Trusted
I'm trying to tidy away a few of the things that have been on the to-do list for a *loong* time. The current item is a reversing camera for the car. I was originally looking at a basic wired camera with a separate analogue screen, but I like the idea of an all-in-one unit that would consolidate some of the many devices littering my dashboard. It needs to be cost effective though, as I can't really justify (or get Mrs MDF's approval) for spending a lot on this. The car is geting on a bit and hopefully will only be the family vehicle for a couple more years. I'm aiming to keep the whole project under $500, which I think will be easily doable for just a basic reversing camera, but I suspect might be out of reach for a better/all-in-one solution.
Name brand all-in-one head units go for between $500 and $1000, trademe no-name brands at $300-$500 (both without cameras), and Aliexpress for $200-400 (some with cameras). From the looks of it, the trademe ones come from Aliexpress anyway.
BUT do no-name brands support NZ radio frequencies? Most seem to make claims of being pre-loaded with NZ maps - is this actually right? How good/bad are the maps? Or do they just knock off NZOpenGPS? Other forum posts mention slow boot times (problem for the android ones in particular), though I can probably live with this (within reason). Have the trademe sellers actually done something to the Aliexpress supplied units to deal with NZ specifications?
I guess I'm just trying to weigh up the cost-benefits. Obviously a cheap generic isn't going to be as good as a name brand, but for half the price are you getting more (or less) than half the benefit?
If it helps, the car is a Ford Focus. The factory supplied head unit is double din and has the remote control stalk on the steering wheel. I'm in Wellington. I'm reasonably handy and have all the tools I should need, so was planning on doing this myself. Possibly famous last words.
