Android Units - Stigma, Aliexpress & What you are actually buying?

It is now 2024 and Audio Tech Direct is celebrating 10 years of specialising in this sector. Now, of course, we dive into all aspects of car audio and in-car-entertainment such as sound system solutions, OEM integration, OEM retention, after-market radio installation parts, dash cameras, visual solutions and lots more but our main speciality and love has always been bespoke Android OS head units. This is where we really are the market leaders and experts.

Over the last 10 years, we've seen companies in the UK pop up, last 12-18 months and then disappear. We know every single Chinese reseller in the UK (all of them dodge VAT by the way but that is a different subject!) and we can spot a copied/fake product a mile away. We have survived because we know the products and we know the vehicles inside out. For this reason, we buy only premium products to sell to the UK public. We do not cut corners.

The point of the blog is for you to buy with confidence from someone who actually knows what they are doing and not to try and save some pennies by buying online and it ending up costing you a lot more in the future. This is why you need to buy the CORRECT Android OS product, first time round. 

So, let's talk about them. Address the stigma and inform you exactly what is what with them...

STIGMA

Often Android OS (operating system) units have been branded as "cheap Chinese c***). Often old boy car audio shops will tell you they won't touch them as they believe the branded head units are better, mainly because all they know is single/double DIN conversions or they purchased a cheap Android unit back in the day and it didn't work well and have now written off any other Android unit ever built since as being useless. The real issue here is they haven't purchased or experienced the CORRECT Android OS unit. You look online with eBay, Amazon & Aliexpress and they are absolutely littered with Android head units. Many of them of them are extremely low priced, so you would be tempted.

So why are ours more expensive?

SPECIFICATIONS MATTER 

Most units do not tell you the actual specifications. Some will do and they will often tend be really basic, depending on price. The specification is vital to the units performance. 

If the unit only has 1GB DDR. This is not sufficient to even power the latest Android 11, 12 or 13 operating software. So if the seller is claiming it has Android 12, 13 or even newer then this will be false. They will be masking the true Android version, which will actually be 7.1 or maybe possibly 6.0, which are both outdated now. The market is littered with these type of units and they will just be problematic.

If the unit has 2GB, then will just about deal with the latest Android OS but won't leave much room for operating it as the dump memory will fill up any remaining space quickly. You would be repeatedly clearing the cache on the unit to run it daily. This would become annoying, especially if you like to rotate through apps.

We only offer units with a minimum of 4GB DDR3. The majority of our units use Samsung DDR3. You will have a lot of free space of memory to run Android seamlessly with our systems. Build components are also a major factor. Our units are filled with branded components such as Toshiba, Samsung, Panasonic, Sanyo and SiRF. 

We only use top processors such as Rockchip, ARM, Snappdragon etc also. We use the best radio IC's from ST Micro too. Something we sorted early days when it was identified factories always tried to cut corners on the radio mode as they thought not many users would listen to the normal analogue radio. How wrong they were!

Beware of some sellers claiming 128GB or 256GB or even 8GB DDR. This is possible but costs a lot. If their units are below $400 then it is highly likely these figures are untrue or they are talking about using all memory device inputs as expanded media that can total this amount. We base most models around 8-Core CPU, 64GB & 4GB DDR. This is a massive spec but at a satisfactory price level. You can go bigger (and we can do bigger) but reality is, you probably do not need bigger as it would take a lot to fill up 64GB worth of Android market apps and media.

ANDROID IS GOOGLE OWNED

Google is a big ass company. They own Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, Mail etc and Android OS is pretty much what is used on every single phone that is not an iPhone. You think they would make a poor operating system for your vehicle?

We use what is classed as Vehicle-Class Android. We have added in a version that has been proven stable and re-engineered to give you the most stable Android solution on the market currently. Our Android system knows it is for a car and not a tablet. All current units use CarPlay & Android Auto. We only use officially licensed Android Apps for this. This costs a bit, as you can imagine, for the license. A lot of other factories use copies, which are often unstable and have connectivity issues. This can wind up a lot of people. Do it right first time and buy from us. Knowledge and experience.

CHINESE SELLER EXPERIENCE 

A lot of customers come to us after they've already had their hands burned by AliExpress, eBay & Amazon systems. Most of the sellers are journeymen. They are dropship vendors who use UK freeports and who operate typically in 1-2 year cycles and then rename and start over. They just sell because they are cheap, don't need to invest or pay for staff, storage, tax etc and can make a quick low profit. The reality is they have no vehicle knowledge and very little knowledge of the products either. You will notice they also sell loads of other random things too and don't have much of an idea about them either. These sellers are not the factories who build the products. They are not the engineers or theme developers. If you ever have an issue, you've got to wait 12+ hours for a response due to the time difference and the most important thing is, you only have a 60-180 day maximum warranty. It is easy for them to say 2 year warranty etc but it never checks out. If you have a faulty unit, the return is often back to Asia and that costs you around £60+ to send back. After 180 days, your PayPal or credit card protection expires and it be highly likely you will never hear from the seller again. This is why we try and stress the value of our warranty, which keeps you safe from defective units and bad aftersales advice.

PRICE 

It is annoying but we are priced higher than most on the market BUT this is why...

1) We only offer premium products. You are paying for officially licensed products. No false specifications, copies or fake versions. The great sayings "buy cheap, buy twice" and "you get what you pay for" couldn't be more true. 

2) We pay VAT. We are a UK company, so sadly everything has 20% VAT on it. We cannot avoid this like the overseas sellers can (they shouldn't but they do avoid it). We do not use freeports. 

3) We are in the UK, we have telephone support, a trade network, installation services, staff and we are experts in this field. We need to pay for operating costs, rents and rates, imports, shipping, insurances and everything else. It is not cheap to run a business in the UK these days so we need domestic support from UK buyers. 

4) We don't buy from factories. We have our own factory who can design and build to our requirements and tailor builds to our needs. This is what makes our PBA range unique. We do not offer XTRONS, Seicane, Pumpkin or Eonon units. Every single Android OS unit we offer, is exclusive to us. You are likely to see copies online but this is very difficult for us to govern. They will always have small differences though. 

5) You will not find better and more helpful staff than ours. We are experts in German vehicles, Japanese imports and pretty much everything else. We do not just have a niche knowledge base, we know all the product ranges but most importantly, we know Android OS.

Ultimately, we are encouraging you to make the right choice first time around. At ATD, you will be given a product that has had a lot of time and research put into it. You will be communicating with specialists and you will be dealing with a UK company with 10+ years of experience of making sure we put quality into your vehicle.