Hi all and thank you Dash for allowing me to kick off this thread.
Manufacturer: XTRONS
Model: PF75ATTAR
Purchased: August 2016
Retail Price: $495.23AUD (Purchased from eBay store. Was significantly cheaper than the manufacturer website)
Steering wheel integration: Very good. Everything works. The volume scroller works great and pushing in mutes the audio. The voice control button will answer/hang up a phone call. The directional scroller works to change song or radio station. The directional scroller will not work with Spotify.
DIS integration: OK at best. Radio stations are displayed as a mHz figure on the DIS, not RDS name. Volume will show up when you change it, but often will show up and not disappear. If you use the onboard CD deck, it will read out the elapsed time as a 00:00:00 figure. I only use Spotify on my headunit so the top part of the DIS is blank.
Interface: Pretty good for driving. Looks very smart and is easy to use on the move. There is a file manager to reach all the back end stuff but there are 'apps' for CD, Radio, and external. There is a feature called "Element" which allows you to choose any colour for the faceplate illumination. The red matches the original lighting. No need to ground a parking brake check wire either, playing of video while driving can be activated by software. Additionally, there is a "Factory Settings" mode which allows you to get into the back-end of the software. This allows you to do things like alter the functionality of buttons on the face panel and change the Android splash screen to a provided car logo (Audi is included), or you can make your own and apply it. I've made an RNS-E copy which is attached below.
I apologise if TTForum has reduced the size or quality, contact me if you require it in full size.
Satnav: I elected to use iGo Navigation. Seems as though TomTom has lost their way over the years... I paid $27AUD for Australian maps, an additional fee (I don't remember) for Text to Speech which includes various voices in various languages, some do announce street names. I then paid an additional $5 for alerts which includes speed camera databases. It's very handy. I recommend changing the speed warnings to visual only and then activation of such warnings to 110% of limit. The Audi TT speedometer is very accurate and I was having my music interrupted every few seconds to tell me about my unsafe 1km/h over the speed limit habits. The map purchase includes a visual representation of the speed limit for any road also. The Navi button on the screen can be assigned to the app of the owners choice, it is originally assigned to Google Maps. Pressing the button again will return you to the previous screen... For example, I'm in Spotify and press Navi. It will open iGo. If I want to change a song I can simply hit Navi again and Spotify will fill the screen. Navigation will resume when Navi is reselected.
Media Support: There are two included USB cables which can be installed easily as required by the driver. It snaps into the loom. DAB+ is a separate purchase. A single deck CD/DVD player is installed but all audio formats should be playable. A2DP Bluetooth audio is provided but total rubbish so don't bother. The unit supports smartphone screen mirroring for Android or iOS. It's OK, but I found it unreliable. Will disconnect with no warning after a while.
Connectivity: Bluetooth is great on this unit, allows me to easily pair a mobile phone or multiple phones. Your phonebook will display on the headunit and it will communicate with a bluetooth OBD tool simultaneously. The headunit has WIFI which is perfect as I have it download my Spotify Premium playlists when I arrive home for offline playing on the go. A 3G dongle can be purchased from manufacturer. Don't waste your money on an external microphone, I asked politely and XTRONS threw this in for free as a gift (I wanted them to throw in the ELM327 Bluetooth OBD tool instead :lol: ). The built in microphone works just fine.
Ease of Installation: To somebody more experienced this will be easier. This car uses four anti theft 'slots' to secure the headunit. You need special tools or a rigid thin plastic in each slot to free the headunit. There is a video on youtube of Dension showing how to remove the Audi Symphony. I had a local car audio shop pop it for me, they charged me $20AUD, my local VW dealership offered to do the job for a staggering $250AUD. The loom is very bulky, make sure you tuck it all nicely away before putting the headunit in, the top clips will 90% of the time go in easily, the lower is challenging. Take a better look at the bracket in the car, there's a rail designed for it to slide in on. If it's not in this rail the lower half will not fit. Overall fitment is very good, small gap on right side of unit (closest to driver on RHD) but have had multiple passengers think it was OEM. I used double sided tape and attached the GPS antenna to a metal bar behind the dashboard. Seems to work just fine.
BEFORE YOU INSTALL: Decide whether or not you want a back-up camera, if not you need to cut the back-up camera wire and tape it with electrical tape.Otherwise when you select reverse, the music will mute and the screen will go black with an exclamation mark in the centre.
So how does it stack up?
Fitment: 9/10
Audio Quality (Standard Audio Equipment): 7/10
Functionality and Flexibility: 8/10
Speed and Performance: 6/10 due to the user being required to clear cache regularly.
Overall integration: 8/10
Total Ranking: 7.5/10
Final Comments: For me, Satnav is mandatory in a car. I'm no fan of standalone GPS, and having a mobile phone free standing in a cockpit is dangerous. The XTRONS integrates well into the dashboard and is very easy to live with for daily driving. I'm pleased with the unit despite the little nigglies such as the poor cache management. Price was fair, it does what it promises to and customer service is excellent. Though, if the car had RNS-E I would likely not have made the change to XTRONS.
I hope I've been able to make the decision making process easier for potential buyers!
