[Android Auto General] kjdBonez:
I have seen some threads where people are talking about porting android auto to an android head unit. I have also seen some threads where people are talking about putting android auto on a tablet or phone that they plan to mount in their car. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand the rationale for either of these. If you have an android head unit, don't you already have all of the capabilities of android auto built into your head unit? Similarly if you are going to mount a phone or tablet on your dash then why not use those apps that are already native to your phone/tablet?

The reason I ask is because I'm in the market for a new car stereo and the differences in cost between an aftermarket head unit with android auto and an android head unit (i.e. no-name chinese brand, etc) seem quite large. I've seen the reviews on here, Youtube and other places for some of the Chinese units and they seem very feature rich. Please help me make a list of pros and cons to buying a head unit with Android Auto and an Android Head Unit. Here are just a few that I can come up with.

Android Auto Pros:

- brand name likely with superior product support

- likely better stock stereo features (HD radio, RDS, Sirius XM, etc

- it is "safer" because it doesn't allow searching long music lists, etc while driving

- As long as the firmware can be updated to include later Android versions, when you want to update your Android phone its a lot easier than updating an entire stereo when a newer version of Android on Android HUs become available.

Android Auto Cons:

- Not all phones are supported from what I understand

- Some popular apps are not supported (i.e. Pandora

- Requires phone to be connected via USB. I'm not sure if this is necessarily a con however, because I'm assuming if you are using your phone as a hotspot you may need to have it plugged in regardless.

- While I'm not sure about this (correct me if I'm wrong), but I assume since you're mirroring your phone apps to a non-android device there is another layer of technology that can have bugs in and of itself

- Requires additional apps on your phone eating up space and resources

- relatively expensive

Android Head Unit Pros:

- No need for specific phone support

- Any app you can download on the app store you can use in your dash. Not that I'm going to be watching netflix driving down the road, but maybe my passenger wants to look up a good mexican restaurant on Yelp while we're driving.

- You can use a wifi hotspot other than your phone to provide the wireless signal if you want

- You can root these if they are not already rooted and run custom rom

- You can run Torque

- relatively cheap for what you get

Android Head Unit Cons:

- It seems like most of these are Chinese brands with little product support from the [unkknown] manufacture

- many complaints about internal mics and whatnot (although thanks to sites like this there are some workarounds for that)

- I'm guessing the quality of the stereo itself is probably not as good as when you purchase US brand name deck.

I can understand why the general public (mom, dad included) might see a benefit in having a car with an OEM-included Android Auto stereo if they're already using an Android phone and they like it. However for people who frequent this site, barring intellectual curiosity or being an audiophile who needs a top-of-the-line Pioneer deck and wants to be able to make hands-free calls or use Google Maps, I want to know why you all would choose a stereo with Android Auto vs an Android Head Unit. Thanks in advance for discussing this.