Taken A Gamble On A Chinese Head Unit

[Funkstar De Luxe]

For a while I've been looking to replace the POS head unit / CD player that's in my car. Long story short, I've bought a Chinese Android based head unit from eBay that looks like it will suit my needs perfectly. It does DVD/MP3/WiFi/SatNav, all the bells and whistles. It's called a Eonon G2110 (I think), and I paid £175 including delivery.

It's going into a late 2000s German card, so I'm assuming wiring is going to be a headache, but nothing unsurmountable.

I'm an electrical engineer by trade, so hopefully there shouldn't be too many problems using or installing. I'm hoping to use this thread as documentation for anyone else looking to buy one or install one. And of course, as evidence of the great deal (or large amount of money I've wasted).

Unit should arrive this weekend, I'll take pics and post my initial thoughts then.

Anyone else got one of these? Any advice? Any warnings?

Tony

[Funkstar De Luxe]

279 said:

I have always been tempted by these given the features for the price, but when you come across anyone in the west that has actually bought one they say that they are usable, but have bloated interfaces, ancient hardware and the life span of a lemming with the hopes of getting a replacement from Chinese head office non existent. I will be interested to hear how you get on, there's only matter of time before they get them right.

I had a look at the specs, as well as watching a few user videos on YouTube and it all looks decent. The UI isn't great, but it should be very easy to customise.

There's a root image avail for this particular chip set, so that's really all you need to customise. I'll review it with regards to its default setup though.

Edited by Funkstar De Luxe on Tuesday 9th December 18:53

Edited by Funkstar De Luxe on Tuesday 9th December 19:04

[Funkstar De Luxe]

Funk said:

I'm very wary of anything with the words 'Chinese' and 'Android' in the same sentence that isn't from a trusted or well-known manufacturer since it was revealed that Chinese devices are shipping with malware 'built-in'.

https://blog.gdatasoftware.com/blog/article/androi...

Not sure I fully agree with that. I travel to China frequently for work, so I get to see a lot of factories and facilities that produce these items. The majority of which are legitimate and very good with regards to assembly.

I'm quite sure if you own any android device, there's probably a 90% chance it was assembled in China.

As for spyware software, they're more than welcome to see what music I play in my car, or see my drive to work 😂 But in all seriousness, I wouldn't be keeping private details on it.

[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 😁

[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.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

ecsrobin said:

Import duty??

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

[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

[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

[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.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

It'll be here Monday

Tony

[Funkstar De Luxe]

I managed to pick it up last night, after much confusion from FedEx (they suck).

So far: Unit was very well packaged, and arrived with everything as described. The head unit looks to be of better than average quality, chunky buttons and nice feeling rotary encoders. Looks good.

The remote is astonishingly poor quality, but I'll never use it. Tomorrow I'll be hooking it up I think.

Tony

[Funkstar De Luxe]

Fully configured and working beautifully, installation almost complete. Taken longer than I thought as the last person to install a head unit in my car made a real pig's ear of it.

I'll write up a full review soon, but the gist of it is: works perfectly as advertised, easy to install - software configuration and required updates are for techies only, sadly. Best resource I've found is http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2...

Absolutely worth or if you're prepared to spend some time setting it up. I'm delighted so far.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

ADEuk said:

Looks nice, does it have AM/FM/DAB or is it all via wifi/3g?

No Dab, but WiFi and 3G as well as FM and AM. Also plays DVDs CDs, all kinds of compressed audio etc. And GPS

Edited by Funkstar De Luxe on Tuesday 30th December 17:43

[Funkstar De Luxe]

ecotec said:

thanks for the update - the unit looks really good fitted - sound OK?

Didn't sound great at first, but after the update improved dramatically. Way better than standard unit.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

Sargeant Orange said:

Any additional cables or connectors required or was it plug & play?

Looks like it would fit the bill for the OH's old Honda CRV

Plug and play. Dead easy

[Funkstar De Luxe]

Troubleatmill said:

What are you doing about the trim around the outside of the unit?
Unit looks nice... it just looks... unfinished.

I've not yet fitted the surround our had mounted the chassis yet, hence me saying installation is almost complete 😇

[Funkstar De Luxe]

Just completed a 350 mile drive with the unit, listening to music and using the satnav the whole way. Flawless. Once I get the fascia on, I'll post final thoughts and some pics

[Funkstar De Luxe]

Finally installed.