Clarion NX502E DVD Multimedia Station With Built-In Navigation & 6.2in Touch Panel Control

Product Details
Manufacturer:  Clarion
Model: NX502E
Website: link
Typical Selling price: £799.99 (as much as over £100 less, on line)
In A Nutshell
Not too flash to look at when asleep, this is a lion of a headunit. Great audio circuitry, wicked Parrort Bluetooth, really powerful line amplifiers, including those 4V RCA outputs. Lots of stuff you can plug in, such as MP3 players, USB sticks, iPods, digital radio boxes and easily updateable for mapping and software/firmware.
SCORES
Sound Quality                9      Wicked line amps, esp. on 3.5mm Aux in
Appearance/Display      10     Gorrrgeous and all Whizzy
Ease Of Use/HMI            8      Still have to ‘learn how’ a little&;
Features                       10      BRISTLING with Pretties and Smarts!
Value For Money            9     TWO discrete systems, in ONE
Overall                        9.2       A really amazing item if fully exploited

The Clarion NX502E’s absurd versatility and what you get for the money makes this unit score enough to earn the NX502E a coveted Talk Audio Best Buy status.

What It Is
A double DIN head unit with a single disc slot for DVDs and CDs, above a 6.2in diagonal WVGA resolution TFT LCD touchscreen. It bears a 3.5mm auxiliary socket at bottom left of the front drop and above that, an SD/MMC card reader slot that lives under a neat sliding door, hidden when not in use. This also hides the microSD slot used in updates and to house the navigation system mapping data. A USB socket on a lead is plugged into the rear and the distal end USB has a rubbery cover for when it is not in use, having been routed to your glovebox or where you will. As well as a push and rotate control knob, there are but two other touch-buttons called NAV/AV and MENU/ALL. All other control is by touch screen. The set comes with a mass of plugs with wires, that fit only in their correct socket, due to subtle flanges and shapes of both plug and socket. The expansion capabilities are vast, with permanent connection of a reversing camera and a rear TV monitor for dual-zone use, six channels of 4Volt RCA outputs, as well as aux video inputs in the rear or via the front.
They even supply a tip-ring-ring-sleeve to three RCA Red/White/Yellow cable adapter accessory to enable connection of any AV device with standard outputs, to the front jack. The NX502E will stream Bluetooth music from your phone as well as boss your iPod, even video iPod if you want to buy the CCA-7580-600 J-Link cable needed. And finally, it has a very powerful and massively POI-supported navigation system inside and comes with a GPS antenna to put where it can see the sky. Best of all, it like a Hydra with at least two heads. For it will play sound and video to a rear roof monitor system to feed say, headphones, (or the rear cabin of your land yacht) as well as doing something altogether else in the front screen and audioaaand even running full fat navigation at the same time. Go into reverse to park and you will then get the rear view camera come up – if you added one. It is a tour de force and has very high class audio circuitry as well, as we shall see.
The Clarion NX502E has a bank of plugholes in the rear, each of which has a unique-fit plug to carry whatever wires you need, since if you use ALL of them, you will be using a fair old bit of space and some cars are crowded, while not all users will use all features, like off board amplifiers.

Editor Review : Clarion NX502E DVD Multimedia Station With Built-In Navigation & 6.2in Touch Panel Control
I had a lovely play with the Clarion NX502E, using all the formats of CD, DVD, iPod, USB music files and Aux in, via the 3.5mm plug hole on the front and my small Sony MP3 Walkman. I even sent video to the roof monitor test system I have in the Rayner bench, to simulate headrest monitors.
And then, as I got all flighty with different sorts of files on a known-corrupted USB stick and a bunch of stuff on an SD card of a file format the Clarion NX502E’s system isn’t keen on, I managed to crash my example back to the operating system. Which ironically, was impressive, since it proves the NX502E to be a fully Windows CE mobile computing run device.
But as well as getting the DAB connection lead, in black, rather than the white one on the picture I pinched, I also got a new unit, fully updated. Incidentally, for future proofing, you can update using files from Clarion, (easily available on their site) downloading, unzipping and following the instructions on the Clarion ‘How To’ pages for the system in the colour .pdf manual, so as to keep your firmware pert. I do not know what I did but it was a sulk rather than a death-malfunction.

How Well Does It Work?
I started the machine up and the screen bores a delicious Clarion logo for a moment, before it fired up. The WVGA resolution ain’t no poke yer eyes out whizzy ‘Retina’ style resolution but it is bloody lovely. I connected the resident NESA roof monitor up via the rear zone AV composite video output and had a wibble about with the graphics trying to find out how to route the DVD to the rear screen, as you can do that with either auxiliary AV source (including iPod video when it is connected to the rear AV input via that lead I mentioned.) or else USB or SD sources, which is damn cool.
Cursing and feeling a bit thick, I actually spun up the Owner’s Manual CD. Imagine! RTFM! I do think it is a shame that environmentalism has come properly in the way here. As the home ‘env’ costs of printing are insane versus the economies of scale printing presses have. And I don’t have a computer in my car. This method assumes you have a lappy. Anyway, I am just bitching as the test bench is where the PC lives Turns out, I was being a bit rapid and daftly expecting a tile to change statuslike magic. Murrr. So, with face a bit warm due to stupidity, I got the old faithful Hot Import Nights test DVD a-spinning and playing on the rear screen.
I might add meanwhile, that I slapped the included long cable GPS aerial on the window sill. It grabbed the sky in seconds flat and showed my gaff a treat! So, once the DVD was streaming off to the rear, I connected my iPod Touch 4th Gen and while it needed a J link cable with three RCAs on it that wasn’t included, not everyone has a video iPod and it was a boss with the music, allowing the same search and play options as the iPod but with Clarion’s own GUI going on.
On a recent Alpine mechless deck test, I had been a bit underwhelmed by the sound of the 3.5mm stereo jack to jack plugged into my Sony MP3 Walkman via the deck’s front AUX socket. And while the Alpine was fine once I plugged the MUCH louder and crankable headphone output into it from my Blackberry, this Clarion NX502E has a far bigger price ticket and so can use more costly innards for this bit. So, the MP3-originated analogue audio from the same little doodad was fully able to be really amplified as the Clarion NX502E’s socket’s internal line amp is so good. Daftly enough, its purity was good enough to critique the amp in the Walkman! And the MP3 files So it is awesome and ANYTHING with a little headphoney socket can be plugged in here and made to play vigorously through your system. It is also an AV input, so if you use that read/white/yellow SOCKET RCA to tip/ring/ring/sleeve plug, you can see any output.
That all that was going on while the DVD was happily playing away to the non-existent kids in the back, still impresses me.
Then, I tried a USB bean. I know it is unwell as I have read up on how I hurt it by unplugging willy-nilly and I wanna strip it out empty and start again as it IS an 8GB one But you have to do scary stuff in Bonkers Mode in PC geekland to reformat it. So I tried it anyway as ig’nant eejits are legion legitimate test!
It showed the HUGE USB stick logo (chortle, my Sandisk is a baked bean sized thing!) and the word ‘LOADING’ showed up. A moment later, my weird Cesar Manrique-inspired album was playing but the loading logo remained. I turned it down and went and had a cuppa. I came back and it was still showing the loading symbol and playing the album. It wouldn’t let me do any controls. So, I changed formats and slipped in an SD card I had put some files on. Poor love wouldn’t have it.
So, I make a call and am instructed in the Way Of The Update. This is not rocket science. You find file, you download, you unzip, you put it on a microSD. Take the navvy micro out, put in the one with the new shizzle and go through the idiot how to notes on the website&;. It’s easy they said&;.
Well, when it came to the end of the first segment of the update’s transfer-download and we were supposed to restart we didn’t. So, I well, I turned it off and on again and it didn’t like that one bit. Throwing a sulk and shucking off the Clarion GUI to display its corsetry. Stout undergarments comprising the Windows CE desktop, that beautifully enough, worked well with the touch screen. But I could do nada from there. I made a call and the nice executive chap (poor patient man, has to deal with Wreck It Ralph here&;) gently explained I had hurt its feelings by being too damn rude on a first date and that they would send me a nice replacement. Which has just arrived as I type. OK, let’s pack one up and unpack and lock and load the new one. Which I will video doing its thing later This can now also include a look see at the Clarion DAB302E digital radio box, also installed with its antenna in the window sill.
Right, I’m back and filled with that wistful urge to just want into a massive RV and to have it all plugged in and just sod off fishing for days, such was the transport of pleasure the unit offered me.
Like the tripping-out-of-his-gourd copper in the movie about Operation Julie to infiltrate LSD manufacturing gangs in the Seventies, ‘You have to DO IT, Doncha?’ And I have just played some DVD of a fun event with babes and cars in the USA. Watched a bit of PAUL on digital copy off the iPod. Seen a cat video I made on the iPod. Played a slew of tunes from my faves on the MP3 player and discovered the joys of easy digital radio in the test room. I wanted to play a lot more.
The DAB unit tuned itself as soon as I asked for DAB and then offered me the ocean to my lips. Inside three minutes I had some Absolute Sixties, a slice of Punjabi Radio and then some Kids radio with nursery rhymes! Oh and there’s a test transmission on digital in my area too. All this as well as a fully competent FM tuner with all the usual smarts that Clarion are known for with FM.
I routed video from the iPod to the rear for a moment and carried on. I changed formats like a bee visiting flowers. Then I paired up my Blackberry which was really simple with a single timely tickle on each device. Flick to Bluetooth audio and I was streaming the tunes I keep on the BB and they sounded as good as streaming has ever sounded.
There are 24-BIT chips in this fish and the Digital To Analogue Conversion is just peachy. ALL digital sources are delightfully dealt with and sound open and really good. I was pleasantly chuffed! On the SD card front, well, my music was mostly from CD (old fart, see) and the tunes I used on the SD were .WMA ones, but as I have iTunes, I think I have made some kind of iTunes list from CDs I had already put on my PC. I really aughta know more about it, but I think I may have DRM in my WMAs! Like the Pox in your Socks&;. But the reader read every file, told me their titles as though to tempt me and then said in smaller font that the file type was unsupported.
There is a mic gain, so you really will be unlikely to want to have the accessory microphone for telephony, but there is an option if you want.
So make no mistake, this unit will play Avatar in the back, DAB or iPoddery in the front and switch to navigation at whim all the way to Mars – by road. And when you get there and go into reverse to park, the screen will fire up the rear view camera!
I am impressed, it is two full AV player systems, two sorts of radio (with the DAB box, which you really do want&;) plays all sorts of formats and is also as full powered a sat nav as any around, having been in the game in Japan as one of the biggest players in the whole car audio and electronics scene, for ever!
Heartily recommended – and a Best Buy.
Why Buy It?
Make no mistake, this IS pretty wicked value as the cost of this sort of hub in OEM land would be a LOT more. It’s perfect for motorhomes as well as people carriers and anything with rear monitors, be it in the roof or headrests. It allows you to use monitors rather than a player in the rear, keeping control in the front, so less fighting amongst siblings!
It has a full fat sat nav with approximately One Bazillion Points Of Interest. This stuff is great for finding eateries in new places, or petrol when you need it, or the zoo And it’s blisteringly fast versus the on-screen types. (That said, Clarion’s MAP 790 on-screen sat nav had the most insane GPS chippery in it, better than some in-dash products!)
It can do just about anything in terms of multi-sourcing. Play tunes from a back seat passenger’s phone by Bluetooth. Plug in the camcorder and watch the days ‘rushes’ on a better screen on the way home – not the driver, obviously. It can be updated and Clarion know-how is utterly able to help should you be as daft as I. But the issue was a review item being sent out a bit earlier than regular production and the latest units all have the update.  The DAB wire to fit that socket is actually now included as an accessory for the DAB302E so it can be added either to the single or double-DIN radios it is compatible with.
Full Features & Specifications
– Interactive GUI with Flick Operation
– Parrot Bluetooth module
– Made for iPod and Made for iPhone
– DVD / MP4
– Built-in navigation
– DAB ready (With DAB302E add-on box and antenna)
– 728 variable-colour illumination
– 6.2-inch digital touch panel WVGA monitor
– Variable colour key illumination (728 colours)
– CD/SDHC/MP3/WMA/DVD/MPEG4 playback
– 18FM, 6MW station presets
– Built-in Parrot Bluetooth Interface (HFP, HSP, OPP, A2DP, AVRCP, DUN, PBAP)
– Built-in microphone and external microphone ready with optional RCB204
– Two Audio/Video inputs (front 3.5mm, rear RCA)
– Two-zone entertainment: front and rear separate source control
– Rear USB port with iPod direct connect capabilities
– iPod Audio/Video control with optional CCA750 (£46 approx) iPod interface cable
– Rear vision camera composite video input
– Built-in SiRFprima TeleAtlas mapping on preloaded microSD card
– 12 million points of interest
– Text to speech for street announcements
– Multi Language display capability (Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Spanish and Swedish)
– 4 x 50 W MOS-FET power amplifier
– 4V/6-channel audio pre-out
– Subwoofer level control
– 24-bit D/A converter
– Built-in Low pass / High pass filters
– Magna Bass EX dynamic bass enhancement
– Beat EQ for sound adjustment
– OEM steering wheel remote ready
– Wireless remote control included