Alpine latest navigation fall of 2005?

I just bought one on ebay 1475.00 shipping included works awesome best navigation out there by far. I have used the eclipse,pioneer and the kenwood Alpine nve-n872a is not in the same league..  here is the link for the vendor on ebay.. shipped same day payment was made..

FYI

The NVEN872A DOES work with the IVA-D900/901 and the CVA1005 also for that matter, by saying its not compatible you mean no touch screen operation I hope

I have hooked it up to the D901 and also in the manual it lists all connection diagrams for every Alpine screen made.

It has alot of awesome features and works perfect with the D901

Thats a good deal ...

But wanna hear the downside .. ?

The money you saved ... will need it to fix it if it breaks .. since there is no warranty on units bought off Ebay .. 

Call Alpine and ask ... there are NO authorized "ebay" sales .. 

we dont need to call and ask. thats common knowledge. we all know there is no warranty on ebay purchases. thats the tradeoff  most of us are willing to take to save a few hundred dollars on each piece of equip. i, however, am buying mine from a shop. not for warrany purchases, but because i used to be an installer there and im still good friends with the owner. he still gives me employee discount baby! hehe. i think im picking mine up friday. i cant wait!

One of the things I've noticed that I wish I could change is that you cannot change the color of the maps on this nav. I would like to have the background change to black at night as I have seen on some factory installed units, this one just doesn't do it....

I just picked one up on ebay to replace my old 852.  First off, I chose a seller that has a lot of feedback and who was also offering a 1 year warranty through them.  So what if they're not authorized.  As long as they're willing to repair the item over, I'm happy.

I like that the 872 has a USB and pcmcia slot for future upgrades.  I'm looking forward to what Alpine has to offer.  I too would like the black background for night driving such as is offered in the newer Kenwoods and Pioneers.  Maybe future software upgrade?

As for differences, the 872 has much sharper, better detailed graphics.  The car icon flows smoother.  It has pictures of buildings on downtown maps, arrows on streets that indicate one way.  The touchscreen feature is great.  It can pick up 12 satellites vs 8.  Uses the same wiring as 851/852 (easy plug & play replacement - except you'll have to run the new voice microphone), points of interest are easier to find.  There are some other minor perks...

The only thing that became worse is the sound quality of the voice prompts.  they're ok, but not as clear and realistic as the 85X.  I'm also not sure that I like that the software was created by Microsoft!!  Crashes anyone?  (xbox360, windows....) 

As for upgrading from an older gen, I'm indifferent.  You can pick up a used one on ebay for about $700-$800, or the new one for $1500.  If you have an 852 or 851, you could hold onto those for a while longer and just update the software.  By the way I have extra copies of the latest DVDs, PM me if needed.  I heard authorized dealer cost on the 872s is $1060 - so they should drop a bit more over the next few months.

Hope this helps!