It's a 1.5 din radio so it's a perfect fit. Problem is, this is an old radio. I can't really remember when exactly I bought it, but my guess is it's at least 15 years ago. It doesn't have Bluetooth. No USB port. No DAB+ and I don't use CDs anymore. I've been looking for more modern 1.5 din head units but there simply aren't any.
So in search of one on AliExpress, I stumbled upon this:
It's a 1-din radio, but it's display is only slightly higher than 1.5 din. So it will most definitely fit the space. It supports Android Auto and Car Play. It has BlueTooth and WiFi. It supports a reverse camera, microphone and GPS. And its <$100. I dunno, it looks kinda ideal for our cars. I'm actually thinking about ordering one.
So what do you think? My experience with aliexpress is two-fold. It's either complete and utter crap, or it's "I can't believe they can make that for that price" good.
So, I actually have a experience with these radios.
Heres the deal.
Underneath the hood, they are all the same dog water bottom-of-the-barrel Chinese android tablet. Usually, a cheap 2 or 4-core CPU that isn't good for much else than running simple apps, or listening to music. They usually have a pretty clean install of android, and have an acceptable screen. I have one in my Fiero that folds out to show a full 7 inch 16:9 screen.
They are paired to a half-decent amp of questionable longevity. The only thing I will say is the really cheap ones <75$ usually save money by running the cheapest heatsinks (or none at all).
If you are looking for something to run an incredible hi-fi setup, look somewhere else. If you are looking for a cheap sound system that will blow a stock radio out of the water, and have a bunch of other flashy gimmicks, then I do recommend these. I have enjoyed mine for 2 years without issue!
I have stock speakers in my Fiero meaning it doesn't really sound very good to begin with. So I'm not too worried about sound quality. But I really like being able to have my (Google) navigation and Spotify side by side on one screen.
Wow! I have virtually the same radio in my Reatta! Din 1.5 radios are pretty rare now last time I checked. In fact, If you’re going to take it out, check EBay for the going rates for 1.5 din stereos. It might surprise you. 😊 As for a replacement, most Fiero guys go 1.0 din and get a Shosche adapter plate/housing to fill the gap. Otherwise, most go with the factory 2.0 din route. (Grand Am, Grand Prix, etc. or Monsoon) As for the newer stuff with video displays, I have no experience with them. Kit
i also have the same radio.i bought it for a third gen camaro i had.did you know that there's an aux cord made by pioneer that plugs into the back?it works well.you have to turn it on on the radio.its hidden.
I've installed the android stereos in a few other cars. I like them. I recommend you get the one with at least 4G RAM and cooling fan for smooth operation. Ive tried 1G and 2G RAM and they're way too slow
[This message has been edited by cyrus88 (edited 08-05-2024).]
The unit itself is 1 din, but the front is exactly 1.5 din. There are several versions ranging from a 2 core 1GB/16GB unit to an 8 core 6GB/128GB unit.
Do you mean you still have the original factory speakers in the dash? And the paper cones aren't shredded?
When I replaced my factory dash speaker last winter (one had already been replaced decades ago by previous owner, volume difference between the two had me thinking I had a dead channel haha), the paper cone was just fine, it's the foam surround that disintegrated, leaving the paper rattling a good deal (same issue with the other, old Kenwood one), replaced both with Rodney's speakers, oh, they're so good!
Do you mean you still have the original factory speakers in the dash? And the paper cones aren't shredded?
I remember replacing the speakers in the front for Pioneer speakers about 15 years ago. The Pioneers sounded worse than the ones I had in so I put the originals back in again. The speakers in the B pillar I have never replaced.
Over the years I've probably acquired factory dash speakers from perhaps ten(?) different Fieros. I don't think there was a single one of those speakers where the cones hadn't ripped due to the paper simply disintegrating over time. I'd be amazed if your factory speakers are still fully intact.
I installed a set of el cheapo "Pyramid" speakers in my Formula when I got it eleven years ago. I noticed the cones were more of a plastic than a paper material. I would imagine they'd be more durable than paper. Anyway, they actually sound pretty good... especially compared to the rotted out speakers I removed.
[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 08-08-2024).]
I remember replacing the speakers in the front for Pioneer speakers about 15 years ago. The Pioneers sounded worse than the ones I had in so I put the originals back in again. The speakers in the B pillar I have never replaced.
Cliff, does your Fiero have the Performance Sound feature? If you want one, someone on here (including myself) can try to get ahold of a subwoofer box. No real need to get the rest of the stuff, but a lot of people install a bazooka tube speaker in the subwoofer box and it really adds some mid-range and low frequency sound.
For speakers, there's a lot of decent replacements out there. I found the Pioneer speakers to be too tinny... it seemed they were all treble.
I don't remember what I have in my Fiero... I think they are MB Quarts (probably destroyed at this point), but with an aftermarket stereo, the sound should be MUCH MUCH better. I've found that the crappy sound in stock cars has less to do with the speakers, and more to do with the stereos. GM (in particular) filters out the lower frequency range intentionally. They do this to make the speakers last longer.
In the Fiero, the "Performance Sound" has a little amplifier which actually boosts the lower frequencies and filters out the higher frequencies.
There's probably some broken links in there (I apologize), but I bought a sound processor that boosts the signals from the factory outputs, prior to going to the amps, which allows the speakers to take full advantage of the available frequency. I have MB-Quart's for all four speakers (front doors and parcel tray as they call it), and then the subwoofer is powered by an MTX Sub or something? I think I have a total of 1,000 watts.
Cliff, does your Fiero have the Performance Sound feature?
Yes. It has Rodney's replacement subwoofer in it and although it sounds pretty good, it doesn't sound as good as the original (which unfortunately went kaput). At one time I had actually found the original subwoofer - not advertised as a Fiero subwoofer but it had the exact same specs and looked exacty the same. Unfortunately, they discontinued that speaker quite a few years ago.
I received the head unit today, and hooked it up to a 12V power source on my desk. I haven't connected any speakers yet, so I can't yet comment on its sound quality. But my first impressions so far... Wow, can't believe they can make this for under $100!
The display quality is amazing. They say the resolution is 1024x600 but I think it's more than that. For instance, this is the settings screen:
See how small the text on the left is. And here is the text on the left zoomed in:
The colors are very vibrant (it looks to be full 24 bit RGB), blacks are truly black and it has a full 180 degree viewing angle (left/right/up/down):
BTW, I will take better pictures later this evening. It's very bright in my room and I can't make good pictures.
Connecting my phone was easy and took me less than 30 seconds. It showed up as "Car BT" in my list of bluetooth devices. Once I added the device it asked me permission to access my contacts which I granted. That way, I can make phone calls from the head unit without having to start Android Auto.
This is the home screen of the unit. Again, these picture don't do the display justice. In reality the colors are much more vibrant:
"Car Play" is for connecting iPhones, Android Auto for Android phones. Tapping BT Call, brings up the phone call screen:
Tapping the contacts button here brings up your phone's contact list.
Tapping Radio from the home screen, brings up the radio:
I have no antenna nor any speakers connected, but it has all the features you would expect from a car radio. Acoording to the specs, it also has RDS so that's really nice too.
Tapping the icon at the bottom (that looks like a little fan) brings up your installed apps. By default, all apps are installed that you would probably need - and a few more. But since it's an Android device, you can install extra apps if you like (or uninstall installed ones). I won't go through all installed apps but I would like to highlight a few. First of all, and this was a very pleasant surprise, theres a DAB+ app installed. Nowhere in the specs did it say it supports DAB+. And that was actually one of the things that made me hesitant to buy this head unit because I really wanted a head unit that supports DAB+. DAB+ isn't software only - your head unit actually needs some special hardware as well. When I start the DAB+ app, it doesn't complain it couldn't find the DAB+ hardware so I think it really supports DAB+. But I can't be sure until I connect an antenna because when I start it now, it just displays "Connecting".
Another app I would like to highlight, is called "Audio Settings". It's a 16 band equalizer. You can choose between many presets, or just set it manually.
It also has a "Sound Field" option. This is actually your balance (left/right, front/rear) and loudness setting. You can use the arrow buttons to move the balance, or simply drag the red dot to set the balance.
Another very cool App is "GPS Test Plus". The head unit comes with a GPS antenna. The app shows you your GPS status: the number of satellites it receives, your position and its accuracy.
When I took this picture it only received two satellites (which isn't enough for a fix) and I'm unsure why. Earlier it received 9 satellites and it had an accuracy of 8 feet. So maybe something is interfering with the antenna. I mean, I am testing this on my desk so the unit is surrounded by a crap load of electronic equipment. 😁
Another nice feature of this app is that it has several display modes. One actually gives you a large speedometer (along with your heading and altitude). So if your car's speedometer is broken, you can use this.
The unit also has built in Navigation. I have no idea yet how that works because when I start it, I get a "blank" screen. That's probably because the GPS can't get a fix right now. I'm guessing it needs a WiFi connection to download the maps, but for that it first needs your position. I will test this again later.
At the bottom of the unit are its buttons. The knob in the middle is the volume knob. It's made from plastic but doesn't feel flimsy at all. It has A USB port for connecting USB sticks, and two USB ports (A and C) for charging devices. There's also a built in mic at the front, but you can connect an external mic on the back.
The buttons are full RGB, meaning you can change the button colors to any color you want. Problem is, I haven't got that working. If I go to the app to change the colors, it has three settings: Manual, Semi Automatic and Auto. When set to "Auto" the buttons loop through the RGB colors which of course is pretty annoying. What "Semi Automatic" does, I have no idea. Nothing seem to happen then. When set to "Manual" three sliders appear: Red, Green & Blue. You can also choose between a few preset colors. Problem is, changing the sliders or choosing a preset color does nothing. I'll try later if I can find anything about it.
Speed The unit feels responsive, not sluggish at all. I started the YouTube app and videos played smoothly, without any hiccups. Strange thing is that while in YouTube, it didn't respond to the back button anymore so I was unable to go back to the list of videos, or to exit the app. I had to exit using the "Menu" button on the remote.
Power Consumption I've hooked up the unit to a 12V 2.5A DC adapter. Power consumption never got above 8 Watts (1.6A) but I wasn't playing any music. I suspect that will increase quite a bit when you play music. I was a bit worried about the unit's power consumption in sleep mode. As with all head units, it has two 12V inputs. One "always hot" and one connected to your ACC. When you disconnect ACC input (so in the car that would be when you switch off ignition), it takes a few seconds for the unit to go in sleep mode. But when it does, it's power consumption drops to below what my power meter can measure. So <0.01A. Which is awesome.
So I did some more testing and I do have some concerns.
WiFi First of all WiFi is incredibly slow. Since it doesn't pick up my 5GHz SSID, I'm guessing it's 2.4GHz only. Running Speedtest gives my varying results - but none good. The fastest I got was 3mbps, but usually it's less than 1mbps. The unit is less than 5 feet away from my access point with clear line of sight. It mentions something weird in the manual about this:
quote
Note: When installing, whether or not you use a reverse camera or not, please connect the reversing cable. Otherwise, your wifi and bluetooth signals will be affected!
I think I know why they say this, since any not connected cable will act as an antenna an pick up noise from, for instance, the distributor. But the reversing cable is only one of three cables that will not be connected...
Built-in navigation
GPS: it often looses its fix and says it only finds a single satellite. But this could be due to the fact the GPS antenna doesn't have a clear view of the sky (since I'm testing this inside). When it does have a fix, it usually says it's accurate at less than 5 feet. Also, I can't get the built-in navigation to work. It's "Here WeGo" and it will not download any maps. I tried to download maps manually (it has an option for this) but it won't even download the list with available maps. Maybe this has something to do with the bad WiFi, but I don't know. This requires some extra investigation. Having no built-in navigation isn't really a problem since I will most likely only be using the navigation on my phone (using Android Auto). But still it would be nice if it works.
Cooling
This thing gets hot. Very hot. And it's not even built into my car yet. It has no cooling whatsoever. But since there's plenty of space (1 din in a 1.5 din space), I should be able to add a silent 12V fan (and some cooling fins) with ease. If that will help any, I don't know.
DAB My previous assumption that it might have DAB(+) was wrong. It doesn't. Even though there's a DAB+ app installed. I also found some hidden settings and that even gave the option to activate DAB+ on the unit but all that does was activate yet another DAB+ app. Does that mean DAB is not possible on this head unit? No, not at all but it does mean you have to buy an external USB DAB device - which I did. It was only $30 or so and connects to one of the spare USB ports on the back. The DAB apps that were already installed still didn't work then but after installing one from the play store, it worked just fine.
Cooling I found out the unit was actually covered in plastic. For the life of me I have no clue as to why. It was very difficult to see but it meant the unit was actually hermetically sealed. So I removed the plastic and that uncovered all cooling holes. The unit still gets hot, but not as hot as before and nothing a small 12V fan can't fix.
Sound Quality I hooked up a single speaker and I have no issues with the sound quality. It will sound different in the car of course but if you are worried these things might sound terrible: they don't.
Other Ok so the Aliexpress listing says it's Android 13, the unit itself displays it's Android 12 but it's actually Android 8. You can find updated firmware online but there are just too many to choose from. And if you install the wrong firmware, you can brick your device. So for now, I'll leave it as is.
I've also read that these Chinese head units report more memory then they actually have. Mine reports 2GB RAM end 64GB storage. I've installed a known good version of BusyBox on the unit and that confirms the 2GB/64GB. So unless they have something installed that fools even a new installation of BusyBox, these things really are 2GB/64GB.
The thing that still worries me is reception quality - of everything. Like I said, the unit is 5 feet away from the Wifi access point and the unit reports a signal strength of 40% or so. Speed tests max out at 12mbps down and 16mbps up which is okay but I'm sure it will not be able to pick up any WiFi once the unit is installed in my car. Also, I've connected a cheap car antenna I bought on Amazon and it picks up only a few FM stations. If that's because of the antenna's location (inside the house), the cheap antenna itself, or the unit - I don't know. I have the same problem with DAB. It only picks up a few stations and none of the stations play without breaks in the audio. But again, that could be because the antenna is inside my house.
DAB has been mentioned 17 times so far in this thread. For those of you who may be in the same boat as me, and have no freakin' idea what the hell DAB is, may I present the following.
DAB - "Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) is a digital radio standard for broadcasting digital audio radio services in many countries around the world, defined, supported, marketed and promoted by the World DAB organisation. The standard is dominant in Europe and is also used in Australia, and in parts of Africa and Asia; as of 2022, 55 countries are actively running DAB broadcasts.
DAB was the result of a European research project and first publicly rolled out in 1995, with consumer-grade DAB receivers appearing at the start of this millennium. Initially it was expected in many countries that existing FM services would switch over to DAB, although the take up of DAB has been much slower than expected. As of 2023, Norway is the first country to have implemented a national FM radio switch-off, with others to follow in the next years. In recent years, DAB has become the most popular radio listening platform in Norway, Switzerland and the UK, and has become a requirement for all new cars sold in the EU since 2021." More at the above link.
You know how it works on AliExpress... The base unit is $75. If you want the "special edition" with fan, you pay $20 extra for a $1 fan... 😄 Same with the GPS antenna. If you order one with GPS antenna, you pay about $20 extra, and you get a GPS antenna that costs about $3.
I have too many 12V fans laying aroud. So I'm glad I found some use for them. 😁
DAB has been mentioned 17 times so far in this thread. For those of you who may be in the same boat as me, and have no freakin' idea what the hell DAB is, may I present the following.
DAB has been mentioned 17 times so far in this thread. For those of you who may be in the same boat as me, and have no freakin' idea what the hell DAB is, may I present the following.
DAB - "Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) is a digital radio standard for broadcasting digital audio radio services in many countries around the world, defined, supported, marketed and promoted by the World DAB organisation. The standard is dominant in Europe and is also used in Australia, and in parts of Africa and Asia; as of 2022, 55 countries are actively running DAB broadcasts.
DAB was the result of a European research project and first publicly rolled out in 1995, with consumer-grade DAB receivers appearing at the start of this millennium. Initially it was expected in many countries that existing FM services would switch over to DAB, although the take up of DAB has been much slower than expected. As of 2023, Norway is the first country to have implemented a national FM radio switch-off, with others to follow in the next years. In recent years, DAB has become the most popular radio listening platform in Norway, Switzerland and the UK, and has become a requirement for all new cars sold in the EU since 2021." More at the above link.
