Double din head units?

[dspec]

Hi guys,

Fancied upgrading my head unit in the mk2 to one of these double din/sat nav/Bluetooth set ups.
It just made sense as I need a sat nav for work, I'm always on the phone and love me music!

Now I'm aware of the lovely kenwood/pioneer ones but has anyone had experience with something like this:

http://bit.ly/z1mJTK

Sorry if the link doesn't work on phone..


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[JayUK91]

TBH, as headunits go, that actually seems pretty decent.

Obviously you have the issue of knowing it's an unknown brand, therefore reliability and general use may not be up to the usual standards of much higher priced units.

The spec seems pretty good though, and for the price i'm sure it'll be hard to find anything better. I reckon it might be worth a punt ...and then you can let us know what you think ;-)

[Bradders]

i have that head unit, its awesome, does what i need it to do although i dont have the sat nav model (didnt come with it) mine was £150 delivered from a seller called black silver tech or BST as he puts in his pictures, i've bought from him several times and cant fault him. head unit works fine, has lots of inputs/outputs, does the job! cheap and cheerful. screen res is ok to!

[Baby_Todd]

i have that exact model in my car.
i cant fault the unit at all,ive had it for about 3months now and had no issues what so ever.

[PBee]

You got me thinking... I'd like one of those!

Did a search and spotted this, dunno if it's any good, again an unknown make, thought I'd mention it though as slightly cheaper still...

http://www.amazplus.com/62-inch-car-dvd ... 52518.html

It looks like its certainly got all the bells and whistles.

[dspec]

thats the only thing putting me off tbh is that its an unknown brand and the price is so close to a well known brand. just seems to good to be true! what is the sat nav like on them ?

[Bradders]

PBee, that one is only a 6.2" screen, can get the same thing with a 7" screen on ebay for around the same price!

[danleary]

ive had quite alot of experince with these unbranded units. its not so much that they dont do what they adverstise to do but its more to do with QA testing and how the well the the graphic interface has been built .
for example i had a simillar double din unit in my mr2 . it was non sat nav (£120) but had bluetooth,sd card, usb reader and in some senses it was touch screen.

it did all this stuff fine but the menu was poor . it wanst actually touch screen rather . double tap the screen and arrows and buttons came up . you couldnt read all the names on the tracks if they were long.
the worst part was the actual settings . i could plug a sub in but the only options i had for audio
were bass and treble adjustment. so i couldnt change the sub level (luckily i had cab remote) alot of these units dont have robust audio settings and feature unbraded amps.
this unit broke after 3 years , the inbuilt amp packed in but for £120 i was pretty pleased . overall the sound quailty was good.
i then plugged my very old pionner single din fold out screen unit . sadly this unit is so old it only plays normal cds and you have to plug another source in to make the most of the screen (depsite having a screen it doent play dvds) but being branded i had full control over my audio again . seperate sub control , frequency range settings high and low pass filters and mosfet amp made such a big differnce. ( the unit was expensive back in the day)

ive heard some of these units and some sound like having a cloth over the speakers. but this was many years ago when seeing a tv in car was new thing. some are not doubt better than others but its finding which one as there are so many of them.
to be honest it looks like these have gotten better with time and i am very inclined to buy one of the double din BST units . the interface looks alot better and more fluid but my worry is about the actually audio settings and specifically sepearte sub controls. my last one sucked

[RichardHunt]

I've just fitted an XTRONS TD714 which I bought cheap (<£90) on eBay.

http://www.xtrons.com/2-DIN-car-dvd/7-D ... TD714.html

So far no problems. It has no sat nav, but I don't mind that because I use my iPhone for that. The stereo bluetooth (A2DP protocol) works really nicely and the unit sounds good with my factory standard speakers.

Installing was quite a doddle. Luckily I still had the fitting kit from the original Toyota radio cassette player, which worked well for this unit. I doesn't sit quite as flush to the dash as I would have liked, but overall I'm pleased with the look of the unit. I have set it up to display the Toyota logo on the startup screen, which is a nice touch.

I have heard that the inbuilt mic isn't very good. I have only tried it without the engine running and it was OK, but I'm not sure about what it's like on the motorway. The MR2 isn't the quietest machine on the road!

[Snulty]

was very nearly buying this...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/390361540567? ... 1423.l2649

What you guys think?

Glad i spotted this thread! maybe we could post links to what is good & what is not!

[danleary]

I've just fitted an XTRONS TD714 which I bought cheap (<£90) on eBay.

http://www.xtrons.com/2-DIN-car-dvd/7-D ... TD714.html

So far no problems. It has no sat nav, but I don't mind that because I use my iPhone for that. The stereo bluetooth (A2DP protocol) works really nicely and the unit sounds good with my factory standard speakers.

Installing was quite a doddle. Luckily I still had the fitting kit from the original Toyota radio cassette player, which worked well for this unit. I doesn't sit quite as flush to the dash as I would have liked, but overall I'm pleased with the look of the unit. I have set it up to display the Toyota logo on the startup screen, which is a nice touch.

I have heard that the inbuilt mic isn't very good. I have only tried it without the engine running and it was OK, but I'm not sure about what it's like on the motorway. The MR2 isn't the quietest machine on the road!

Someone from here told me that other than bass and treble settings. There isn't alot of audio. Setting adjustments. In particular there is no separate sub woofer settings. :(

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[topgun]

I to brought one of these cheap brands never again interface and menuu was poor and packed up after 2 weeks sent it back got a refund.From now on i always buy branded names now, i have a Kenwood 7220 Double din with sat nav it never fails to mpress me,it came at a hefty price tag but worth every penny.
Been in the car for over 4 years now and never gone wrong.

[dspec]

The more and more ive researched into this the further away im going...

Alot of people are happy with them that's fine. But from all I've read:

Audio is appalling (even upgraded speakers)
Bluetooth works when it wants
Satnav crashes
iPod music doesn't work

And if you have problems xtrons customer support apparently is crap!

It seems it's pretty on the outside but inside its basically running basic windows and a spec that is nothing shy of 20 years ago.

Save the extra pennies and go for pioneer/kenwood imo!



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[topgun]

The more and more ive researched into this the further away im going...

Alot of people are happy with them that's fine. But from all I've read:

Audio is appalling (even upgraded speakers)
Bluetooth works when it wants
Satnav crashes
iPod music doesn't work

And if you have problems xtrons customer support apparently is crap!

It seems it's pretty on the outside but inside its basically running basic windows and a spec that is nothing shy of 20 years ago.

Save the extra pennies and go for pioneer/kenwood imo!



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Hope to be at Castle Coombe mate and i will give you a demo of my system