2din android radio?

IC3 · 5 Oct 2017 at 01:30

I'm looking at upgrading the radio, I'm not looking for a top of the line android 2 din radio. I want
-Fairly smooth menu navigation
-Built in GPS for Here Maps
-USB Aux for a flash drive
-Enough output to power 2 aftermarket 16cm speakers.

Any suggestions? I don't have a budget, as I don't know how much these go for, I see anything from as low as £50 to radios that cost over £500...

mrk · 5 Oct 2017 at 17:56

What car is it for? I don't think Here Maps supports Android Auto yet, so that wouldn't work.

However, the Chinese Android units do the job fine if you're happy to tweak settings and apps to suit. Performance on all of them is also fine now, especially ones with octa-core chips and 2GB+ of RAM.

I use mine (qusd core) for Waze, local stored music on a 128GB USB stick, and cross-device sync between car, PC and phone via Pushbullet and Clipper+.

Viper4Android is the app that tunes the DAC to level up with your speakers.

UnworthyBean · 5 Oct 2017 at 18:03

I bought an Eonon unit for my Skoda, Cant fault it. They seem to look a bit more OEM as they're the same shape as the original and don't need adapters. Although depends on what car it's going in.

mrk said:
What car is it for? I don't think Here Maps supports Android Auto yet, so that wouldn't work.

Most of them just run on standard Android though so Here maps works. I was using it but then switched to Waze when I realised that It didn't use that much data.

mrk · 5 Oct 2017 at 20:23

Yeah the standard Android ones will work fine with it, it's Android Auto where the app on the phone needs to support Android Auto in order to "project" to the unit. Waze recently updated with Android Auto support, for example.

IC3 · 5 Oct 2017 at 20:23

mrk said:
What car is it for? I don't think Here Maps supports Android Auto yet, so that wouldn't work.

However, the Chinese Android units do the job fine if you're happy to tweak settings and apps to suit. Performance on all of them is also fine now, especially ones with octa-core chips and 2GB+ of RAM.

I use mine (qusd core) for Waze, local stored music on a 128GB USB stick, and cross-device sync between car, PC and phone via Pushbullet and Clipper+.

Viper4Android is the app that tunes the DAC to level up with your speakers.

It's for a Honda Civic 1.6 Sport 2005 (EP2), I can get the fascia with universal brackets off eBay for cheap.

Here maps will work on android, its an app I use on my phone. It routes me better than Google maps and they work offline.

What unit do you've? Do they have any type of branding or is it a no-name?

UnworthyBean said:
I bought an Eonon unit for my Skoda, Cant fault it. They seem to look a bit more OEM as they're the same shape as the original and don't need adapters. Although depends on what car it's going in.

Most of them just run on standard Android though so Here maps works. I was using it but then switched to Waze when I realised that It didn't use that much data.

150 quid, so not too bad. I made an offer to one guy selling a 2nd hand unit. I'll see what he replies, he had it for a month now so hopefully, I can get a good deal.

mrk · 5 Oct 2017 at 20:37

Mine is made by Erisin, but on the fascia has no branding on it as it is designed to look just like the OEM navigation screen from the mid 2000s:

As you've probably found, quite a few makes produce units like these. Internally they're all the same apart from Dynavin's newer units which use higher end amplifiers with Burr Brown OpAmps and the like.

Uncle_Gravy · 6 Oct 2017 at 08:07

My mate used some type of Xtrons android unit in his old golf, it looked OEM and ran smoothly enough when i was pressing all sorts of buttons much to his disgust.

mrk · 6 Oct 2017 at 08:15

Uncle_Gravy said:
My mate used some type of Xtrons android unit in his old golf, it looked OEM and ran smoothly enough when i was pressing all sorts of buttons much to his disgust.

This disgusts the driver. It's a sign of mental war during the journey!

Uncle_Gravy · 6 Oct 2017 at 08:26

mrk said:
This disgusts the driver. It's a sign of mental war during the journey!

Especially when he's trying to look where he's going on the sat nav and i'm just slamming buttons xD I literally am the worst passenger in a car.

xbenjiiman · 6 Oct 2017 at 09:54

If you do get one of the Chinese units, don't get anything below 2GB RAM. They're unbelievably slow when doing more than one thing, like listening to music and navigation.

Mine's an Eonon, but 90% of them are re-brands. The main difference is in the motherboards (MTCD vs MTCB) and processors (PX5, RK3188, RK3066).

There are a couple ROMs on XDA-Developers which are much faster than the shipped ones (Malaysk), also adding root functionality and things like OpenGApps (Open source alternative to Google Play Services, much faster and relatively stable).