Double Din Suggestions for $300-500?

J

JLiRD808

Member
:
2002 Protege5
My first DD purchase ever lol...time to retire the Alpine single-din.

I kinda wanna lot of bells/whistles.

Touchscreen
HD radio
BT
3-way active
Timing align
Voice command
CD
Rear camera option
Navigation options
Aux in (rear preferred)
Android USB (rear preferred)
....

Any favorites here...or ones I should consider?

THX!!

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk
 
Pioneer is my favorite and worth the money, others told me dual is nice and inexpensive but you get what you pay for. Kenwood is also nice but I prefer pioneer.
 
Thanks...what model Pioneer did u install?

I should add that Im thinking I really want Android Auto...I think I might need to spend $600 now tho to get all this :(
 
I want to do this also, but i am waiting for android auto and apple car play to go down in price a bit. i realize that they best navi is your cell phone one...
 
i12drivemyMP5 said:
This one seems to fit most or all of your spec list................reasonable price

https://www.ebay.com (commissions earned)
Click to expand...

Are those generic HU's dependable? I haven't even researched off brands yet, but I'm not opposed to trying em out if the word on them is pretty good!

Would hate to go thru the trouble of an install and have to replace after just a few months or be plagued with bugs though. Lemme know if you or other members here have experience with them!

Thanks!
 
I would avoid the generic Chinese radios. Reliability, support, firmware updates, and map upgrades are lacking big time. Many of those are fly by night companies that are around for maybe a year, close up shop and then open up again under a different name a month later.

Stick with a company based in the USA.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to brand names. I'd love to pitch the brand I work for but I'm not going to show a biased point of view. You really will do well with any of the major brands, but like I said stick with US based companies. They are much more likely to stand behind their product in terms of support. But alpine, Pioneer, kenwood, clarion... everyone has their opinion as to what they think is "the best". But your best may be different than my best may be different than Steve's best. Here's my advice. Make a list of features you MUST have. Then a list of "nice to have but not a dealbreaker". Then compare the different units out there and pick what fits your needs best for the price point.

My only other advice, if you find something that you like better for whatever reason/feature but it's a little out of your price range, wait and save a bit until you can afford that one. Otherwise you will kick yourself later and always say "man I wish I had bought xxxxxxx that would be nice rigjt now". I say this from experience having been in the car audio industry a very long time, and have done more installs and dealt face to face with more people than you could imagine to remove the first unit 6 months later because they should have purchased the first one to begin with.
 
though i wouldnt trust a cheap amazon or ebay clone, you should do some youtube searches on autopumpkin. its hard to say no to native google maps with your phone tethered as a hotspot. fill up a micro sd car with 32 gb of music, movies, whatever and just leave it in the thing heh. or stream music via your phone from spotify and soundcloud anywhere you have mobile coverage.
ive been meaning to get on one of these myself, and was very tempted by a junsi as they are quite cheaper than the pumpkin brand, but pumpkin has been around for some time now and makes a lot of oem replacement stuff too.

never been too impressed with dedicated car stereos and how they function. at least with native android os you can do whatever the phuc want with it to suit your needs/desires.
 
A good touchscreen - one with great color, responsive screen, and anti-glare finish - with all the options will cost you at least $500. Don't cheap out or you'll get something with terrible touch response times (which is not good while driving btw) or a cheap screen (i.e. faded colors, pixels/LEDs going out). Just keep that in mind while shopping

As far as good double din head units, I'm very happy with my Pioneer fh-x720bt. Doesn't have a touchscreen but it has plenty of options. Also looks very much like a modern oem head unit so it doesn't look at all out of place
 
Am I the only one that doesn't like touch screens? I really don't like taking my eyes off the road to find the buttons.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Autopumpkin seems interesting & I do see the occasional positive review from ppl that seem legit & have put them thru their paces.

Anyone have experience with Android Auto yet? Such good things coming from some reviewers while others struggle with connectivity and /or unimpressed with current features. The cheapest AA HU is around $600 I think.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk
 
Thieves will appreciate you buying the best and blingiest and +2 for US based companies.......with made in Thailand or Malaysia instead of China on their stuff. It's all a crapshoot nowadays for one reason or another. Uppity about brands and such at this price point is silly.
 
i12drivemyMP5 said:
Thieves will appreciate you buying the best and blingiest and +2 for US based companies.......with made in Thailand or Malaysia instead of China on their stuff. It's all a crapshoot nowadays for one reason or another. Uppity about brands and such at this price point is silly.
Click to expand...

I've been robbed before...trust me. For the first time in my life I live in a secured building & dont go out to shady spots anymore--it makes a big difference.

Being "uppity" about brands is one thing...buying generic from abroad with little trust or recommendations is another. U have good experiences with those decks?
 
i12drivemyMP5 said:
Thieves will appreciate you buying the best and blingiest and +2 for US based companies.......with made in Thailand or Malaysia instead of China on their stuff. It's all a crapshoot nowadays for one reason or another. Uppity about brands and such at this price point is silly.
Click to expand...

Allow me to clarify.

Stick with a US based brand... Being a brand that is headquartered in the USA. ALL the stuff is made in China, Thailand, Korea, etc... I wouldn't necessarily pick something based on WHERE it is MANUFACTURED... Those manufacturers build to the spec of the US based company, with the engineering force based here in the states. It's a pretty generic statement to say one country of manufacture is better than the other. There's some pretty nice stuff that comes out of China. But my point was on the US based BRANDS. While anyone can go out of business, an established brand that's based in the USA is less likely to disappear overnight. So the support for the future will be there. It's not uncommon for many of the generic chinese branded navigations to close shop overnight with no warning, and open a "new" company every 6 months to a year.
 
I have had one of those generic Chinese do everything HU's with 7" touchscreen, HD radio, TV, EQ, GPS, USB, AM/FM, SD card, AUX, IPOD, Bluetooth, bkup camera, CD of every type/dvd of every type, MP3, etc etc etc.....Have had no issues and the sound/video quality is decent for what it is. Everything is pretty much a luck thing nowadays so my experience with one may or may not mean diddly squat. I will say I have been lucky with this one (2-3yrs now) but who knows what the next person's experience might be. I tend to just stick with oem stuff anymore just due to the fact that no one much cares to jack with those since they won't get s*** for them at the pawn shop and seems the thieves nowadays realize that to a good degree. Of course, my ears have had enough of $5k audio setups and just don't care for that anymore. All that aside, the feature list and pricepoints are hard to ignore. Less than $200 and 40w x 4 was plenty, worth the risk to me and seems to have been worth it so far. It is not in a daily driver but lives in a garage and parks in one at work when I do drive it.
 
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