8500 has 2 USB, SD card slot, HDMI, and the screen can be taken out.
Believe these are the differences

I went for the Kenwood DNX5210BT in the end as Pioneer seems unable solving the problems with the latest IOS and Appradio apps

 

8500 has the HDMI input and the SD card slot, otherwise, yep, pretty much the same.

 

Hi Wrathernaut,
I'm just starting to connecting up my stereo and the harness I got does not work so I will have to change the cables.
I got this harness

Changing the harness is easy, but the problem I'm having is, I cant find the switching/ignition power cable in the g35 loom.
Which one is it? I tried the red cable but gives me nothing...

 

Never mind, its working now. Swapped the black cable to a different hole and it is working now.
The car speakers sound very decent to be honest!

Radio reception was fine too after connecting blue to red but had the feeling stereo now won't switch off when I take the key out??

 

If the stereo stays on when the car is off, you're on the constant power, not switched.

I haven't seen a wiring harness that doesn't do it right, do you have a link to the actual harness you used?

 

This is the one used: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Autoleads-PC.../dp/B000XUUNJA

Autoleads PC2-76-4

Yellow on yellow, black on black and red on red. Black was in the wrong place for some reason...
Then in the lead that goes in the stereo, I connected blue to red.
Since I connected blue to red, the stereo stays on when I take the key out....

 

Um, yeah, that harness is for a Nissan Micra, no idea why you'd purchase that one over the recommended harness or equivalent from the first post. I'd spend the $10 on the proper harness and not mess with that one at all.

 

That is what amazon makes of it.
Here is the same one and mentions to be for a skyline and anyways, it fits the plugs
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NISSAN-Mur...item3f0399a2d3

The Metra cables are not that much available in the uk.

In the end, it shouldnt be difficult anyways and not much can be done wrong on the connector.., 8 speaker wires, 1 contant, 1 ignition, 1 blue and one earth

 

Do you think the HDMI and SD card slot are worth the extra $200-$300?

 

I really don't trust eBay for technical specifications or compatibility matches, but yes, if you manually match up the colors, it should be fine.

 

If your android smartphone has HDMI out, it should be superior to analog line-out for sound and video, or you're trying to connect a Playstation 3 or xbox to it, go with the 8500, otherwise, USB SD card readers are significantly cheaper than $200.

 

Don't think I'll connect an xbox/system to it, though I never thought about it

Think I might go for the X5500BHS. It has most of what I need (bluetooth streaming music, iPhone5 compatibility, nice display, HD radio, etc. Is it a good idea to buy it from Amazon? I know that Best Buy does price match for Amazon.

 

There's a lot of different sellers that use amazon, but if best buy price matches, I'd go with them for local returns if anything's wrong.

 

Quick question after I had my Double Din installed there seems to be a problem with my defroster it takes an amble amount of time to defrost the front and rear windshield for some reason. Even at full speed it takes a while to defrost. When the defrost is turned on it also overheats the interior of the car. Is it a sensor problem because the AC converter was replaced?

 

The controls on the dash just activate relays further down the line, so they would not affect the speed of the defroster. Pushing the front defrost on switches the climate control off of auto, so it'll just keep dumping hot, dry air at the windshield, so the car is likely to get hotter than what you have the thermostat set to.

It's possible there's a bad sensor, but I haven't seen people reporting them going bad - but maybe the sensor tube got partially removed when the install was done?

Either way, read through this thread here: https://g35driver.com/forums/audio-v...n-install.html as it's a lot more related to your problem.