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Android double din stereo any owners?

29K views 73 replies 24 participants last post by  waric 
#1 ·
I have been contemplating one of the android double din stereos that are out now, and was wondering if any cf members have them, and what is the verdict?
I really like all the features and controls, even tried a nexus 7 in dash but it just couldn't handle interior Temps during the Florida summers.
This look to be more auto worthy though.
Any suggestions or alternates?
 
#6 ·
So these type units do not play any physical media(dvd/cd, etc)? Do they have any on board radio functions, or is the only thing they do is take in Apps and Music from your smartphone?

I know Pioneer has something on the market called AppRadio. If all these do is take in everything from your Smartphone- I would be worried about actual data use from Cell.

I am in the market now for something to replace my stock 06 base radio. My main reasons for doing so is to use my own music off a USB stick, use Bluetooth for hands-free use on my phone, and very occasionally play a dvd for wife on trips.

Chris
 
#9 ·
coop74 ?
With the Avin Avant 2 do your steering wheel buttons work well ?
*Specifically the steering wheel "answer phone" button?*
I really want to upgrade from stock to an android double din , or a pioneer / kenwood double din but it seems when you upgrade you loose some steering wheel button functions.
Thank you in advance
-Carl
 
#10 ·
The only function i lost was the answer button. The radio however has a button to answer on the face and can be set up to auto answer which is how I have mine set up.

The key is a good installer and getting the matching cables for your truck. If you get an Avin one speak to Tommy the Tech support guy and get the same cables they sent me... Tell him Big Coop sent you. I must have asked him 1000 questions before i bought mine.
 
#11 · (Edited)
I have owned two of these units. A Pumpkin and a Joying. I would recommend staying away from pumpkin as there WiFi is no good. Ended up selling the pumpkin unit because that was the main reason for purchasing it. The joying I have had no issues with. There is an easter egg in these units where u type I think 126 in a screen and you can pick your upload logo when starting the vehicle or u can upload your own custom logo. The units were packed very nicely and were easy to install. Its literally like having a giant version of your phone in the dash which was really cool. You can download the app torque from the app store and buy a bluetooth OBD and connect to the unit to display all sorts of information also. There are also forums that people do a lot of custom work with these units for all sorts of crazy stuff.
 
#13 ·
I watched through this youtube video of an install of a joying in a 2014 Nissan Frontier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WmQlQ5dsVg

They didn't install a trim ring, or frame, or whatever you want to call it with it. Does anyone have any pictures of one installed with the trim ring in place?

Since first reading this thread I've been giving the installation of a Android stereo some thought, but I'd like to see some install pics.
 
#14 ·
I installed one in a 2005 frontier. I don't have any pictures as I have sold the vehicle and purchased a 2014 with all the nav stuff, which I would rather have the joying unit as it works a 100x better than Nissan's horrible software engineers.

Also, I highly recommend getting the quad core units as dealing with lag is never fun. The dual core units do work and are not terrible, but I like to spoil myself :)

The 7inch double din units will fit the frontier. No trim is necessary as the units do fit really nicely within the pocket. The units do come with a trim piece but again, not necessary. You do have to buy a double din mount which you can find on crutchfield.com or at your local stereo store. Depending on your mount you kind of have to shave away the edges near the air vents, at least I had to because the mount was universal style, was very easy to do and did not effect appearance.
 
#15 ·
So, I just watched the video you linked and it looks like the newer interior style of the frontier comes with mounts for the double din units that you probably can reuse which is awesome. The installation should be way easier. Unfortunately you might need to make some sort of custom filler on the sides of the unit. They do make 6 inch units which the one in the video maybe a 6 inch version and not the 7 inch model. You can message joying and ask them any questions you may have. There good about responding.
 
#16 · (Edited)
I have the pumpkin head unit in my 02 frontier and so far I love the thing. I have waze set up on it as my default map and just use Pandora on it for music. I also like that I can run the torque app on it and see the real time info from my truck. The steering wheel controls just plug right in and work fine without any adapters you just need to set them up in the settings menu. Im not that thrilled with the main screen and would like to get rid of the weather app that never works right but haven’t had time to play around with the programing in it yet.

 
#18 ·
I'm considering the 7" quad core Joying model, but haven't seen any reviews that mention screen brightness (washout in sunlight is a big problem on 2nd gen Frontiers, due to the high mounting location).

Is the 7" screen usable in sunlight?
 
#19 ·
I have a 1st gen so my screen is a bit lower but I don't thing it would have any problem with washout, it is quite bright. I have the pumpkin audio and it looks like its the same as the joyling. The only two problems with it for me are that when I have my polarized sunglasses on it will black the screen out if i tilt my head to the right, and at night it still a bit bright even with the back light turned all the way down.
 
#20 ·
After looking at models from both Pumpkin and Joying, I'm ordering one from Joying - I like their rear panel design better (RCA jacks mounted solidly on the back, rather than dangling at the end of wires), and they have a lot of techy content on their website (carjoying.com) - including how their units are constructed, how to use various features, etc.

They were also very quick to answer a question I had for 'em.
 
#22 ·
Received the Joying UQ130 unit yesterday, and have been playing with it for while, just sitting on a table connected to a DC power supply outside the vehicle.



Some initial impressions:

The screen is bright and gorgeous - Against a dark wallpaper color, the icons look like they would be visible in direct sunlight.

I love having a "real" volume control knob - Wouldn't consider any radio that lacked it.

The included Radio app looks nice, and works OK. The "slide rule" frequency indicator along the top of the screen is a nice touch - and if you touch any part of it, the radio instantly tunes to that frequency - Neat!



However, the Radio app is also burdened with no less than 5 "bands" (2 AM and 3 FM bands). So, for example, in order to tune from a preset station stored on one "band" to another preset on a different "band", you may need to press several extra buttons - which is a needless annoyance. Also, AM and FM presets can't exist on the same screen or "band" - Instead, you have to push extra buttons to switch between them. (Even some of the cheapest car radios on the planet did away with this annoyance, many years ago.)

There doesn't seem to be any way of deleting unused radio presets. So, even if you only have one frequency preset, you'll still see 12 to 18 present buttons holding random frequencies on the screen - which is needless clutter.

Also, the radio's frequency up and down buttons only activate scanning - There is no way to manually bump the frequency up or down, one step at a time. (Many other radios accommodate this by only activating scanning if the Up or Down buttons are pressed for a longer time).

Finally, the radio screen would look even nicer if it had an analog-style signal strength meter (like most home stereos of the 1970's had). There's certainly plenty of room on the screen to include one.

On the included MP3 player app, music files on storage media are displayed in random order. Apparently, there is no way to sort the display by artist name, album title, etc.. Consequently, looking for one specific tune (or even one specific album) among thousands of others is like searching for a needle in a haystack.



Left to run autonomously, the MP3 player app doesn't seem to be able to escape its current folder of MP3 files. So, if every album has its own folder, you get a never-ending repeat of the same album, unless you manually switch to another folder.

Also, on both the Radio and MP3 player apps, there is no way to change the wallpaper - and their current blue-ish colors clash with the ones used on many vehicle dashboards.



Even disconnected from the vehicle battery, the unit remembers a surprising number of settings - Things like equalizer presets, your chosen startup logo, wallpaper, icon arrangements, etc. That's nice for gear-heads and electronics buffs who do a lot of electrical tweaks on their vehicles than involve disconnecting the battery. It doesn't save radio presets or the MP3 file currently being played, however.

Even though Joying's website and owner's manual refer to "SD Card" memory, the memory actually used is microSD. if you buy an ordinary SD Card to use with the unit, you're going to have a lot of fun trying to squeeze it into either of the 2 card slots!

The "keep alive" option is a nice feature. Basically, it allows the unit to remain powered-up for up to any of half a dozen user-specified intervals after the vehicle engine is shut off, thereby avoiding the wait that normally occurs while the unit is booting up. These intervals range from 30 seconds to 2 hours.

I'd also like to see a few intervals that are longer than 2 hours. Since the unit draws approx. half an amp while it's "alive", even a 24 hour duration would only draw approx. 12 amp-hours from the vehicle battery (which is insignificant for most battery sizes). This would eliminate daily start-up delays, while still preserving some battery power over long weekends.

Inclusion of a notepad app would be nice - It would be handy for jotting down license plate numbers, street addresses, etc.

Apparently, the included "Weather" app can not be turned off - and puts a huge blank box on the home screen unless an internet connection is present.

The included Clock app doesn't actually have any way of setting the clock's time - You have to do it in the Date & Time section of the Android OS instead. Also, in 12 hour time format, the clock does not display the first hour of the day properly - i.e., shows "00:06" for 12:06 AM, instead of "12:06".

The equalizer has an adjustment range of +/- 10 somethings - Not sure if it's dBs, percent, bitcoins, furlongs or what...



I'm not impressed with the included "Sygic" navigation app. Unlike Google Maps, it isn't capable of superimposing actual satellite images over the maps, and it constantly puts useless messages in the Android alert box. However, it is capable of working offline, right out of the box.

So far, I really like the look and feel of this unit, and all of my objections are very minor.

Will post some more details after I actually install it...
 
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#23 ·
Get the radio connected to your internet and search through google play store for some good apps. The standard one for the radio are ok but the apps that you can download are what makes it so much nicer.

Get PowerAmp! Better tuning abilities for your setup.

There are tons of other apps for anyone's needs.

Having the radio always connected to a source of wifi really makes a difference. I had a wifi hotspot setup on my phone for this. You can use google music which loads your music in the cloud for free, up to 20,000 songs, more than enough. Or use pandora/spotify.

vlc player for playing all sorts of videos/movies.

Check out this forum for more info on these types of radios. They probably know more about how to customize the landscape.
Android Head Units
 
#25 · (Edited)
UPDATE: I've got the unit installed, but still need to do a little bit of cutting on my Metra mounting brackets to make it fit just right.

By a lucky coincidence, the GPS antenna that Joying includes just happens to make a perfect friction fit in the center slot of the Frontier's dashboard piece that is normally covered up by the spare change tray. The tray still snaps back in place with the antenna under it - and the antenna receives GPS satellites just fine from that location. So, installing the GPS antenna takes all of 30 seconds.



Performance-wise, the Joying unit is pretty damned close to perfect - The built-in amplifier is capable of driving all 4 of my Alpine door speakers loud and clean - and the subwoofer output does a good job of driving my 500 watt MTX subwoofer amp.

Other reviewers have complained that the AM/FM receiver section has weak sensitivity, but I haven't noticed it - It seems to pull in stations just as well as my previous Kenwood and Alpine receivers did. The audio from the receiver section is flat and muffled, but can be perked up with the graphic equalizer settings in the Amplifier Adjustments menu. Unfortunately, these equalizer settings are not specific to just the receiver section, and can really mess up the sound from other audio sources if you don't go back and re-adjust them every time you switch sources. Joying really needs to have separate equalizer settings for just the radio section.

As other reviewers have noted, the HOME button often requires 2 presses to do anything - Not a big deal.

The ability to customize the night time button illumination color is nice - Makes it easy to match the orange glow from other buttons on the dashboard.
 
#26 ·
Im looking at getting the joying unit for the car I just bought. I have a pumpkin unit in my truck and love the thing. It looks like you have the newer look unit compared to what I have, mine has the home, return and nav buttons over the radio nob and no scr button. I do have double tap the home button as well, I think its programmed that way in case you accidentally tap it. I will say that the radio program it comes with is not the best, but im sure in the app store there is a better one that you can download but I always just use my phone and play pandora with mine. I have also changed the default map program to waze because I have used it on my phone for a couple years now and it just works really well on the head unit. Im really thinking about rooting mine just to get rid of the weather app that came with it because it just looks bad and its never right even when connected to the internet.
 
#27 ·
I will say that the radio program it comes with is not the best, but im sure in the app store there is a better one that you can download
The original software was written for that particular radio circuit.

I'd be surprised if there are any alternative apps available for it.
 
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