Stock Stereo Amplifier

[Mr. Flibble]

I had heard that these stereo's put an unreasonable battery draw on the system and caused poor starting due to a drained or totally flat battery. However, I also heard that newer models from Chinavasion fixed this issue.

After having my Royal Exceed sit for 3 weeks while I was away in Phoenix, I can say it started on the very first turn of the key with no issues. Now, I do have a dual battery setup, but I would figure that if there was a signifigant draw on the system it would be noticible after 3 weeks!

The "power" button on the stereo faceplate does stay lit, but it looks to be a very small and very low voltage red LED. I doubt it would produce enough of a draw to have an effect even after months of sitting idle. (You can only notice that it is on in very low light conditions).

I still have to fiddle with the GPS software on the unit - and fix my broken cupholder due to the installer shattering my faceplate.

Overall, if you have a bluetooth device like an iphone or ipod, blackberry etc. I would recommend this stereo. You do want to have a little bit in the way of computer skills to make it do exactly what you might want, and the interface is a bit sloppy - especially in MP3 mode. However, the incredible number of features that this head unit has compared to anything you can buy in a store in Canada or the US simply makes it worthwhile.

[Mr. Flibble]

The GPS works, and as a bonus you can load nearly any GPS software on the unit:

TomTom for winCE
TomTom for Windows Mobile
iGO8
Destinator
Sygic
Garmin for WinCE
Garmin for Windows Mobile
Garmin for Nokia
Ndrive
Nav n Go iGO Amigo
Polnav
Route66
Smart2go
Papago7
Navigon

Note, I have been fighting and fighting with igo8 as I have heard it is the best but I keep getting out of memory errors. I tested Route 66 today (with only the basemap) and it works just fine. I might just stick with that.

[Mr. Flibble]

After some tweaking and many many google searches I got Igo8 fully working with this unit. You can use multiple GPS software variants with this unit as noted above, but apparently Igo8 is the best of the bunch, and now having it working I must agree.

I am fairly pleased with this cheap Chinese unit, and I will be fully testing out the GPS navigation later tonight. However, I can say it is pretty slick and I can't believe that this cheap Chinese unit can do all this stuff.

I rate this unit as a total of 8/10. The drawbacks being that the interface sometimes goes flaky on you.

However, if you want a Dual Din unit that does GPS, Bluetooth Music, TV, DVD, Radio, MP3, AVI, DIVIX, IPOD (Yes, the IPOD charges!) AUX in, Bluetooth Handsfree Driving...

Well, then I recommend this unit!

(Please note, getting the GPS software did require some above average computer skills to get working. Given that I am in the industry I found it not TOO hard to get working, but you might need a computer geek to help you get the navigation functions to work on your unit.)