Product Reviews

I bought it about a week ago. When I tested the unit I found backlight bleeding in corners of the lcd screen.

I bought this head unit during a sale so that I could get the Sony build, screen, and sound quality with extra bass. Very happy with the purchase, especially when coupled with recent Sony speaker upgrades and a reverse camera. The only things stopping me from giving a five star review are minor bugs which will hopefully get ironed out in future firmware updates.I would give 4.5 if the system allowed.

Taken from Sony.com.au

Its a great unit, I would say make the daylight screen visibility better for motorcycle applications. Its hard to see the screen

Unit was fairly intuative to operate. Great sound, very crisp display. Very glad I bought it. May I suggest the addition of a button that allows the unit to be turned off and it stays off until it is physically turnd on, and not at start up. 1st thing in morning is not a good time to hear great music at night time volume!

Taken from Sony.com.au

I got it end of last year and no longer works properly.

Taken from Sony.com.au

I had a guy come to my house Sunday install an entire stereo system in my 2006 Nissan Murano in Ludington a oair of Skar 12 inch subs powered by a Skar 1200 runs watt mono Amp, Alpine r series 6x9 compknent speakers in the front doors snd tweeters in the upper dash and ovals in the rear powered by a war 150 watts runs per channel, and all driven by the Sony XAV-AX5000 DDIN GEZD UNIT. IT SOUNDS INCREDIBLE AND I love the on board 10 band graphic eq which I use all of the time because of the varying sound quality of the different tines and record companies that recorded and produced the music I listen too. I need nothing else! I live the apple carplsy and the way it shows the song title, the group, and the album each track comes from. This unit is priced about 1/2 as much as Alpines and Pioneers with the sane features! I'm very happy the company that did the installation talked me into purchasing this unit off him! Thank you again Sony. I also have a pair of Bluetooth over theceR noise canceling headphones b especially znd a little Bluetooth speaker from Sony t b at sound fantastic ascwell!

Android Auto keeps disconnecting hasn't worked consistently since I purchased the unit

I purchased this unit because I couldn’t find aan Alpine unit that would fit my 2006 Nissan Murano that was in stock anywhere for under $500. I have had many sony products in the pastand nber had any negative issues or colplaimts. This XAV-AX5000 turned out to be a pleasant delight! I look forward to using my vehicle and plugging in my iphone 12 and listening to my music! I do wish the eq was 11 band or 13 band instead of 10 band, and I was also surprised that it only had one subwoofer pre-out. Other then that I am happy with this car stereo and I intend on taking it out of my car and putting it my next

Has to many software glitches. Low pass crossover doesn’t actually turn off.

We gave our daughter our old Nissan Leaf when she got her license. To help her avoid using her phone (for navigation, texting, calling), we wanted to upgrade her head unit to something reliable, with great sound and was CarPlay enabled. This promised all of that... until we installed it. Had to buy a bunch of different harnesses, but that was OK. Our eyes were on the prize. The process was pretty easy. Once done, we began experiencing the first of our problems: No CarPlay. Plugged in my iPhone and... nothing. Checked the forums and found out this was a known issue, sometimes resolved by using "the right cable." I tried all of the Apple cables we had in the house (5-7 of them) until I found ONE which worked... kind of. The unit recognized the iPhone, the iPhone recognized the radio, but CarPlay wouldn't really load all the way on the screen. You know how it "zooms in" when loading? Well, this zoomed in about half way and froze (as if the CarPlay UI was too big for the screen). Worse, you could click on anything. Totally unresponsive. Tried hitting the Home button, unplugging, replugging, restarting the phone, restarting the radio (unplugging it from power), tried other cables. Nothing. Read on the Sony website that there was a firmware upgrade available (1.04) that addresses some CarPlay issues. Decided to try that. Followed the complicated process of formating a USB thumb drive of a particular size in a particular way and ran the firmware update. This seemed to go through with no issues. Plugged in my iPhone and got CarPlay to load a bit further. Now it fit on the screen, but was so slow and laggy. I decided to run the update again... this time the update crash the unit. After completing, the unit tries to power on, but only shows a black screen with a one-inch white strip of jumbled pixels on the right. Tried resetting the unit (holding the Home button for 10+ seconds), but got nowhere. Spent an hour on a chat with Sony where I had to prove I followed all of their installation and upgrade processes (and had setup my iPhone properly) to be told it would need to be serviced. This was a gift to my daughter from friends who no longer have the receipt. I've spent over $100 on harnesses, wires, mounts and parts to install this. It only kind of worked for one day. Sony's own update to their head unit bricked their unit. For the price, this is very disappointing. I cannot recommend this unit.

I love everything about it ,Except that Android car play will randomly stop and start back or either say unsupported device. I even bought a new phone hoping to solve the issue, but that didn't help. I would appreciate it if you could do an update to the software to correct the issue.

Android Auto does not work reliably. Bluetooth works very poorly. Not able to update to latest firmware. Poor Customer support from Sony and Crutchfield.

Got this unit professionally installed/drive away and speedometer doesn’t work. I want to know if this is realated.

I watched several reviews from experts on the youtube channel, and the majority recommended the Sony XAV-AX5000. Before I make a purchase such as this one I regularly check the reviews on the item. After many views of the experts and those that had previously bought one, there was no doubt in my mine. I am very satisfied with this product, really livened up my speakers.

I thought this was going to be an awesome unit. Only to be disappointed with thd android auto very poor. Apple car play works so much better. And the phone connection freezes doesnt hang up till i have to actually turn the hole car off. Over all disappointed i expected more.

Taken from Sony.com.au

I don’t like it I love it !!!! I love the extra bass option that’s what catch my eyes and I said I got to get this unit and it works amazing so far keep up the good work and don’t let me start about CarPlay I love it it makes my 2012 Hyundai Veloster to a 2021 car

I just had the Sony installed in my dodge and the clock keeps going back to a different time and I set it and it keeps going back to something different other than that it’s a very good product.

We like the unit, installed in our 2003 Toyota Sequoia. We specifically asked if it would allow us to upload pics to use as wallpaper and were told “yes you can”. We looked forward to putting pics of our grandson on the unit. Alas, after purchasing and having installed, we find out it is not possible with this model. We are very unhappy about the situation. Come on, Sony, it’s a simple fix! Stop losing customers!

I purchased this unit because of some of the features - capacitive touch screen, volume control buttons on the bottom of the frame, not on the display, ease of large tough screen icons. The screen looks fantastic. Radio reception in my car has been better than the factory unit. Controls are intuitive. It was a real, and I mean real, pain to get the head unit to recognize my iPhone. I updated the firmware to the latest version but it took 4 different USB flash drives to find one that the Sony "liked" (would read). All were formatted with FAT32 partition and within the storage size required by Sony. After countless attempts I was able update the software. I still had issues with my phone connecting. In my case I tried different lightning cables and found that only a genuine Apple branded cable, and the shortest cable available, would work. For 3 weeks now the system has worked as designed. Carplay functions well although I have had a couple of glitches with the screen looking up - power off and back on rectified the issue. (Note: from my understanding this same issue is commonplace with receivers from other brands - not just Sony). Overall I love the appearance. I gave a 4 star review because at the moment all is well and I'm enjoying the unit.

Although we had previously installed a double-DIN navigation unit in our Highlander, it was out of date and the performance was deteriorating. Adding an Apple CarPlay capable head unit modernized the car and will likely lead to us keeping it for several more years. (The unit has Android Auto, but we all have iPhones.) We like the sleek design and the quick operation compared to the previous unit. For example, the back up camera turns on instantly rather than the 5-10 second wait with the old unit. I was able to use some adapters to place the USB ports in an accessible position at the bottom of the center console (see photos.)

Android car auto wont work properly !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bought it a week ago. installed it myself. works great.

I honestly gave this product a chance, being a long time Sony enthusiast, since I was a kid in the 1970's, with the belief they make the best looking and designed products—this one really let me down, not only that it's hands free use of the phone produced too much static and noise for the recipient to be able hear me but the poor support I had in fixing it with no resolution. The constant firmware update that didn't fix the issue, to finally the firmware not even being able to update. I have the latest iPhone and have never been able to use it with this unit—the MAIN reason I bought it in the first place. This terrible experience has shaken my trust in Sony after decades of use.

Was happy at first. Sounds great and looks great. Have to plug in phone and unplug over and over to get Apple CarPlay to connect. Sometimes radio just freezes a blank screen. The thing that really ticks me off is the salesman that talked me in to this model told me that Sony just did a firmware that allows you to mirror your phone and put in a custom background. The problem is, the ax5000 was the only unit that didn’t get the update. Sony just put out the ax5500, which is the same model as the ax5000, but with those added features. They updated the other models in this line. I wasted my money!