Originally Posted by MrGatsby

The Porsche 911 is the epitome of timeless; I'd say it's one of very few cars that's truly remained the same since it's inception decades ago. With each iteration brings subtle changes, and unfortunately the 997 fell prey to mid 2000's technology - the very first "screen" in a 911. The aging, dated PCM is an eyesore in what otherwise is a beautiful and truly timeless interior.

I had a challenge - I wanted to update the PCM but do so in a way similar to how Singer approaches their cars - maintaing an OEM factory look, at modern standards. The traditional options are the alpine/pioneer/kenwood units, which are a good choice but I couldn't get around the fact that even with the bezel they looked clearly aftermarket. The Dynavin is a great option to keep an OEM look but they are hard to find and very expensive.

So I started digging and came across this Russian company called, "Smarty Trend". They offered similar to the dynavin - a plug and play unit with no need for a bezel, adapters, etc. After research, there was little to no information on them, except for the fact that they use a generic chinese android unit, rebrand it, and charge a lot more. This same unit can be found on Aliexpress a lot cheaper. At first this turned me off as I've heard horror stories of Aliexpress products. However after research on the unit itself, which is called a PX30, I found raving reviews. The plug and play unit is $240, and complete with MOST adapter is just $325 shipped. I had to give it a try.

https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/c550Clw

https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/bXkCiAp6

Review -

Buying Process - 9/10

Buying was very easy. I set up an Aliexpress account and linked my PayPal for added security. I placed the order on 7/20. The unit shipped on 7/22, and arrived on 7/24. Very quick shipping. The lack of full points for this category comes from the language barrier with the seller when asking questions. My questions were answered promptly but not entirely understood correctly.

Install Process 7/10

Install was easy in comparison to most PCM updates, but still required a few hours work and some basic knowledge of car electronics. The unit came as promised with plug and play cables, and fits right in the original PCM spot without any modifications. Everything transfers over and plugs into the new unit, and for those with Bose you just have to wire the MOST adapter power, ground, and acc wires. My main issue was the lack of instructions. For a unit tailor made for our cars specifically, you'd thing there would be tailor made instructions. I suppose as far as cost cutting measures, there could be worse.

Now on to the head unit itself -

it's a quad core running android 9.0. It has a built in DSP, wifi, bluetooth, steering wheel controls, Canbus, GPS, and options for front and rear camera. My initial impressions far exceeded my expectations. The unit looks great and performs very well.


Fit and finish 7/10

Overall pleased with the unit. From the front, the black metal finish looks great and fits snug in the dash of my 997. The OEM PCM has clips to hold it in place, while the Android unit does not. So I did have to improvise in order to lock it in to place. The rear of the unit shows some misaligned screws and has unlabeled connection points. The screen resolution is very high in comparison to the old Becker unit, but not that high by modern standards. The unit does only come in black finish, so I had to get creative with aerosol paint to attempt a match at the climate box below. Main points off in this category go to the fact that while everything works perfectly now, only time will tell how it really holds up.

Sound quality - 9/10

The sound quality truly surprised me. I was not expecting it to be such an upgrade from the Becker unit. The DSP allows you to really tune it to your liking and makes the whole system sound like an upgrade. The subwoofers kick harder, the tweeters are crisp and clean. I was thoroughly impressed.

Features - 10/10

This is by far the most customizable and feature rich unit you can have in a car, hands down. It allows you to do virtually everything you can do on a computer/smartphone. You have access to google chrome, waze, spotify, apple music, amazon, youtube, netflix, torque pro, or just about any app you can download right from the play store. You can even download custom launchers like Nova launcher and truly make it yours. I linked it with my phone so once I enter the car the hotspot automatically turns on and enables wifi anywhere from the unit. You have bluetooth calls and music as well as a microphone and GPS antenna that came with. You can also opt for a DAB radio tuner, CarPlay extension, and Backup camera if you choose.

Software - 6/10

The stock launcher it comes with is simple and easy to use but visually not to my liking. I downloaded a custom launcher called "CarWebGuru" from the Play store which enables some very cool features made specifically for cars. The main difficulty navigating this head unit will be for those familiar with iPhone. If you already have an android phone, you'll feel right at home using this unit.

Overall 8/10

For the price and simplicity of the upgrade, and the amount of features you get, I could not be happier.










Update 7/31 -

I didn't like any of the stock launchers on the Play Store, so in an attempt to emulate a similar look to modern day Porsche's, I am building my own. Here's my progress so far. The calendar screen changes to show music controls, weather, or calendar. The bottom icons you can swipe for different pages to display different widgets + icons. The map updates in real time to show location.





Torque pro widgets on the next page to monitor as i drive in real time.

For night driving, a simple black screen with a clock on next page

Originally Posted by Amine

Hi, total newbee here !
I just got myself a 997 Carrera 4 with Bose system, and I aunm looking for exactly this kind of head unit, with full screen under the facia, not the 7inch ones where you have the universal 2 DIN screen inside a black plastic frame, inside the silver facia...

So I only have one question, after researching a lot about sound (which I know very little about): there is mention all over this thread of good or excellent soud results, how does a unit with 2 RCA outputs give sound to all the 13 speakers ? Is this working with a basic MOST box through the Bose amplifier ?

Thanks !
Amine

Originally Posted by PajamaShark

After dealing with all the quirks for six months, I'm considering trying out one of the UIS7862s units, since they're at least supported by the XDA community and could conceivably get bug fixes...

Originally Posted by Amine

Also, I found a nice unit that has optical out, but I cannot find anywhere an adapter that connects the spdif toslink optical out to the MOST in the Bose system, anyone has any idea how to do this ?
Thanks
Amine

Originally Posted by Amine

Thanks PajamaShark ! very useful info indeed, regarding the MOST box.
Regarding the UIS7862 units from Joying, did you find one that would look as good as the one in this thread, with full screen directly under the silver facia, with no black 2DIN frame ? I was considering also puting a 9 inch joying unit (comes with optical out) that would sit on top of the leather side trim, instead of inside it, but it would not look stock at all...

Originally Posted by YarraMates

Writing this in hopes to save a lot of troubleshooting for anyone else who is going to use these Android head units with their Sound Package Plus optioned car. I was stumped for a couple of days and surprised that over the years this has not been reported in detail.

EQUIPMENT

2010 Cayman 987.2 with Option 490 (SPP) - Sound Package Plus (9 speakers). CDR30 OEM head unit. NOT BOSE.
Android HU purchased from Owtosin Official Store - Version 13 - 4G Qualcomm Snapdragon 665.
***You do NOT need an optical fiber adapter.
I quickly realized that an optical adapter box was not necessary as there are no optical wires going to the factory HU.

PROBLEM

Significant background noise.
Volume setting 1 is much too loud.
Reducing volume to 0 on OEM CDR30 HU prior to removing it had no effect.
Reducing values in VOICE screen to 0 had no effect (Settings>Car>password 126> Voice)
Reducing AMP output value in OTHER screen to -15 had very little effect (Settings>Car>password 124> Other)

CAUSE
Cars with SPP have an amplifier under the passenger seat. The signal from the Android unit's main "power" wiring loom is already amplified, thus the audio signal is being amplified twice.

SOLUTION
Let the existing Porsche OEM amp power the speakers and send unamplified audio from the new Android head unit. The RCA output on Owtosin unit is not amplified. We just need to isolate the audio wires (Front Right +- ,Front Left +-, Rear Right +-, Rear Left +-) from the main "power" plug on the HU end and connect them to the RCA out plug instead. This is actually quite simple. This method only requires modifying the main "power" wiring loom that came with Android deck.

1. Depin (or cut) audio wires from the "power" plug that goes into the head unit. Refer to a sticker on the HU for colors. For me, these were White/White Black, Green/Green Black, Purple/Purple Black and Grey/Grey Black. So now we have the main quad lock loom that will connect to the OEM harness in the car on one end, and on the other end it will plug into HU for power and canBUS, but with 8 audio wires loose. Now we need to connect those audio wires to the RCA output on the HU.
2. I chose to use the existing RCA female connectors on the audio out loom. I bought 4 RCA male connectors on Amazon - make sure to get ones that split into two wires for easier + and - identification. Then simply match up RCA male connectors with colored wires from the first step. For example, for Front Right, I had grey + wire going to RCA male + and grey/black - wire going to RCA male -. Now we have 8 audio wires from the main harness connected with 4 RCA male wires. I used simple crimping connectors. This was my result:

3. Now just match up your RCA male and female connectors keeping track of speaker corners.
This has completely cleared up my sound issues and allowed me to keep the OEM amp, which I think is better tuned to work with existing speakers. The sound quality is actually amazing and all eq and balance settings on the Android unit are functional, so you can really dial in the audio.

I suppose, a tidier option would have been to bypass the RCA plugs entirely and connect directly to the audio out plug but I wanted to keep this simple and reversible.
Owtosin should just make a different harness for people with SPP. It really is such a simple mod for them to make. Perhaps @myw can advise his contact there on this.

The absolutely best solution would be if these units can simply turn off the built-in amp via software, perhaps in future versions.

Originally Posted by ThreeSixNine

Amazing post! I was actually just looking at doing something simlar in my 997. However I had been looking at the 10inch and 13inch floating Android headunits. See below for an 13inch version, which I think might be too big. However 10inch could be nice if it doesn't go over any buttons or vents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehf8vLk4eE4

Originally Posted by Jabamusic

Hi All

Can any one point me in the direction - Amazon etc - of where to obtain the Male RCA cables referenced here?

many thanks
Jaba

Originally Posted by MattDevoCustoms

it's literally in the post you quoted:

> I bought 4 RCA male connectors on Amazon - make sure to get ones that split into two wires for easier + and - identification.

Originally Posted by gazagja

Hi Where have you seen the 13" screen for 997 would be great