I was looking at this car computer my local distributor sells. I was wondering if anybody has ever tried them. heres the the link http://www.azentekonline.com/cms/content/view/41/146/

 

If it's a local distributor, shouldn't they have one already set up for marketing and advertising?
You know, so you can play around with it to see whether or not if you like it?

I wouldn't mind swapping out my AVIC-D3 with that to take it for a test spin.

 

well if you know anything about distributors they really dont put up displays of all there equipment they sell thats why you have local dealers. im just wondering if anybody has used this computer before. im thinking of getting it vers the pioneer AVIC Z2.

 

a word of advice... a carpc is not the same as a mm head unit... not by a longshot... I mean a carpc can emulate a mm headunit, & can do everyuthing that a mm head can do & much more even, but they are 2 very different things...

a mm headunit can be installed in a few hours or less & once installed, that's it.. it just works for the next few years that you have the car...

a carpc can take anywhere from 2-20 times the amount of fabricating, configuring, playing & frustration to get it to do what you want it to, & is never going to be as instant on, always there foolproof as a mm head unit.

this is not to discourage a carpc at all, but to let you really know what your getting yourself into... tons of guys get into carpc's & spend way more time & money than they ever thought possible, & some without a LOT of patience will bail half way there... I'm pretty into carpc's & would never go without one, but it's definatley not for everyone....

if you go the carpc route plan on spending many many hours on sites like mp3car.com , there is tons of stuff you'll need to know that you don't even have any idea that you even need to know yet if you don't have a lot of patience & time then seriously consider if this is really the right move for you...

 

If you have pc knowledge and time to spare nothing comes close to a carpc because you can completely change it up on a daily basis to your liking. But comes with this is reliability if your just looking for the most simple/reliable option stick with a mm headunit.

As for the instant on, you can tweak away if you have the correct setup. My current setup takes about 15 seconds to boot, If I use my auto start by the time I get into my car my frontend is loading. I also have my psu to go on standby after 5min and stays there for 2 hours so If I run to the mall I come out my pc is up and running instantly.

I also have my carpc auto sync my music and videos when I pull into my driveway with my home network, so its very much more flexible to the point where its not even comparable.

But again it all comes down to how much time you want to spend getting your carpc up and running how you want it.

 

yeah, I've got mine integrated pretty well too, but you know that it takes at least months & months and months of screwing with it to know enough to be able to really set it up like that too.

I've been doing this for years & I can now make my own skins & write my own scripts, configure girder & frontends & bluetooth phonecontrol & like you said, can do anything you could imagine... I do some pretty cool custom installs by now, but before getting to this point you know there are many many MANY hours of frustration & failures too, that's pretty much the point I'm trying to add here... it's more than just an install, it's a friggin project

in the end a full blown carpc is the ultimate, nothing beats a full custom pc install, but the price is a lot higher than intially percieved, & I'm not talking only $$$ but time & dedication... work really. it is a wonderful hobby but it's not an apliance like a mm headunit, that's for sure. the decision between mm head & carpc should be determined by how much dedication & effort your willing to take.

 

I have yet to start bluetooth for my phone, what hardware did you find works best?

 

I use a verizon xv6700 with a custom rom from ppcgeeks, still running wm5 for now, I use a widcom 5.X stack & phone control, run it thru centrafuse with a good noise canceling mic... I'm still having a few mic issues & working on getting it perfect but I got it working perfect thru the headset profile in windows... a lot of tinkering & configuring..

I also use the ppc to connect to evdo, but it's a hassle switching back & forth, I want to add another phone permanently installed just for evdo & recieving call in requests to the car. I can call my car & get it to start up & connect to the internet, then remote into it from the net thru go2mypc.com

a carpc is cool... if you got many many hours to kill

 

my question is, has anybody tried this brand of car computer? i know theres lots you can do with a car pc but i would like to hear feed back from people who have this or tried this company. My distributor just started carrying this brand and want feed back. Thats all im looking for nothing about other brands or programing. So if you could re frame from committing on how to set up car pc and the likes and dis likes of a car pc. unless it refers to this company it would be greatly appreciated.