck's sync voice commands but I think I need a separate harness for that...still researching. The fit and finish are very nice, looks factory in a lot of ways. If you get the module and harness to make it work all together you can splice 99% of it on a workbench and the put in the vehicle. Install time was about 4 hrs for everything including a factory style backup camera. Once I learn the rest

The install wasn't bad, but it's supposed to be compatable with my Leaf. Instead it required a facia adapter that is not included. CarPlay seldom works. The interface is really poorly designed and the screen is unresponsive. After using it for a few weeks it's still difficult to use. For example, if you select bluetooth, you have to keep tapping it to get it to respond. No matter what USB adapter cable I try, it often does not see my iPhone, even though the iPhone is charging.

This radio has great sound quality. Deep base, undistorted high frequencies. The interface takes some getting use to because there are only 3 buttons. The Weblink app is almost useless. There's a weather app (Siri or Google could tell you the weather by voice command) and a YouTube app. For safety, you will need to have the parking break engaged to watch videos.I have this radio installed in a 2012 Prius (no JBL audio). It came with Entune navigation. The sound quality on this is beyond what the OEM unit could achieve. It sounds great with the OEM speakers. I also have it installed with a Maestro RR so I can retain the factory settings menu and the steering wheel buttons.Two biggest issues I have with this head unit:* CarPlay - if you attempt to use CarPlay as soon as you turn on the car, it won't work. It will show a black screen and the phone won't show a CarPlay connection. I have to unplug and replug the USB cable each time. This even happens between turning the car on and off within 5 minutes. Once it actually connects, it's a stable connection - no issues during the drive.* Reverse camera input - it doesn't always happen, but the video would sometimes have a red tint (see picture) when reversing. It renders the reverse camera useless when this problem occurs. I am using the OEM camera that came factory installed.I've updated the radio to the latest firmware from April 2019 - didn't help. This never happened with the stock head unit in the 7 years I was using it.In conclusion - this head unit is great if you're not going to use a reverse camera and don't mind unplugging/replugging your iPhone for CarPlay. I haven't tested this unit with Android Auto, so I'm not sure if it has the same issue.