[MTCD Android Head Units General] transitoyspace:
Recently purchased Joying's updated android head unit. MTCD board.

First off I kinda knew what I was getting myself into. I had low hopes. So far there isnt much thats changing that view.

I ordered it through Joying-USA not Joying to get that US support.

Communication. So far I haven't had to deal with really bad broken English. Quick replies. Plus doctorman is on here aswell.

Shipping, Standard packaging. Basic non presentable packing. See Pic here

Condition, I guess these units arent new because mine was either clearly used or didnt take care of it during QA

See Pic here

Onto the device

Accessories

GPS

- External Active Antenna (ZDXW SGS) 3meters- You can swap out the gps for another active antenna such as shark fins.

External mic. 3meters. Basic non-branded 3.5mm mic.

Internal mic is on the front panel. Most callers usually can hear me from here.

screws - For mounting unit onto aftermarket brackets. Extra screws for grounding to chassis.

Thumb Drive - 8gb generic usb 2.0

Display

LCD- Cowin 10.1 HI424560108C TFT 60pin

Digitizer - Goodix GT9271

FPC Breakout- 3863-LCD TFT v02 11/11/15

TFT is TFT( its one of the later gen panels that dont suffer from horrible viewing angles) IPS panel would help this immensely.

Display change: the SOC can support Dual-panel display up to 2048x1536 resolution. Other rk3188 tablets have 1080 screens. Sadly for us since Joying wont support higher resolution, since locked in kernel. Without source code resolution will remain.

Its alright. Has decent viewing angles but because its a super cheap panel to make the digitizer and lcd are seperated by a good amount of room.

Cons of separated panels. Dust/particles get stuck underneath glass. wont know how it'll how up in extreme humidity. Pros, easier to replace only lcd or only digitizer. Should be cheaper too.

its a 5 touch display so its very old model as most touch screens now a days are 10 point. response of the display is garbage. Not as bad as early gen tablets but with only 1gb of ram youll be seeing a slow down rather quickly.

Ghosting, pretty much when your off center you'll see the ghosting of the letters due to the separation of digitizer and lcd.

Feels more like a resistive screen vs capactive since it doesnt always capture my input.

Reverse action/cam. Not yet tested

Colors. Saturated colors. need to do more testing.

OOBE:

No First Time experience. Since they install apks manually instead of sideloading or making custom roms they are installed after OOBE.

Pirated apps. Sygic comes preinstalled with folders. Have no verified all files within loaded folder.

Spyware/Malware - have not digged through all the system to see if anything out of the ordinary was added.

SystemUI.apk is completely modified so verification is needed.

Developers option to enable usb debugging is not available due to modifications to apk.

Launcher:

Garbage. Really slow. Any third party launch instantly improved speed.

If anyone's interested in pics let me know what you need.

Memory

, maybe with some optimization I might get more of this unit but so far the conclusion is that 1gb sucks. 2gb should be standard if not more.

Storage:

Board might take another USB port as header is available(i think). 2gb app storage. 16gb nand storage(so soldered on memory). Hidden SD card mount (Have no tested 128gb limit yet) is on the break out board. Joying claims decision was made to not get damaged by the Front panel. But since the front panel is pretty custom he/they choose the cheap/easy way and putting it inside. Putting the sd card on the side bezel would be ideal.

CPU.

I knew the Rk3188 was weak but I didnt think it was this weak.

Try running the preinstalled sygic map, just move around the map and notice the lag.

I mainly bought it to run sygic and poweramp if it cant handle sygic I dont know if it can handle anything else. :confused:

Conclusion: TL;dr

Not worth it at this price point. Maybe at under $200 .

Maybe through optimization you can squeeze some more life but as is, its a device that feels like it came out in 2013/2014(which is when this SOC came out). It feels like I got a cheap china tablet again that Ill eventually replace with a more powerful one because if it cant do simple things like play music and move maps then whats the point?

Competitors. Some offer cheap 3d printed faces. No english. No support at still the same price.

Actual stereo recievers. Alpine/Kenwood/Pioneer with android auto and back up cam cost at least $1,000. So this obviously seems like a better choice but both are really the same. Companies milking their inventory.

I like most others would have gladly paid $1,000 or more for a high end head unit with good support. But none exist.

I still have to see what else I can optimize before I give up on the little guy so stay posted.