Erisin ES777A review with tips and advice

I've had some questions about the Erisin ES777A and thought I'd write an actual review about it. Since my last posts have mostly been just a walkthrough and a listing of the programs I use on it, the thing that's missing here is a review with my opinions and tips for potential buyers. So here goes:

The Erisin ES777A is in essence a double-din sized car stereo with a detachable face plate. What makes it interesting and different from the pleothra of competitors on the market (several models even from Erisin themselves) is the fact that the unit also runs Android. As far as I know it's the only one on sale today anywhere to do this. There is the Parrot Asteroid, but it hardly qualifies since you are very restricted on the programs you can use on it.

A bit of history and background first. I'd been looking for a head unit for my car (actually way before I even bought the current car) that could do anything - basically along the lines of the projects featured on mp3car.com. What I didn't want was a whole mess of different pieces and computer parts and a slow desktop OS in my car. Windows CE was one option, since all of the other cheap 1 or 2 din head units from China use it. However the Windows CE is not a very user friendly starting point since most of the software on it are either OEM/proprietary style or old/clunky and ugly. Android is what I use on my phone and what I knew I wanted. No devices were on the market and I continued my searches from time to time. Then out of the blue sometime last Autumn I saw something on the Internet called the Erisin ES666 and I was instantly hooked. Exactly what I'd been looking for - a 2din head unit with a detachable Android tablet! My enthusiasm was short lived as I read user reviews and saw a couple of Youtube videos of the device. It was painfully slow and clunky and used the already very outdated Android 2.1. I considered buying it anyways but thought I'd better not since it already looked like I'd be dissapointed.
Then in December I saw that they had released a new version with an upgraded tablet and my hopes went up again. I read everything I could find about the unit and it all seemed very exiting - a new 1Ghz Telechips chipset, double the memory and Android 2.3! No reviews were to be found at the time, but I decided to take a leap of faith this time and ordered it.

Now for the actual review.
I talked about the aesthetic aspects already on my unboxing post but I'll go into a bit more detail here.
The unit itself really IS way more professional looking than most cheap Chinese head units or Android tablets. There are a few issues though. The tablet part suffers from the same problems that the other cheap ones do - mainly that the screen is too close to the other inner bits which causes the screen to touch the other bits when tapped, which then causes ghosting. You'll know what I mean if you've ever pushed your finger against an LCD screen that is NOT a touch screen. This isn't a very big issue and it mostly affects the upper left corner of the screen (when held horizontally). The other obvious thing is that the touch screen is resistive rather than the more modern capacitive that all newer mobile phones use. This is an issue to consider if you're going to be using the tablet as an actual tablet computer at home. In the car it doesn't affect the use much at all in my view.

The tablet is fast. Very fast. Faster in operation than my HTC Desire S mobile phone. The startup is quick and the navigation program (which is the heaviest one of all of my apps) starts in a couple of seconds. So the speed issues of the ES666 are well and gone.
You do need to do some tinkering however if you want it to run smoothly in your car as the Android 2.3 operating system is not designed originally for tablets. This means you'll have things like a dialler program, contact list and all the other things normally found on a phone. Essentially they've just put the vanilla Android 2.3 phone OS on the tablet and not done anything about it. Luckily the Android community is buzzing with talented people who make fixes for these kind of problems. My post about the software I use is a good place to start with this tab. You'll be fine after deleting the unneccessary apps, installing some others, and tweaking a lot of settings. To put it bluntly - you're not going to have a good time with the tablet straight out of the box.

There are Wifi and all of the acceleration sensors in the tablet, and it connects to the GPS system in the head unit. However, there is NO bluetooth in the tab, only on the head unit. This will be an issue if you are planning on using an OBD2-plug with your car as the tab is perfectly suitable for running Torque or Adyno. Luckily there are a couple of options: you could use a Wifi-OBD2-plug or you could jury-rig a bluetooth module inside the tab - as I'm intending to do.

The tab has a big 3000mAh battery and it'll take a few hours worth of use outside of the car. You also get a wall charger for it.

On to the head unit. The construction is good, I'd say it's on par with any Japanese or European manufacturer. All of the plastic bits on the front feel good and the buttons click nicely and sound satisfying when pushed. There are an excellent selection of connections, such as line outs for all 4 channels plus the sub, rear camera input, standard ISO connections for all the normal stuff like power and speakers AND they even supply a cable for you iPod and the device can do iPod controls right on the screen. There are also cables for steering wheel controls and instructions on how to wire them up. Great stuff.

Some bad things as well. The buttons on the head unit are strangely chosen. If you don't have the tablet connected and are only using the hardware buttons you have VERY limited controls to some things and absurdly complex controls for others. For example: there are only play/pause, next and previous-buttons to control the songs. You can have a 16gig sd card or an usb stick connected with thousands of songs and there's no way to change the folder. What a drag. You'll have to click next a thousand times to get to a song you want to hear. The worst part is that the previous button doesn't go back more than to the first song on the folder you are currently in. So if you went over - good luck, you'll have to scroll forwards a thousand times again. This is my biggest gripe with the head unit itself.
When the pad is connected you obviously have more control. Still, it's not one of the best ones I've seen. You're going to see the first 8 characters of the folder and song titles and you'll have to touch the screen each time to get the control buttons to show up (they overlay over the bottom part of the screen and go away if you don't touch anything for a couple of seconds). Even with those the folder navigation is way too much of a hassle. First you touch the screen to get the controls, then you press the button to get a new screen of controls as the navigation buttons are on the second screen, then you navigate to the right folder and only then press enter. It's a mess.

I should explain that the problems arise from the fact that the head unit runs Windows CE and is totally separate from the Android tab. The screen is shared and you have a hardware button to switch between the Android OS and the head unit's one. All of my complaints about the user intefrace are about the head unit's proprietary music player that as far as I know cannot be altered or replaced. If you use the Android for music playing it'll be just as good or bad as the app you'll use for it.
The radio is actually quite good, reception is better than average (I used to have a late model Blaupunkt and the reception on this is noticably better) and the on screen controls are good. There are 6 hardware buttons for channels when the screen is detached so no problems there either.

The iPod connectivity works fine, as soon as you plug the cable to your iPod you get controls on the screen of the head unit that give you access to your playlists, artists, albums and such. Pretty basic but works without a hitch. There is also the bluetooth functionality I mentioned earlier. You have both hands free calling and streaming audio over the bluetooth. Both work fine and the telephone controls are large and clear to use. I only wish that the guy who did the radio and bluetooth apps on the head unit would have designed the controls for the music player app as well.

You have the option of choosing from 9 different car manufacturer logos for when the head unit is loading a disc or starting up. Unfortunately you HAVE TO select one of them and as you might suspect when there are only 9 - chances are that yours isn't among them. So maybe you'll end up with a Saab that has a Chevrolet logo or a Porsche with a Volkswagen logo like me. A small issue I know, but annoying all the same.

There are basic equalizer functions and some other settings such as button sounds and rear view camera mirroring in the setup screen. Mostly pretty basic stuff and nothing too special.
Sound quality is excellent and the built-in amplifier is among the best and most powerful I've found in any head units. Like I previously said, I used to have a Blaupunkt unit that I replaced with this and the sound quality is easily on par with that.

Other noticable things: there is no installation bracket in the box but they do supply all the cables (even the iPod one!), a remote and a nice leather holder for the tablet.

In conclusion I'd say this is an excellent product with some problems you'll need to keep in mind when buying. The fact that it has the Android tab makes it a must-buy for many since you can use all of the g-force and GPS performance software AND any navigation app you want straight on you car head unit. If you're willing to do some app installation and configuration on the pad and can overlook some of the usability issues I think it's impossible to get anything even approaching this unit at the same cost.

and this is where I bought mine from: http://www.erisin.com/erisin-es777a-3g-wifi-tablet-midi-pad-hd-car-dvd-player_p253.html


UPDATE: I can do a video version of the review and/or talk about a specific aspect or use case if there is interest. Comment on the post or send me a message if you'd like to have that.