By Ryan Huey

• Radio Reception

I read a lot about bad reception. I live 60 miles out of Houston, TX and the reception is just as good as my factory radio. Maybe very slightly less, but all the major radio stations come in perfect.

• WiFi Hotspot

When I run the hotspot on my G5, it works fine. The apps are just as fast as my phone.

• GPS Navigation

The iGo Nav app that comes with it was a lot better than I anticipated. When I don’t have the hotspot on, it’s definitely sufficient. I prefer Google Maps (when you first open, scroll down to accept terms, it took me a minute to figure that out). Finally, you can do a real map research, this is so much better than my Infinity Nav System.

• OBDII

I bought a cheap OBDII Scan Tool and set it up through Bluetooth (PIN 1234), downloaded Torque, and it runs great. Still haven’t had time to set it all up yet, but it’s very cool for $15 for tool and app.

• Pandora

I downloaded Pandora and it works great. It’s much quieter than the radio, so the radio was loud when I switched back. There are setting to change volume settings for the different modes to fix that.

• Steering Wheel Control

I used the Axxess programmer to set up the steering wheel buttons (brown wires to “key” 1&2 brown wires). Got instructions from the AXXESS website for my vehicle and it was fairly easy to program. I like that you have many options to program buttons to something else. I used my “MODE” button for “HOME”. That way if I want to open an app while driving, I hit MODE (HOME) and I have the apps I use driving on the HOME screen, so I just need to glance down onece and push it. Otherwise, you have to look over, hit HOME button, scroll to find the app, and then push it. I got the 6.95″ Android 4.4 head unitbecause I have volume buttons on my steering wheel control. Otherwise I probably would have gone with the unit with a volume knob. There are volume buttons, but you’d almost have to look down every time to use them.

• In Conclusion

This radio may not have everything you’d dream of and may not be set up exactly the way you want, but it’s SOOOO much better than any of the mainstream radios out there. If you’re like me and have priced the mainstream radios with Nav from $800-$1000, you’ll think there’s no way this is good quality for under $400. I don’t know if it’s Bose quality, but it’s damn good.

For more stunning Android head units, welcome to visit the Pumpkin official website:

• US Website: http://www.autopumpkin.com/
• UK Website: http://www.autopumpkin.co.uk/

Great head unit (KD-C0234) for the price. Can’t find anything like this from the name brand companies like Pioneer, Sony, Kenwood, etc. Pumpkin is way ahead of their competition.

By Dan J

There are lots of great features, these are a few of the better ones.

• Android 4.4 operating system. (just the fact that it’s an Android head unit is awesome)
• Built-in Bluetooth and WiFi. Being a quad-core tablet I get all of the advantages of my Android smart phone that I previously using in my car (for music, surf on the internet etc) via Bluetooth, built right into the dash of my car. I can add a back and/or  front facing camera, a wireless hot-spot, rear screens for the DVD to entertain the younger family members, tethering to my phone by hot-spot for Bluetooth, the potential is only limited by the accessories available in the marketplace.
• GPS works great. I have used the stock app iGo, Google maps and Waze (my prefered GPS app). All work quite well.
• Has everything and more than the most expensive name brand car radios. All of the features of the unit work as advertised, but the expansion possibilities are fantastic. Android is definitely the future of car head units!
• Since I can have my ECU logging software (torque and BtSsm) running on there without needing anything extra hooked up, it’s very awesome. Makes for a very clean setup.

Don’t get discouraged by this list of Cons, this head unit has a lot going for it.

• Music player app doesn’t display ID3 tags, only display file name.
• Unable to fast-forward or change the position of the song being played.
• The front bezel is slightly larger (in that it’s not recessed like American double din units), so I had to modify my dash kit just slightly.

Summary:

This is a really cool head unit, it’s quick, very responsive and has many many great features; but it needs some software flaws fixed and few hardware issues fixed. If you can deal with the flaws it has, you will have a lot of fun with this. As time goes, I hope that some of these software issues get resolved because I really like this head unit.

For more stunning Android car head units, please visit:

• US Website: http://www.autopumpkin.com/
• UK Website: http://www.autopumpkin.co.uk/