I just purchased the CDA-9835 and it lives up to all my expectations.

Installation is slightly more complicated than other stereos due to the power requirements. The stereo requires a beefier cable for power and ground than most factory wiring harnesses can deliver. I used a 10 gauge amplifier power supply kit but I think it is a tad overkill. Looking at the gauge of the head units power and ground you could easily get away with a 12 or 14 gauge wire. You still will need to get the power directly from the battery and need to provide an inline fuse or you could likely overheat the existing wiring in your car.

The display is very nice. It is simple and contains no colors. It is very easy to read and has some flashy animations that give it a little kick. The 4 blue buttons can be changed to illuminate in 512 colors while the rest of the buttons can be changed to either amber or green. The screen always stays the same color though.

The sound quality is very good. I am still using my existing 6 factory speakers provided by Toyota and the sound is really good. In fact the sound is so good that I now wondering if I should purchase new speakers at all.

The stereo has extensive sound controls. There is a 5 band eq that can be set up as well as crossover functionality for the outputs. There are very few built in factory presets for the eq but you can store 6 of your own.

I have not used the online system to program anything with the stereo but it looks straight forward. Everything online basically can be done on the stereo itself with better controls.

This player is very straightforward to control basic functionality. It is by far easier to control than my Kenwood Excelon Z828. For setup it is easier than the Kenwood but is more difficult than I would have hoped.

This stereo provides the standard MP3/WMA playback on CD/CD-R/CD-RW that most in-dash stereos provide. Skip protection is not specified by Alpine but as most high end stereos, I have yet to get it to skip. I have a very rough riding car due to 40 series tires and it plays without skipping a beat.

I looked more into the tuner on the stereo. This stereo tunes much better than my stock stereo did. It also has better sound quality. FM sensitivity is 9.3 which is standard on most high end stereos. This number most of the time cannot be trusted to give accurate results. The tuner meets my expectations. I live about 30 miles from a big city so most stations are starting to phase out and it does pick up more than I was expecting. You can also change the tuner mode into three settings (HiFi, Standard, Basic). These modes allow the user to trade off sound quality for the ability to receive distant stations.

I originally wasn't going to buy this deck because there was no cost effective way to hook my iPod to this stereo. Crutchfield has two adapters publicly advertised for this system. One is around 80 dollars and requires a CD changer to work. The other is 150 dollars and allows for multiple inputs. I searched and found the KCA-121B (Crutchfield sells for $15 but their sales staff isn't trained to recommend it), which adapts the changer input port on the stereo to dual RCA inputs. Once connected you can configure the stereo to allow for aux input and everything works great.

Other things this deck can do that I haven't tried are the ability to control certain Alpine amplifiers, control XM satellite radio, and in the near future hopefully it will control the iPod.

Overall this is a exceptional stereo. I really like the simplicity with the superior sound quality. If you would like to save a few bucks I would recommend the 9833, which has the same internals, but if you want the beautiful screen I would recommend this stereo.