**Eonon D5162E Upgrade**
Delivery & Packaging
Purchased from Singenimauto from eBay for £283 on a 48 hour delivery. Unfortunately, it wasn’t despatched the day after purchase, so arrived 12 hours later than advised. Still, it was a quick delivery via Yodel and I can’t complain.
Box arrived in a grey bag which was very well wrapped with bubble wrap and upon opening the box that too was well packaged with inserts keeping it in place and damage free.
Unit & Accessories
Opening the box, the unit came with the following items:
• SD Card for GPS Maps (taped to the inside top of the box)
• IPod Cable
• Radio Antenna extension
• GPS Module
• Mic with 3.5mm
The USB cable is integrated into the unit and you have a serious number of connections for rear video units, amps, woofers and of course the aux input.
Fitting
Fitting the unit was relatively straight forward once you’ve workout how to dismantle the centre console and disconnecting all the connections was easily done also.
Once the old unit was out, it is possible to fit the new unit without removing the T bar at the back. You just need to bunch the cables together and move the up and out of the way while you gently push back the new unit.
Finding places for the cables wasn’t bad but it was fiddly. Behind the AC controls is a big space, where you can put the cables, can-bus decoder and the adapter for connecting speakers, power and AUX. GPS and Ipod cables were routed towards the passenger foot well and left for routing later and the MIC/USB cables were routed to the driver foot well and left to route at the weekend.
Fitting the unit into its final position took some doing, it required the unit to be wiggled to sit correctly and the cables at the back had to be pulled through from under the unit behind the AC controls so it sat correctly. Once in place the screws, panels and fittings went back without any issues – although there is now a slight squeak from the console which I’ve not isolated.
I highly suggest you use cable ties as they become quite messy once they’re all unpacked.
Testing
Finally powered the unit on after 90 mins of messing about and it worked first time. Tested the radio, programmed my favourite stations, and BOOM it came to life. Configured Time, Date and format, background and loaded the iGO 8 GPS maps.
Didn’t get much time after this to play with it as it was getting late and I also got a ‘Low Battery’ warning on the dash. I was also tired so left further playing till the morning.
Before I set out for work, I changed the LED colour to match the rest of the dash and paired my phone via Bluetooth. Bluetooth picked up my phone and pairing was a breeze. It pulled down all my contacts, phone call history and even managed to test BT streaming.
BT streaming was great despite some stuttering but I think this is due to my phone needing a reboot, so I’ll try this again another time.
DVD/CD hasn’t yet been tested, DAB won’t work as I have no DAB Ariel and IPod/USB testing will come at the weekend once I’ve wired them in.
GPS however took some fiddling. Once the maps were loaded, it would think I’m in France and despite changing the settings, wouldn’t change my location. After 10 mins of messing around I found a ‘GPS’ settings which said ‘GPS Module not found’, my heart sank. I thought I’d have to strip the car again and check the connection. Well, I noticed a little tick box ‘autodetect’ which I disabled and it started scanning for the module.
Well blow me, it located it on a different port number and loaded the maps, my location and the route I was testing instantly. It worked beautifully.
Thoughts
Spent 30 mins listening to the radio on my way to work and while the signal was OK, the depth of sound however, was nowhere near as nice as the stock Sony unit. The Sony unit had incredible base from the stock speakers which made it sound like I had a sub in the car – it was incredible listening to all types of music.
The Eonon unit didn’t have the same dynamic range and despite playing around with the equaliser, still didn’t sound anywhere near as deep in the base range as the Sony – this is my only criticism so far but I need to have a play with it, I’ve only had it installed for less than 24 hours.
The radio signal needs work, I’m not sure if I’ve overlooked a setting, but it doesn’t auto tune if the signal gets weak – will investigate.
I’m tempted to install a reversing camera for the lols, but I’m not sure I could be bothered with the hassle wiring it.
So far, I’m impressed. It does everything I wanted it to do and I’ve only just started to play around with it. If you have any specific questions regarding function/install, please let me know and I’ll be happy to help.
**Pics will follow**
