Eonon GA5163 Review

[FatalSinz]

I know someone else has a GM5163 review, but i'd like to try my take at maybe doing another thread for specifically this deck.

First impression:

The price was considerably fair given the amount of features which is equivalent to your "standard" Navigation unit. I ordered the item on a Saturday, and they shipped Monday, arrived at my door on Thursday. That's without question the fastest international shipping i've ever had. That's the standard shipping. Not $3000 express shipping from Hong Kong.

The box it came in is actually VERY generic. No branding of Eonon anywhere on the box. Just says "Car Audio Deck" and then the features in bubbles on it. Which is a bit strange there's no brand name, but whatever. I was reserving my true criticism OUT of the box. Out of the box, it was a very factory looking deck. Very sturdy. The buttons don't feel cheap and wonky. They're solid like you would expect from factory. All the plug and play parts came with it. There was ZERO need to do any shopping for other parts. It is as plug and play as it gets.

It took me 30 minutes to install from removing the some bits of the interior, and putting it all back together.

The overall HUD/Interface of the unit, i wasn't entirely impressed. The icons that were on the screen felt very useless. The Nav, because it uses Google Maps, does require an internet connection. No way around it. However, you could just use a 3G dongle. Problem solved. My biggest problem was that my iPod couldn't be read. No idea why. It was plugged in, showed that it was being charged, but the actual song/artist information was not on the screen, and i couldn't play any music. Said "no music". Whatever. The app's that come with the deck are very outdated. It also doesn't come with Google Playstore. So, you cannot update ANY app. So, honestly, not impressed with the deck. FOR NOW.

Today i spent 3 hours trying to figure out how to upgrade the firmware from Android Jellybean (4.2.2) to run Android KitKat (4.4.4). At one point, i nearly bricked the deck. If anyone has ever booted their android into recovery mode, and seen the whole "Reboot system" and a bunch of other options, then you'll know what screen i'm talking about. I wasn't able to select ANYTHING in this screen. I figure i'll turn off the car, and see if that does anything. I turned off the car, but the damn screen was still stuck! FORTUNATELY, and i mean that this is an incredible feature, is that there's a reset button on the front of the deck. I'm so happy that Eonon added this. After doing a little fandangling, i uploaded some of the .img files onto a USB and booted the deck from the USB card and it worked! So now my deck is running 4.4.4!!!

That being said, the image i was using is also a rooted ROM. So now i can add any damn thing i want. Now the deck looks SUPER clean and proper. Like a real deck should look like. As for the iPod issue, i'm past that. I've just decided to get a 128GB flash drive, and plug it into one of the two USB plugs. NOW, i use Google Music to play the music, and now it functions like a 100% updated Android tablet, but specifically made for your car.

That being said, if KitKat came with the deck instead of Jellybean, this deck would have just gotten a 10/10 right off the bat. Now that everything is working with 4.4.4, i am actually rating this deck a solid 9/10. It now does everything i want it to. It's very responsive. Fast. Does anything you'd expect an Android to do.

The images below are from when i first bought it to the last shot i've taken. The photo of the Torque app is prior to KitKat, and the girl getting pounded was to see if the internet worked. The picture with all that fancy geeky text is the deck being flashed.


WORD OF CAUTION: MY METHOD OF INSTALL WITH THE FILE HAS BEEN REMOVED BY THE HOST. PLEASE VISIT THIS WEBSITE FOR DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS AND HOW-TO.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2660662