Customer Review on Pumpkin Android 5.1 VW Head Unit GPS DVD Player
Well where do I start with this Pumpkin vw android 5.1 autoradio dvd gps. I was a bit sceptical for several weeks on whether to pay the rip off VW prices for a more upmarked android 5.1 double din stereo other than the bog standard one I had in the car or pay around the £250 mark for one of these from China (although posted from London). I can honestly say I’m glad I didn’t go for VW as this vw dvd player is brilliant in my view. I didn’t fit it for a couple of months and it was a doddle to install in my MKV Golf 2007, everything just plugged in and was up and running in 20 minutes. Once installed you just really have to browse through the many settings and customize it for yourself. The main things I wanted were Bluetooth for my phone (which was built in) and the ability to play my Spotify account which it does brilliantly along with playing videos for my granddaughter. I have a reversing cam fitted but haven’t managed to figure out the wiring yet but I’m sure it will be ok when I get round to it. The one small downside is the radio reception isn’t quite up to the VW unit I had in the car and I had a constant (but mild) buzzing which only occurred when I turned my lights on so I have purchased a good quality inline supressor which I will fit shortly, other than that reception is great with radio stations also giving Radio station names. I think the best way to approach this pumpkin vw sat nav radio regarding apps is to treat it like an Android smartphone or Tablet as there are thousands of apps to download.
The video playback from files on a usb stick (I stuck to mp4 format) are crystal clear. I downoaded VLC player to be the default playback and it is great as it shows thumbnails of clips. The igo satnav which looks crowded on the screen at start is really very good once you customise it a bit. You can also download or use your own satnav prog (TomTom or Garmin etc) if you pay for an account(or one of the many free progs) and set it as default on the unit so when you hit the GPS button up comes your chosen satnav programme.
I had an iphone6 at the time of installation and it paired instantly and you are then able to view your contacts etc on the Head unit to make calls. I now have a Galaxy S6 and again paired pefectlyh. The packaged microphone is pants so I have invested in a far better one which is a huge improvement. The built in wifi is excellent as it easily picks up my house wifi when I’m parked outside or on the driveway.
Regarding the 3G dongle, the description does not make this very clear but I can confirm if you insert a 4G sim (Micro sim by the way) it worked perfectly in picking up a pretty solid 3G signal. I had a spare contract data sim that I am using but I did try a 4G payg phone sim and although it showed the 3g status bar on the screen it wouldn’t connect so make of that what you want.
If you use Spotify by the way it will work using the wifi when parked outside your house and continue to work once you drive off but the moment you change albums (go back to spotify home) it will loose contact. Obviously you don’t get this problem over 3G. I have set my spotify to download and play offline all my music to save data, I have also added a 32gb sd card (maximim size you can use) as my new default storage location as the head unit only has about 1g storage. You can also set a USB stick with tons of storage as default so it is really endless what you can download. DVD playback is brilliant and all playback media sound quality is great. The screen is nice and clear and colours are vibrant. You can customise the screen wallpaper etc and move all the apps around like a phone/tablet.
One odd thing but not a fault of the unit is when it is switched off (in a Golf in any case) the position of it in the dash it acts like a mirror and you and your passenger can see each others faces clearly as you drive along and you feel like you are being looked at all the time so best thing is if you dont want the radio on just mute the sound.
My advice also once you have this Pumpkin vw navigation unit and before you spend hours customizing it check if there are any Android updates for the unit, I made the mistake of doing it after I set it all up and it updates ok but resets the whole unit back to factory settings so be warned. The customer support bearing in mind they are in China are brilliant and will respond the next day and will always answer any queries and are very helpful. They will also provide you with the link for the latest update and installation notes, the notes say to download the update to an sd card but you can also just download direct to the unit using the link and install it from the built in flash memory. All in all a great Head Unit and I have no regrets whatsoever in purchasing it. Hope this review helps.
–by Heavyend81
Click to check more Android 5.1 double din stereo.
Click to check more Android 5.1 VW Navigation Stereo.
Pumpkin official websites:
US site: www.autopumpkin.com
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German site: www.autopumpkin.de
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