Clarion NX700E

A 2-DIN multimedia headunit with seven inch touch screen interface and built in navigation. It will play DVD and CD of course as well as decoding DivX clips and movies and has a 4GB flash memory. It has rear USB connection for iPhones or iPods. The front is motorised and tiltable and conceals a CD/DVD mechanism’s orifice and SD card slot. It was tested on CD, DVD, and an iPod Touch 4th Gen 64GB.

Product Details
Manufacturer: Clarion
Model: NX700E
Website: link
Typical Selling price: £999.99

– 7in LCD touch screen, motorised for tilt and ejecting discs and SD
– CD/CD-R /RW Ready
– Two-Zone output for use with OHM screens and headphones
– Built-in Bluetooth® Hands-free
– Hands free Microphone Included
– MP3, WMA, AAC Compatible with ID3-TAG Display
– BBE MP harmonic restoration processing for enhanced playback of compressed files
– SD Card slot which can be used for map updates
– Map data included: 44 countries by Tele Atlas
– Navigation voice guidance: 38 languages
– Navigation screen guidance: 31 languages
– Text-to-speech guidance: 11 languages
– 18 FM/ 12 AM/MW radio presets
– USB Audio for iPod/iPhone (Rear)
– Rear Vision Camera connection ready
– Subwoofer Volume Control
– Beat EQ for Sound Adjustment
– Built-in Low Pass Filter and High Pass Filter
– 6ch 2-Volt RCA Outputs
– 2-Zone front and back
– 50W x 4 Built-in Amplifier
– 24-Bit Digital to Analogue converter
– OEM Steering Wheel Remote Ready
– Optional RCB198 Infrared remote control
– Made for iPod / iPhone iPod Video via optional (£46) CCA-748 lead
– Included GPS antenna and microphone
– Includes Free 2 Year Warranty


Editor review : Clarion NX700E
This a true tour-de-force headunit that can do it all. For one, you want to connect the grass green wire with the pale red stripe around it like a pallid Coral snake, to Earth. You are supposed to connect this to the handbrake as Clarion cannot (like any car maker too) be seen to be recommending you use it to see moving pictures while driving. However, the law is clear, you HAVE to pay due care and attention to driving and you really should be able to let a passenger in the front watch while you pay attention to what you are sat there for, after all. You are a fool if you cannot.
The really clever thing is the dual zone. You can see navigation on the screen and listen to the radio but at the same time the DVD can be running and feeding a set of screens or one of the Clarion Overhead Monitors in the rear. You decide what gets fed where and rear seat passengers can thus use headphones (included with the OHM 1588 I have here to test that needs me to do some woodwork on my test bench to accommodate it!)
I did find the GUI a little clumsy and while it is cool that it picks up the albums and the id tags of iPod tracks that are done with collaborations like Shirley Bassey on the Propellorheads’ Decksanddrumsandrockandroll, that does mean listing it as a separate item. Which tends to increase the tickle strokes on the touch screen. Also, on a thousand pound machine, leaving the remote control as an optional extra when you can see the unit is built for it, with the infra red eye showing as a little red plastic square on the front, is a little parsimonious. Likewise, it is a shame that such a potent item can only use iPod video as such if you have the special extra £46 lead that gives you red/white Audio RCA outputs and a single yellow composite video output to plug into the great mass of wires around the back. But as iPod video is ‘˜supposed’ to be for parked use only, I guess it might be better than having all included at £1,100.
The capabilities of this machine are tremendous, I played with it a bit but I reckon you would have to live with it for a while to really get to grips with all it can do. Again, while I applaud the environmentally friendly motive, having the manual as a CD to upload to your PC was a tad awkward for sitting in the car with!
But that’s a whinge really, as in all honesty, it is pretty intuitive and it didn’t take me long of mindlessly stabbing at the screen to work out how to do what I wanted.
This is a luxury item I could see being the perfect one-box solution for a family people carrier. I cannot wait to have a go on the little brother of this machine, though. Far less flash with no motorised whizzy bits but a newer Graphic User interface. This DOES have navigation as a major part of its coolness and comes with the GPS antenna as well as a microphone for the hands free Bluetooth.
This machine has everything!
Overall 8.6
Sound Quality 9
Appearance/Display 9
Ease Of Use/HMI 7
Features 10
Value For Money 8