Chapter I : How to choose the favorite vehicle solution when buy a car multimedia player

With the development of the social economy, more and more families have their own cars. But most car video system equipped in the original cars which doesn’t have navigation and internet connect functions. For easy and safety driving you’d better buy a car multimedia player with android operation system.

Before I decided to buy an android head unit for my own car, I searched on internet at all of my spare time, there are so many options:

•  Various Brand: Including Ownice, Xtrons, Eunavi, Joying, Klyde etc
• Many solutions: Mediatek, Rockchip, Allwinner... 
•   Different operation system: Wince, Android 5.1/6.0/7.1/8.0...

All the sellers stressed that their own products are the best with powerful functions and excellent quality, that makes me have no choice and even don’t know how to make a decision totally. Because of my great interest of the android car navigation system, I read many postings on android forums including the forum XDA and 4PDA, and compared many android head units from different suppliers on Aliexpress and Ebay. Finally I made a decision to choose Ownice K1 series.

Click to buy Ownice K1

In order to help more rookies like me to make a quick decision to get their admired car multimedia player, I would like to write my experience in two chapters:

Chapter 1: How to choose the favorite vehicle solution when buy a car multimedia player

Chapter 2: How to choose the trustworthy brand when buy a car multimedia player

How to choose your favorite solution? Firstly we should know what are the popular solutions in the current market. Here I list out those I checked on internet: Mediatek (now called Autochips – the predecessor is MediaTek owned subsidiary), Rockchip and Allwinner.

•  Mediatek AC8227L: Android 6.0 | Quad core| RAM 1G/2G ROM 16GB

--- A high performance audio process with perfect stability and good sound effect.

•  Mediatek MT3562: Android 6.0 | Octa core| RAM 2G ROM 32GB

--- A highly integrated base band platform incorporating both modem and application processing subsystems to enable LTE in smart vehicle infotainment applications. (Insert 4G LTE SIM card, it can make phone calls and surf the internet like android mobile phone)

Tips: If you choose Mediatek solution, I strongly recommend the Brand Ownice which is the top ODM manufacturer of MTK chips, and their quality is much better than others.

 

•  Rockchip PX3: Android 7.1 | Quad core| RAM 2G ROM 16GB

• Rockchip PX5: Android 8.0 | Octa core| RAM 4G ROM 32G

Tips: You can find many navigation devices listed on Aliexpress and Ebay which are used the Rockchip solution PX3 or PX5, the brand I recommend is Xtrons but price also be higher.

 

• Allwinner T3: Android 7.1 | Quad core| RAM 1G/2G ROM 16GB

• Allwinner T8: android 7.1 | Octa core| RAM 2G ROM 32GB

Tips: I checked on aliexpress that Eunavi, Bonroad and other small sellers are selling Allwinner solution, these brands are never heard before, and their feedback are not good.

Secondly, I’d like to make a comparison of the above mentioned solutions, then you can make a decision quickly.

You may know that Mediatek is the world leading IC company, the company in charge of car infotainment business is named Autochips Inc, whose predecessor is MediaTek owned subsidiary. However people are used to call it Mediatek solution, it garnered an estimated 60% plus of the market share of Chinese aftermarket car infotainment business. Because Mediatek’s sales volume is very big, though they have a very strong R&D center, but still don’t like customers to do a lot of personalized revision, so they don’t open root access. This enable Mediatek solutions have a very good stability and a very good price as well.

Compare with MTK, Rockchip has a fast reaction on Android car infotainment system. Rockchip updated to android 8.0 now while MTK is still selling android 6.0. Factories who focus on foreign trade market, most of them choose Rockchip because Rockchip solutions update quickly and frequently. Since Rockchip want to follow the steps of android OS version tightly, the stability is not good, device always reboot automatically.

I didn’t put time on Allwinner because it’s performance on price, stability and market share are all weak than MTK and Rockchip.

Personally， I think Mediatek is the best choice for users because of its good performance on price and stability. But if you are an android player and have some knowledge on android framework, you can consider Rockchip, but should endure the reboot and black screen problem. Anyway, all of the above statement just represents my personal opinion, thank you for reading it.