UPDATE I'm over a month in now and want to tweak my original commentary.
I’ve been running the Eonon for a bit over a week now and feel ready to give a more detailed view of my thoughts. I’ll break this down into a couple sections - hardware, software, and misc thoughts.
TL;DR I really like it and I'm glad I bought it. Some Android and app stuff is really irritating, but it has features I wish my E93's NBT system had and it's good enough I will eventually get another one for my E38.
Hardware - A+
The overall look and feel of the unit is very OEM. Photos don’t really do it justice until you see it in person - the lighting is a perfect match to the BMW red/orange, the style is similar (but in my opinion a bit nicer) than the OEM units, and overall it’s a very clean look. Pictures at the end, random thoughts in bullets:
- As mentioned earlier, the unit isn’t sitting flush with the dash - the bottom wants to come up. I know this is an install issue and something for me to figure out, but it’s irritating nonetheless. These are not as intuitive to mount as I’d hoped. Update: I was able to solve this by remounting the unit with partially tightened screws and careful in-dash cable clearance. It's not quite as far inset as I'd like but everything looks good and stays put.
- Eonon put their logo on the hardware itself, which bugs the crap out of me. I’m going to figure out how to sand that off or otherwise mask it.
- The screen is very responsive and feels good, but does get a bit washed out with bright light. It’s not bad and I feel it’s always useable, but I don’t necessarily want to watch a movie on it if I can avoid it - not enough contrast. I feel this is more an issue of brightness than it is angle - the delta between full-dim and full-bright is almost imperceptible.
- I really want to click/depress the right (tuning) nob. It doesn’t do anything. The left one clicks to shut the unit down. Just feels weird to me the right doesn’t have any similar function (the OEM Nav unit clicks)
Software - C
I don’t like Android, so I won’t even pretend to be subjective on that front. I feel the UX is poorly designed, the mandatory hooks to Google invasive, and the OS/app ecosystem is generally unreliable and malware prone due to heavy fragmentation and poor software certification (have you guessed I work at Microsoft yet?). I’ve seen a handful of products that get around Android’s fundamental crappiness (Samsung Galaxy, Amazon Kindle) by heavily reskinning and reengineering it. Eonon didn’t do any of that - just a straight up install of Lollipop. There are a handful of Android UX constructs that just don’t make a lot of sense on a car’s nav screen - e.g., hitting the menu bar to cycle through apps, software volume slider (in addition to a hard button and steering wheel controls), required Android apps (Gmail, Google Settings, calendar, etc). Every single irritation I have in daily use stems from awkward Android stuff that really should have been stripped out for an automotive install - unnecessary apps, apps trying to update at random, app crashes, performance lag (e.g., turn the volume nob, wait 2-3 seconds for the OS to catch up), on-screen keyboard quirks, crappy widgets, etc. Some of the auto-specific apps are very well done (e.g., Radio) while others are half-assed at best (Bluetooth music streaming)
Griping aside, it’s manageable just nowhere near as polished as I’d hoped. It’s not all bad though.
- I installed Waze for my GPS system and can launch it off the NAV hard button. Default was Google Maps. Waze is kinda awesome and sync’s with my phone.
- I installed Skype and Skype for Business (work conference calls) and can run them off the dash, including seeing presentations. Freaky but convenient.
- I can watch Netflix or Hulu or use any of the other various streaming (video or music) apps.
- Just like a tablet, I can rearrange all the icons and widgets to my preference and set backgrounds, logos, etc. Very customizable.
- Update: I eventually identified the audio-lag referred to above is related to resource intensive apps having network connectivity problems - the entire unit grinds slow when something like Waze is trying to switch networks or establish a connection to my phone's hotspot.
Misc Thoughts- You WILL want a hot-spot. The software just wasn’t really built to be in an off-line only mode. Update I'll tone that down. You'll want occasional connectivity to keep your stuff up to date, but a constant hotspot is only necessary if your app library relies on it. Very personal preference.
- Spend some quality time setting up your apps and removing everything you don’t want (that you can). Very much worth it.
- Expect some app performance problems and just be ready to deal with it
- The unit will do a distance overlay on your backup camera, which is much better than what most cameras provide. If you’re buying an aftermarket camera get one without the overlay.
- Apps will occasionally fight with each other over audio functions - e.g., the backup camera silences music as the unit just reads a video feed. GPS and radio will occasionally pause each other. Etc.
- My iPhone doesn’t like being controller by the Eonon BT app. I use the phone to make all my selections and have the Eonon passively accept the audio. Not quite a hands-free experience.
- BT phone quality has been sub-par so far, but that might be my mic configuration.
Pictures
