Taken A Gamble On A Chinese Head Unit

[Funkstar De Luxe]

aizvara said:

I looked into something similar a while back, and was very tempted with one which seemed to be imported by various companies into the UK, who would then resell as official vendors. However, I then read at lot of horror stories, and at least one of those importers altered their own website to warn people off the product amid claims that the suppliers offered zero support.

In the end I did it myself with an android tablet, custom OS version, and double din mount, even got the steering wheel controls and a reverse camera working with that.

Still £175 sounds like a reasonable amount to risk on this.

It's difficult to separate inexperienced users getting frustrated from genuine bad reviews.

£175 is a serious lump sum for me, so if it is crap, it will be on eBay quick snap 😁

[DangerMonkey]

I fitted an almost identical unit to our old sorrento a good year ago. It's pretty good tbh, not an audiophiles choice by any means but very good value considering all the things it can do, sat nav, iPod, usb, play movies, reversing camera on ours too. The mrs loves it which is the main thing. Radio reception was a bit poor so I fitted a fm booster and it works well enough now; I don't know if they're all like that or if mine was faulty. Then again the reception in the sorrento was never great in the first place. There are masses of labelled connectors on the back which is great seeing you can plug so much stuff in, but equally it's also a pain in the neck as you'll likely need space behind it.

Should be a worthwhile gamble. Also you can probably expect a vat? bill a few weeks later, I think it might depend on how it's shipped.

[DangerMonkey]

I should add I bought ours direct from Eonon

[RobinBanks]

Is it really much more to get a decent Alpine or Pioneer HU?
It may not be android, but is that so important?

[Baryonyx]

RobinBanks said:

Is it really much more to get a decent Alpine or Pioneer HU?
It may not be android, but is that so important?

I've always trusted Alpine, but you pay for the quality. I had an iDA-X313 stereo in my MR2 Turbo which could play music from my iPhone with a USB cable (seems old fashioned now), I got mate's rates from the supplier and it still cost more than this does! Worth a look, these cheapo Chinese things but they're usually an inferior product. How long that'll be the case for, I don't know.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

DangerMonkey said:

I fitted an almost identical unit to our old sorrento a good year ago. It's pretty good tbh, not an audiophiles choice by any means but very good value considering all the things it can do, sat nav, iPod, usb, play movies, reversing camera on ours too. The mrs loves it which is the main thing. Radio reception was a bit poor so I fitted a fm booster and it works well enough now; I don't know if they're all like that or if mine was faulty. Then again the reception in the sorrento was never great in the first place. There are masses of labelled connectors on the back which is great seeing you can plug so much stuff in, but equally it's also a pain in the neck as you'll likely need space behind it.

Should be a worthwhile gamble. Also you can probably expect a vat? bill a few weeks later, I think it might depend on how it's shipped.

That's good news, thanks! Shipping from Germany, so hopefully no VAT

[Funkstar De Luxe]

RobinBanks said:

Is it really much more to get a decent Alpine or Pioneer HU?
It may not be android, but is that so important?

Yes. Its twice the price for half the functionality. Plus I owned two alpines and both had major issues with USB. Very slow to index and extremely sensitive to file structure.

Plus they're more than likely made on another line in the same Chinese factory as all the others.

As I said, this is all conjecture until I receive and install the unit. You may be correct.

[ecsrobin]

Funkstar De Luxe said:

That's good news, thanks! Shipping from Germany, so hopefully no VAT

Import duty??

[Funkstar De Luxe]

ecsrobin said:

Import duty??

From the EU? Really? I wouldn't have thought so.

[ecsrobin]

Funkstar De Luxe said:

ecsrobin said:

Import duty??

From the EU? Really? I wouldn't have thought so.

Taken from gov.uk

You don’t pay duty or tax on goods you bring in from the European Union (EU) as long as you:

transport them yourself
will use them yourself or give them away as a gift
have paid duty and tax in the country where you bought them

[Funkstar De Luxe]

ecsrobin said:

Taken from gov.uk

You don’t pay duty or tax on goods you bring in from the European Union (EU) as long as you:

transport them yourself
will use them yourself or give them away as a gift
have paid duty and tax in the country where you bought them

Price includes tax. Phew

[ecotec]

thanks for posting this, keep us updated with progress its something i've been thinking about doing in one of our cars,

[Funkstar De Luxe]

ecotec said:

thanks for posting this, keep us updated with progress its something i've been thinking about doing in one of our cars,

Will do. FedEx say it will be delivered on Monday 15th - sadly I'm in Asia that week, so expect something on Friday 20th from me. If it arrives early, I'll post on Saturday.

Looking forward to having a play with it, already planning a road trip with the Mrs to test the GPS (although I will be using it to drive the 350 miles to Scotland during Xmas, so should be able to prove it off quite quickly).

I will not let this be yet another unanswered PistonHeads post :-D

[Andehh]

Used a Chinese (non-android) headunit in my last car for a couple of years. Was pretty pleased with it tbh, did everything 'good' but not 'great'. So USB, SD cards, DVDs, GPS, radio, hands free phone, bluetooth etc...all worked adequately but none as good as a specialist bit of kit - but that'd cost you a fortune more and you never get something that does so much.

Would buy again!

[r11co]

Funkstar De Luxe said:

Looking forward to having a play with it, already planning a road trip with the Mrs to test the GPS (although I will be using it to drive the 350 miles to Scotland during Xmas, so should be able to prove it off quite quickly).

You do realise it doesn't come with GPS software as standard? Is the supplier throwing it in or have you decided which app you are going to use? Either way, I suspect it will not be 'plug and play' out of the box.

One of the reasons these Eonon things are cheap is because they are not licensing any GPS software for them as standard and expect you to source your own. They will supply Kudos GPS (which is quite frankly junk) for $30 extra on their WinCE based units.

Edited by r11co on Wednesday 10th December 14:02

[DrDoofenshmirtz]

Stick Navfree on there and Jobs a goodun (better Nav software is available at cost obviously).
Being an Android device, you could also set your phone as a hotspot and stream digital radio and TV to it as well.
Not sure if it has a SIM slot (what is that 'GPS' slot in the top right corner)? - it's be good if it did.
It's a pretty cool device!

Edited by DrDoofenshmirtz on Wednesday 10th December 14:40

[Funkstar De Luxe]

r11co said:

You do realise it doesn't come with GPS software as standard? Is the supplier throwing it in or have you decided which app you are going to use? Either way, I suspect it will not be 'plug and play' out of the box.

One of the reasons these Eonon things are cheap is because they are not licensing any GPS software for them as standard and expect you to source your own. They will supply Kudos GPS (which is quite frankly junk) for $30 extra on their WinCE based units.

Edited by r11co on Wednesday 10th December 14:02

Yeah, my preference is to use my own SatNav software anyway. Although I do believe it does come out of the box with GPS software and UK maps

[Funkstar De Luxe]

DrDoofenshmirtz said:

Stick Navfree on there and Jobs a goodun (better Nav software is available at cost obviously).
Being an Android device, you could also set your phone as a hotspot and stream digital radio and TV to it as well.
Not sure if it has a SIM slot (what is that 'GPS' slot in the top right corner)? - it's be good if it did.
It's a pretty cool device!

Edited by DrDoofenshmirtz on Wednesday 10th December 14:40

It doesn't have a SIM slot, the aperture on the front is for a MicroSD dedicated to maps. I'll look into getting a 3G dongle for it soon, if I decide I need one.

[margerison]

Funkstar De Luxe said:

It doesn't have a SIM slot, the aperture on the front is for a MicroSD dedicated to maps. I'll look into getting a 3G dongle for it soon, if I decide I need one.

No need, just use your phone as a wifi hotspot, or, if you have a Samsung, just use screenshare.

[DaveCWK]

Keep us posted. I've been thinking of getting something very similar, but having read reviews of these Chinese android units on xda developers, the concensus seems to be that the car audio half of the unit is very much an afterthought. No proper equalizer and balance controls, no subwoofer low pass controls or rca outputs, poor fm reception, that sort of thing. 

All I want to do is have Google maps/nav displayed at all times, hands free calling & bluetooth audio streaming from my phone. If it does all those with acceptable sound quality I'd get one.