Review: Xtrons PB7646BAP Android 6.0 Head Unit - Pic Heavy

[BMWCurves]

I got a disappointing email back from Xtrons today. They say they do not have any Nougat images for this unit and are probably not going to release one in the future. What the heck, man...

I guess I'm gonna have to rely on the modding community and hope they come out with one.

That is a shame. I wonder if it's a lazy thing or a hardware thing? There was a blurb in that Eonon thread about upgradability for Android OS PX5 chips:

I believe Android 7 is unavailable on all PX5 units, not just the Eonon GA7150A. The explanation from a brief discussion of this on the XDA Forums is, "The ability to upgrade is mainly limited by hardware drivers for certain kernel versions."

A couple good options at the moment for Android 7 seem to be the 4-core PX3 (for example, the XTRONS PA7746BP) or the 8-core T8 (like the Eonon GA8150A). However, it looks like Android 8 is coming to the PX5 soon, and my understanding is that it will probably be possible to upgrade existing PX5 systems to Android 8.

Link to specific post: http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showpos...3&postcount=48

[az3579]

Honestly, I wouldn't hold my breath for Oreo. Usually once an OS stops supporting a particular set of hardware, the later versions don't either.
I really hope I'm proven wrong!

[BMWCurves]

Honestly, I wouldn't hold my breath for Oreo. Usually once an OS stops supporting a particular set of hardware, the later versions don't either.
I really hope I'm proven wrong!

Yeah, I'm not particularly familiar with Android, but it seems upgrading to the new Android OS isn't to priority for a lot of manufacturers.

[az3579]

Yeah, I'm not particularly familiar with Android, but it seems upgrading to the new Android OS isn't to priority for a lot of manufacturers.

It probably doesn't even matter because there are still tons of apps in the store that state 4.4 as the minimum, so I think 6.0 is safe for quite a while.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[Karl Lazlo]

So, I ordered it last week. It arrived on Tuesday, I installed it last night in the ZHP.

LIKES:

Plug and play. A metric ton of cables and widgets to get it installed. No cutting, no splicing. I like that. In a dark driveway, start to finish in 90 minutes, including finishing a very large iced coffee.

Fit and finish. Looks perfect and I didn't have the antenna issue that BP had.

Sound quality. Better than the BizCD unit that was in there.

Ease of use. Been an android user for many moons, pretty familiar interface.

DISLIKES/ISSUES/WANTS

BRIGHTNESS! Holy man, can I get something to dim the screen for the stock launcher? Please.

Glare. Just like BP, direct sunlight makes the interface worthless to see.

Torque. Can't pair with my OBD2 BT dongle. Dongle works, Torque works on the phone, just not the HU. I will uninstall the stock version and install the paid version to see if it fixes anything.

Backup Camera. I don't have one, why does the HU switch to rear video and kill my music when I select reverse?

Phone App. No mic mute button?

No SIM. How hard or more costly would it have been to have an option for a SIM card?

One of my biggest gripes and cause for delay of a purchase has been the lack of SXM tuner in these units. Once I was a subscriber, but now I am not. If I ever reup my sub, why eat into my data plan for something that I can listen to with a tuner and external ant?

So far, with one day of driving with it, I am very happy. Quite a value for 309 bones from Amazon. I would buy another one.

[az3579]

BRIGHTNESS! Holy man, can I get something to dim the screen for the stock launcher? Please.

There is a little button on the top bar that looks like a square with a little icon inside of it. Press it and it'll bring up the brightness control slider.
I keep meaning to look for an app that can lower or raise brightness by time of day or something, but keep forgetting to.

Backup Camera. I don't have one, why does the HU switch to rear video and kill my music when I select reverse?

You can change a setting in one of the menus to not kill the sound when you switch to reverse. I forgot which one it is - I'll have to check my unit. I'll let you know which one when I find it.

I'm not sure if the camera switch can be turned off - I never looked for it. I'll look for that as well while I'm in there.

No SIM. How hard or more costly would it have been to have an option for a SIM card?

Probably would've added cost. You can add a 3/4G dongle in the form of a USB device to one of the existing connections available.

[ZHPizza]

@Karl Lazlo
The brightness is obnoxious. You can download apps to give it a better night mode, but I've yet to find one that will actually turn on automatically when scheduled.

You can disable the reverse camera in the factory settings menus. Password is m123456.

I also can't get torque to work but I'll try Torque Pro too and see if it's any better.

[Karl Lazlo]

@Karl Lazlo
You can disable the reverse camera in the factory settings menus. Password is m123456.

That did the trick. THANKS!

I also can't get torque to work but I'll try Torque Pro too and see if it's any better.

I uninstalled the app from the Play Store and reinstalled. Sees my BT OBD2 just fine now.

[ZHPizza]

That did the trick. THANKS!



I uninstalled the app from the Play Store and reinstalled. Sees my BT OBD2 just fine now.

Dang I can't get the headunit to find the adapter. In fact the Bluetooth search doesn't find anything.

[ELCID86]

Thanks BP. Great review. Does Waze work on the unit? And I assume anyone with Business CD unit will need to move the switches, etc. (I believe you wrote about that in your Eonon install).