the one on their site is the hualingan unit

That is their starting point. Think of it this way. You go out and buy a computer. Then you upgrade it by adding more memory or a faster DVD drive. On the outside, it has the same name, but on the inside it is different from ones you buy in the store. That is what they are doing. For example, in their last newsletter they mentioned that they changed to a faster chipset (processor).

Other retailers are just selling the Hualingan as it comes from the manufacturer.

Their website states the price is £498.99. I am not sure what that is in US dollars. Around $788?

You can try xe dot com for a rough estimate of the currency conversion.

I doubt it fully adopts the OEM functions. I wouldn't order one without proof that at least the DSP and the auxiliary heating options are there.

PS: damn that camera is expensive! :)

I'd love to see someone install this one and tell us about it. I'm too chicken to do it first.

I wonder if they will follow the previous trend and send out a newsletter for November. They added a new comment on their website telling customers to stop calling them on this unit. That means they have now cut off all communication on this unit, no phone calls or emails. These type of comments are starting to make me lose interest in them. I had never heard of them before the HL and this just doesn't feel very customer friendly.

Due to lack of information on their part I can only speculate that this product still has quite a ways to go. This is starting to feel like a 2011 product.

As much as I dislike the look, I will probably go with a Dynavin. The only reason is because the Dynavin does not require me to cut off the radio bracket. That way I can downgrade if I don't like the Dynavin.

You won't cut off the radio bracket, but you will have to pull some wiring gimmicks to keep the DSP and Sirius you mentioned in your sig. On the other hand, I myself don't find the Dynavin as an upgrade, just the horrible glare of its screen is a downer. A proper upgrade would be car pc with full ibus integration.

On the audio side I have been jumping through hoops ever since I purchased this BMW. :(

So far no one has beaten DSP. Only workarounds or they completely remove DSP. I can live with moving the MID to the glove box and moving the radio to the trunk. I have researched car PCs and they have quite a few issues too. How do you make a car PC monitor look good on the dash? Nothing looks good on the wide X5 dash until these units came out.

Dynavin and Hualingan should have approached the design like the Japanese do. Put the DVD slot BEHIND the monitor and use a motor to drop the monitor down. Hualingan would not required the dash hack and Dynavin could have used the full face instead of the infamous "forehead" design.

A car pc will simply output the software interface directly on your 16:9 unit. There are a few points you can tap into from that, from the OEM navigation output with RGsB, to the NTSC composite signal on video aux or even reverse camera. As about the DSP, the car pc won't need to defeat it or bypass it, it will fit on the existing audio system. Same goes for controls too, since you tap into the ibus, you can read any button press, both on your steering wheel and your head unit.
I played for a while with a Dynavin on an E46 and as bimmer passionate, I could not fully digest its look and pretend it looks close to OEM, even if it correctly replaces the OEM unit size. But maybe somebody not used with E46 would never suspect the unit is aftermarket stuff. Also, the interface felt quite clumsy, scrolling through a heavy iGo map was a challenge for the poor CPU, etc.
If I had the 16:9 unit, I would rather get car pc for a full solution, or one of those Grom usb boxes if wanted MP3, or some Ampire if I wanted videos. If I had the MID, I would rather go for something like Avic.

I had a thought about this the other day. The Dell Streak - Android powered. It has the PDMI connector which does audio/video and anything else. If someone could fabricate a dock for it, it would look pretty sweet in the dash. I know other things need to be figured out but just a thought along the lines of PCs.