[Android Head-Units] kaween:
[MENTION=509153]cool_head[/MENTION] : Heh. So there's 2 units then able to do what my cheap-a** 10+ year old standard Ford radio can do. Yey ! ;)

So what is currently running in your car ? Frankenstein's son or Huifei-my-sound-s*cks-b*lls ?

[MENTION=822076]shadowmike[/MENTION]

This has nothing to do with "driving sales of a car", Mike. I'm not into that scene.

I drive my cars till they can't anymore or till repairs become economically unsane. With the exception of the car that I suffered a serious accident with 25 years ago, none of the cars we ever owned was younger than 15 years when they were discarded, and they went straight to the junkyard after having served us to the last day. 20 years on a Ford Escort, 14 years on a Scorpio. All of them were second-hand buys.

Not bad, no ? So "image" of a car and how it could reflect on me : I don't care _at all_. I'm currectly driving a brand of car some/many people wouldn't be seen driving in being dead. :)

If I came across like that, I'm sorry, that was not my intention.

What I care about however, is functionality and safety. And to me RDS is an inherent part of this. RDS&co was MEANT to be that, and it has been used for this since decades.

As RDS isn't what I'd call "a fancy feature" (lets face it, it has been around for 30+ years now !) : it's a useful, cheap, nice addition to any radio. It has been main-stream since the 90's. It can be found on any -nearly-given-away- radio for the last 10 years.

For example, my wife drives my car, she just wants a simple, clean, correct working radio. Nothing more, nothing less. Navigation ? Nice ! But that's about as far as it goes.

She's not interested in running Torque, running XBMC, playback-God-Knows-What.

She expects she can simply LOOK at the radio, SEE what she needs (Radio station name, Song being played, possible traffic warnings) . The tuner chips on the market, ALL tuner chips on the market including the absolute rock-bottom single chip solutions ALL have support for this . They've had it for decades. My last 2 or 3 (I should check) dirt-cheap Android China Phones all supported full RDS in their Radio-Tuner apps. Have I ever USED the radio in those phones ? No. Most of the people never do I gather. But my phones, which are hardly to be considered "radios" do support these functions.

But many (dare I say most) much more expensive Android car stereo units, which -lets be honest- will be far more see use as a "radio" than most phones ever will, do NOT support these functions correctly or even at all.

I understand and respect full well this may not affect you, nor many other users. But I find it stupid.

It's as if you'd have a cigarette lighter in your car which can be used as high power torch, mig-welder, plasma cutter and military laser, but to light your cigarette, it would be easier to just light up a match instead. :p

There's absolutly no reason what so ever for these units to have such clumsy implemented radio interfaces.

These units all without any exception, are 1000000000x as powerful (in terms of hardware design, transistor count, raw capability) as those super-duper-practically-given-away-for-free radios they replace.

If you look at all these units and see how cheap they are and what they can do, I agree they are fantastic feats of low-priced-electronics which work pretty darn well.

But it seems they all, excluding some exceptions, forget to be what a radio should be first and foremost : a radio.

It has been beaten to death, but I dare say it : "let's agree to disagree". :highfive:

[MENTION=5906490]roystervi[/MENTION] : yes and no. Do you find it "normal" that you haven't a working AM ? No ? Nor should you. Be as it may, this issue seems common on most Android units I've tried and tested so far : either the reception is not possible, or it's so bad it could as well be impossible. Does any 80USD car stereo do better ? Yep, no doubt.

As for RDS : The AN21-U supports RDS ... to a point. Radio Text for example works very, very iffy and it struggles to decode muliple text info's, simply ommitting them for what ever reason. You don't notice that till you compare it with a ... well, 80USD radio. :)