Well I have had this Pumpkin head unit now for over a month. This will be my detailed review for the above unit, including the reversing camera and DVR. I purchased this for a 2007 Volkswagen Passat.


First off the product was delivered in a quick time. Packaging was basic but did its job in keeping its contents clean and undamaged. Nothing was missing either.


Fitting the device is easy. It’s plug in and play. All you have to do is pry off the trim unscrew 4 torx screws. Remove old unit and swap them over. Making sure to plug in the relevant wires such as the GPS, Can bus and audio leads. The instructions are really poor but it’s pretty much self explanatory.


Booting for the android device takes around 20 seconds on stock. To which I installed a custom ROM from XDA which I highly recommend. This reduced the boot time by 5 seconds to 15. Well worth it in my opinion.


Originally I bought this android 5.1 unit as a way of streaming music from my phone. Though being android I found it easier just to install Spotify on the actual device and just run it all from the head unit. The sound quality is rather good also compared to streaming via Bluetooth. Though I have installed viper4android as I wasn’t a fan of the preinstalled equaliser.


Installing the DVR camera was a doddle. It is in essence a basic web camera so the quality isn’t amazing especially at night where the camera doesn’t really make much out at all. Changing the contrast with a 3rd party app does improve it some what. Though from a insurance stand point it will show that you weren’t the one to cause the accident so I guess it’s doing its job. During the day the quality is good enough but certainly not HD worthy.


The Reverse camera overall seems decent enough. This Passat being my first saloon car I found it difficult to reverse park without tapping the curp or worse. Being able to see exactly what’s behind me in real time is God send. Plus a lot cheaper than fitting parking sensors. Makes parking alot easier. Though my concern with it is the size of it. It’s basically a big long bar above your reg plate. Might be inviting to be stolen (the camera that is)


Now the bad points. Hands free is unusable. The other end can barley make our what your saying. This is with both the internal and external mic`s. The device will not switch off the internal one regardless if there is a external mic or not. My first external mic was DOA so I was issued with a external one. This made a slight improvement but not so that is was useible.


To fix the hands free I’ve purchased a Bluetooth aux hands free. My plan is to connect this to the aux in on the back of the unit and rely on the mic on that to capture my voice. Hopefully this will make calls in the car possible.


Overall for the price I can’t really complain. Looking at the market the only unit that’s comparable are the kenwood series of head units for the vw Passat and they are priced from anything over 600 quid.


–by Jon