So I'm in the middle of doing a radio upgrade...
I've decided to go down a different route to everyone else. I've got a CDR-23 so it's not an easy swap, but thankfully I've not got an amplifier so that does simplify things if only a little. I've gone down the route of an Android head unit by a Chinese company called Xtrons, as I wanted to make use of things like Google Maps, Spotify, and customise it completely to create a Porsche branded radio. Granted, these are made on the cheap but there's been great reviews, and I can tell you that so far it's incredible. Build quality is outstanding, and it's speed is fantastic. It just has to stand the test of time, but to be honest, what electrical component isn't made in China anyway? This wasn't an Ebay jobbie either, and was from the company themselves. They do a lot of custom radios, and are quite common.
It's not finished yet - I've ordered a custom surround as the Porsche double din one doesn't fit these which is a shame, so it won't be a perfect flush fit, but it'll look good nonetheless. I also need a radio antenna adaptor.
Here's the radio I've got:
It's got some incredible features. Being Android it's completely customisable. It's very fast, there's no horrible chrome buttons, the hardware buttons on the left and right are illuminated by RGB LED's and can be changed using any colour you can think of. It's lovely.
I powered it up using a laptop charger that I hacked into, so that I could customise it before fitting it.
Here's the home screen, with a custom Porsche background that neatly places a logo at the top left:
Customised the Android start screen to show my own designed Porsche startup logo:
Trying to make it feel OEM.
Got round to adding some apps (Google Maps, Spotify, etc)
Spotify:
Google Maps:
Notice the 'Porsche' app?
That's the Torque app, but I've customised the shortcut to show that. Torque now opens up custom designed layouts that match the car's interior, and gives me useful information.
Got round to fitting it:
The bezel should be here tomorrow, so it'll look a little nicer.
The awesome thing about it being android is that it's 100% customisable. I can install Netflix if I wished (obviously not going to). I can download Gmail, SoundCloud, even Facebook if I wanted to. It's perfect. The car radio can now diagnose its own problems through the OBD2 port and show real time information as shown above.
And the price? £190.
Now before anyone things "Awesome I'll order mine!",
this was far from a plug and play job. I've had to run custom wires from the fuse box, cut the radio harness wires and wire them into the cars adapters myself while soldering spade connectors onto them, I've had to remove the plastic surround and dremel it to fit the new radio, etc. It's not pretty behind it all, but it's finally working.
The bezel is custom fit to the radio and not to the car, so as said before there won't be a flush fit, but it should look a lot better. I may even make a custom made one to fill the gaps, but I'll have to see. I'm also going to remove the alcantara on the horse shoe surround. It's alright but it's not perfect, and I don't want to sound like a snob but I'm not aiming for 'alright' with this car. It needs to be spot on.
As soon as the bezel's fitted I'll take some better photos!