Edit: I'm updating this first post in case anyone anywhere has any interest in my experiences.

I first asked about the compatibility between the Pioneer DEH-P9800BT head unit and the Nokia N900 cell phone. Now I have the phone, and I can share my findings.

Compatibility: partial.

Connectivity:
The cell phone pairs with the head unit just fine. Both as a hands free device and also over A2DP for stereo music playback.

The cell phone connects with the head unit just fine every time I start the car, too. It's faster than my previous phone in establishing a connection.

Calls:
The head unit works well for answering incoming calls.

I have not found a way to copy my contacts to the head unit. On my old phone, I had to send one and one contact manually from the phone. On an even older phone, I could send the entire contact list in one operation. However, on the N900 I have failed to find a way. So whoever call will be identified by phone number only, not name.

Because I can't transfer the contacts to the head unit, it's not practical to dial out, you need to use the phone to initialize a call, or pick a phone number from the head unit's log over previous calls.

Music:
Music seems to stream just fine over A2DP from the phone to the head unit. Do not need to make a seperate connection for A2DP, it connects automatically when paired.

It seems the media player must be started from the phone, you can't start playback from the head unit. You can pause and resume playback, however the head unit has a idiot menu you have to do that from.

You can skip songs in both directions using the head unit.

Song information is not transferred to the head unit over A2DP. So song title, etc, is missing.

When you turn off the head unit, the cell phone will still be in the media player, playing music, so you'll want to turn that off before you go somewhere.

I think that is about as much info as I can give you about this cell phone/head unit combination. I'll come back here and edit this post if I figure out something more, like a working way to transfer the contacts.

.v


Edit: Original message included here:

dunno mate but hopefully cos the n900 isn't symbian like the rest of the n series, there shouldn't be a problem

That may be an excellent point... Depends on why they "implemented" the problem in the Symbian phones to start with.

Maybe I'll just have to find this out the expensive way.

I will get back to this in a couple of weeks, I have now ordered the N900.

Okay, maybe a little more than a couple of weeks, but I have now had the N900 and tried it. I've edited the first post in this thread to share my experiences with the phone and the head unit.

I don't know if this will work for you, but someone used my Petrovich app to send contacts to his car kit: https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6368#c12

Regarding "Contacts importing", have you tried initiating the transfer process "from the Head Unit? Or updating the BT firmware for the Pioneer?

I had trouble with my DROID, initially, sending contacts to my Pioneer AVIC 700. Worked fine after "importing" them to the AVIC, vs. "sending" them from the phone. I also had updated the "BT firmware" (separate from AVIC's OS firmware) earlier in the year.

I just updated a few contacts on my 900...I'll confirm if they update the AVIC.

Your plug worked...

I'm about to go down in the car and figure out if your suggestion works, too. Reading that bug conversation makes me worry for Nokias future, actually. Sounds like the Maemo team did a "Netscape 6" here.

Standards are good but when someones chosen standards does not match the real world usage... The product will not live up to expectations. As a general rule.

Yes.

No. Unfortunately, there is no firmware update for the DEH-P9800BT. Several other units in the series have, I believe the older P9800BT is not firmware update-able.

okay. in my car now. minus ten degrees. typing with gloves. resistive ftw.

it seems the petrovich tip isn't working on this head unit. i get cannot connect while the phone connects just fine with regular hands free... oh well.