Sony CDX-GT740UI In-Dash CD Receiver MP3/WMA/AAC Player (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

I love Sony! So this was a no brainer. I needed a new car stereo. So I got this one. I Love it! Being able to change the color of the display is pretty cool! If you like Sony and you need a new car stereo, try this one. Its really nice.

I wanted a new head unit. I've never had one before and decided to try this brand even though many people recommend other brands such as Pioneer, Alpine, etc. I don't why people say that Sony doesn't have quality products when it comes to car receivers, but ever since installing this particular head unit, I've been content with it. I would say that this is a good starting unit with a lot of available functions such as satellite radio and HD radio. Those peripherals are not built-in, i.e. they must be purchased from a supplier. Note some stores will not carry Sony peripherals. My local shop only supported mostly Pioneer and Alpine, with a few brand exceptions. Granted, Sony is not a widely known brand in the car world (I would assume). I advice potential buyers, who wish to have extra gadgets, to buy them the same time they do this Sony CDX-GT740UI. This is for the sake of time and money. Its just easier to get it over with.The head itself features enough functions for me.The appearance is handsome, but now that I received the unit I think I would've preferred Pioneer or something else because of the Sony's lights. I'll explain. There are only 3 presets in the Sony for illumination for the dash. NOTE: The blue screen cannot be changed! It will always be blue. Anyways, there is: blue, green, and red. If you like really bright lights, then blue and red presets are for you. My complaint is that they maybe too bright at night. There are lettering on some of the transparent buttons, and you may not able to see clearly what each button does (especially if you are using the red or blue illuminations). Well, this might not be a problem cause you're gonna memorize the buttons anyway. The only decent illumination color is green, however, it might not fit everyone's style. It's not a pretty green. There is a dimming feature, that only dims the screen and not the buttons. Tsk tsk. My overall impression is that there should be more options for the lights. I might also add that the lights kinda give off a cheap feel to the head. This is clearly a quality product, but at night, you won't be able to appreciate the fine details because of the blinding light.The real reason I bought this was for the multiple line screen which looks more sophisticated than typical single line dot models. This model (CDX-GT740UI) is the multiple line display receiver, and NOT the thumbnail displayed (the single dot display). I have a mini flash drive that goes into my USB converter, which goes to the receiver. I can carry many albums and songs without having to change out disks. The Sony head unit has its quirks tho. For example, you can only search by folders, meaning that if you have folders in the form of Artists, then goes to Albums, you can only choose 1 album at a time. You cannot pick a folder of artists, and then have all of the albums played. You cannot search with the "dial" that controls the sound volume, meaning that there is no mode available so that you can search alphabetically for the artist or album name (it depends how you set up your folders and files) by turning the dial. If you are playing a particular track, and want to back up to play the previous song, sometimes you cannot. The head unit will go back (lets say that you are currently on track 9) and want to listen to track 8. You back up (press once to restart the song and then once more to play the previous track), however, the unit insists playing track 9. No matter what, the unit goes forward to track 9. I don't know why. One more thing: the track information sometimes gets corrupted and only rubbish ends up on the screen. I think the unit can only read some data properly, and then lists errors in place for some it cannot. I'm pretty sure I've labeled my music correctly.The sound is ok. Considering that I'm playing out of my stock set-up, the sound that comes out of this thing is decent. I've noticed that the high end of the frequency spectrum is more bright than my stock head. I'm going to get an amp to round out the sound. There are options to mold the sound to your liking. I would say the amount of options available can be found on most head units, such as hi-pass or low-pass filters, dedicated subwoofer decibal control, sound panning from left to right or front and back, and decent frequency and decibel manipulation.Lastly, the head unit comes with plenty of instructions, and a remote. The back of the unit carries a lot of options for amplifiers and subwoofers.Summary: I suggest maybe getting another brand, although this is not a bad buy, but given pros vs cons, there may not be any real advantages getting this head unit over another. Just my opinion.

First, the unit sounds great. I am tossing it in the trash because of sony's insistent stupidity.1- never ending "remove the faceplate" alarm when the key is turned off. Unless you run only an amp through the RCA outputs, the faceplate alarm will sound every time the power is turned off. This amazing feature comes at no extra charge from sony. I was running a set of 3.5" speakers from the deck. 6.5's and 6x9's through my JL amp. The beeps are annoying enough i omitted the 3.5's. To use the unit i will need to split the outputs and install a small amp somewhere to run these speakers. (thanks sony).2) The HFP feature will not control the front and rear speakers independently. There is an option for 'front, rear, all'. If the fronts are set to 100hz the rear sets the same, and vice versa. I called sony and they say it must be my 900$ JL amp causing the problem. I wanted to set the amp to allow all frequencies to pass and make my adjustments from the head unit. My amp is not accessible easily. Anyway, more wasted time.3) The menu driven feature is ok but to adjust the sub it requires this sequence,,1 select the hit/browse button2 rotate the volume button until you reach subwoofer3 press volume knob to select4 rotate volume know 3 clicks to pass by the phase/frequency and arrive at level5 press volume knob to select.6 adjust volume. Not bad??if now you care to change the total volume and find yourself wanting to add a little base? see step one. wash, rinse, repeat as necessary to achieve desired sound. If i was the designer,, I might have made the volume knob adjust the volume in normal position and depress it one time to adjust the sub. If i wanted to enter the menu i could have required holding the volume know down for one second????? Think that would work?4- to bright at night. with all the other settings, can i not dim this infinitely.5- changing the color only changes the text color. the rest of the unit remains blue and this part does not dim6- the seek button is placed right between the "off" and "zap" buttons and actually lower in height. this makes selecting a next song a pain. Previous models had almost a paddle like arm, making forward and back very easy.Good luck, By the way, the unit does sound great. I just fined it annoying.

This radio works great with my iPhone 4. The menus are all easy to scroll through. The volume button/selector button works flawlessly and this radio sounds great. I love it.The problem I have with it is that even in a little bit of sunlight there is so much glare on the display that it is practically unreadable. Maybe it's the height mine is installed at but I don't see any way of fixing this easily. My tinted windows are already pretty dark, I thought. At night this unit gets 5 stars from me and from any sane person. This radio is awesome. Unfortunately, I need to see the display during the daytime too. I can't return it because of how incredibly awesome everything else about this thing is, but seriously, Sony: Fix the glare.Oh, and as of today the pictures in the description are wrong. Two of the pictures are a different model that has "HD Radio" This not that one. This is the one with the smaller letters on the display and does not have HD radio but is "HD Ready"