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Howdie I thought i'd share my experiences and thoughts of this unit which I have now had for about 2 months.
Witson OEM W2-D728V [W2-D728V] - 394.68*EUR : WitsonShop
Its installed into 03 Bora 4 Motion and replaced the OEM original Radio and in dash CD stacker
Looks
It retains the original OEM look of the car which is what I wanted. One bug bear is that the background lights for the unit remain on as if you have your park/headlights on. Not 100 sure that this is not a wiring problem but don't think so. Any feedback welcome
Touch Screen / Picture Clarity
Works well and is a good feature although refer to GPS resolution comments
Radio
FM Average reception but bearable around town not tested out of metro area
AM rubbish, if you listen to AM at all then buy something else or leave the stock unit in there
This could be because the bora doesn't have a powered antenna? or maybe not
GPS
I forked out the extra $ for the SD card maps. If I was expecting plug and play how wrong I was. Took me about at least a week of research on the internet to get it working and rewriting of the sys.txt file. It runs the IGO8 software and maps and the version is dated August 2009.
For any of you looking at purchasing and buying their maps here is the sys.txt info that you will need to replace the sys.txt file which works is currently working in mine. I haven't yet tried upgrading the maps and can't be sure that this sys.txt info will work in other models or with other IGO8 versions. The issues seems to be how the unit tells it to look for the IGO8 application, seems to be because the 728 has a GPS map card and an SD card slot and the sys.txt file that comes with the supplied sd card maps is pointing it to the music/picture sd card slot not the gps sd slot. You'll notice I also had to dumb down the resolution to get it working, interesting I am not sure if that is because the res of the unit is lower than the claimed 800 x 480. Anyway here is the working sys.txt file
xxxxxxx
[folders]
;app="StorageCard\iGO8.exe"
;app="Internal Storage/iGO8"
[interface]
skin="ui_igo8"
resolution_dir="400_240"
vga=1
[debug]
skip_eula=1
xxxxxxxx
TV
Radio reception was so bad I haven't even tried it yet but for the extra $ at the time it seemed like a good idea. Figured that where I live you can't use TV without an decent antenna on the roof so as if a pissy little antenna in the car would work.
Ipod/Iphone
Its very basic but you can browse by artist genre etc. iPhone says that this is not a compatible/supported device when you connect it but playback sound quality is good and you can use the menu on your ipod/iphone anyway. Don't expect album art, artist song title to show up whilst its playing though.
DVD/CD
Great. DVD and CD playback is very good and easy to use. No jumping or any issues like that. Touch screen means you can browse through dvd menus
SD Card
Good, although I've had some issues with a Micro SD card in an SD card bracket so don't bother with that. It won't play WMA only MP3 and MPEG-4 Audio. Trick for young players if using MPEG-4 Audio from the menu of music / image / video you have to select video and thats where you'll find the tracks. Images are good you can load up you porn collection and impress your mates.
Bluetooth
Very good I replaced my BlueAnt unit which sat on my visor for the last 2 years and so I am happy with that. There is some low level buzzing on calls but this could the the iphone as it generates a lot of interference with all the antennas it has (ie bluetooth gps wireless etc). It syncs great and the unit will scroll to the bluetooth screen when you get a call. People can hear you very well and it also pops up with the caller id on the unit, but does not sync your contacts or show their name.
Overall sound quality
Great. I have added an AMP to my car and replaced the OEM speakers. Have had similar issues to many others around distortion from the bass particularily on front passenger door so installed some sound deadening which mostly fixed the issue.
Instruction Manual
Good luck you'll need to brush up on your engrish. My favourite is below "(thought it is an imported famous one") whatever that means
Install
Its a very snug fit, the original "professionals" who installed absolutely butchered the surround and broke the clips for the side parts of the facia. I ended up taking it to Golf City and they replace the surrounding frame and had to take of all the side panel and glove box to do it. I was getting my interior trim swapped over anyway so luckily I had got the unit fitted first because the scratched the old walnut trim getting it off.
The comment I got back from Golf City was that you needed to have access from the side because there are so many wires running off the back you need to be able to pull them and push them into place so you can slide the unit back cleanly. Anyway you need to know what you are doing and I don't so left it to someone who did.
Overall 6.9/10
Good value for money. The unit looks the part and doesn't stand out like some ricey upgrade. Overall the unit is OK, but I wouldn't go as far as saying its great or excellent and doesn't quiet deserve a 7/10. The best features are the bluetooth DVD/CD and GPS (now that its working), SD card is OK as well but the radio really lets it down, if the radio reception was better it would probably be 7.5 so if you don't use them much particularily AM you may find it more satisfactory. I am not a big ipod user so the limited functionality may be an issue for other people. It has some annoying things that I'll probably learn to live with (like the beeping every time you adjust the volume - I never noticed before how much I turned up and down the volume and don't know how to fix this but if you do please let me know) but if you are looking for low cost value for money whilst retaining OEM looks and want GPS and bluetooth without having bits hanging off your windscreen or visor then it fits the bill.
Also if you can read chinese; get the chinese manual it could be a shed load easier.
Here are some shots:
Instruction Manual
Installed
Witson OEM W2-D728V [W2-D728V] - 394.68*EUR : WitsonShop
Its installed into 03 Bora 4 Motion and replaced the OEM original Radio and in dash CD stacker
Looks
It retains the original OEM look of the car which is what I wanted. One bug bear is that the background lights for the unit remain on as if you have your park/headlights on. Not 100 sure that this is not a wiring problem but don't think so. Any feedback welcome
Touch Screen / Picture Clarity
Works well and is a good feature although refer to GPS resolution comments
Radio
FM Average reception but bearable around town not tested out of metro area
AM rubbish, if you listen to AM at all then buy something else or leave the stock unit in there
This could be because the bora doesn't have a powered antenna? or maybe not
GPS
I forked out the extra $ for the SD card maps. If I was expecting plug and play how wrong I was. Took me about at least a week of research on the internet to get it working and rewriting of the sys.txt file. It runs the IGO8 software and maps and the version is dated August 2009.
For any of you looking at purchasing and buying their maps here is the sys.txt info that you will need to replace the sys.txt file which works is currently working in mine. I haven't yet tried upgrading the maps and can't be sure that this sys.txt info will work in other models or with other IGO8 versions. The issues seems to be how the unit tells it to look for the IGO8 application, seems to be because the 728 has a GPS map card and an SD card slot and the sys.txt file that comes with the supplied sd card maps is pointing it to the music/picture sd card slot not the gps sd slot. You'll notice I also had to dumb down the resolution to get it working, interesting I am not sure if that is because the res of the unit is lower than the claimed 800 x 480. Anyway here is the working sys.txt file
xxxxxxx
[folders]
;app="StorageCard\iGO8.exe"
;app="Internal Storage/iGO8"
[interface]
skin="ui_igo8"
resolution_dir="400_240"
vga=1
[debug]
skip_eula=1
xxxxxxxx
TV
Radio reception was so bad I haven't even tried it yet but for the extra $ at the time it seemed like a good idea. Figured that where I live you can't use TV without an decent antenna on the roof so as if a pissy little antenna in the car would work.
Ipod/Iphone
Its very basic but you can browse by artist genre etc. iPhone says that this is not a compatible/supported device when you connect it but playback sound quality is good and you can use the menu on your ipod/iphone anyway. Don't expect album art, artist song title to show up whilst its playing though.
DVD/CD
Great. DVD and CD playback is very good and easy to use. No jumping or any issues like that. Touch screen means you can browse through dvd menus
SD Card
Good, although I've had some issues with a Micro SD card in an SD card bracket so don't bother with that. It won't play WMA only MP3 and MPEG-4 Audio. Trick for young players if using MPEG-4 Audio from the menu of music / image / video you have to select video and thats where you'll find the tracks. Images are good you can load up you porn collection and impress your mates.
Bluetooth
Very good I replaced my BlueAnt unit which sat on my visor for the last 2 years and so I am happy with that. There is some low level buzzing on calls but this could the the iphone as it generates a lot of interference with all the antennas it has (ie bluetooth gps wireless etc). It syncs great and the unit will scroll to the bluetooth screen when you get a call. People can hear you very well and it also pops up with the caller id on the unit, but does not sync your contacts or show their name.
Overall sound quality
Great. I have added an AMP to my car and replaced the OEM speakers. Have had similar issues to many others around distortion from the bass particularily on front passenger door so installed some sound deadening which mostly fixed the issue.
Instruction Manual
Good luck you'll need to brush up on your engrish. My favourite is below "(thought it is an imported famous one") whatever that means
Install
Its a very snug fit, the original "professionals" who installed absolutely butchered the surround and broke the clips for the side parts of the facia. I ended up taking it to Golf City and they replace the surrounding frame and had to take of all the side panel and glove box to do it. I was getting my interior trim swapped over anyway so luckily I had got the unit fitted first because the scratched the old walnut trim getting it off.
The comment I got back from Golf City was that you needed to have access from the side because there are so many wires running off the back you need to be able to pull them and push them into place so you can slide the unit back cleanly. Anyway you need to know what you are doing and I don't so left it to someone who did.
Overall 6.9/10
Good value for money. The unit looks the part and doesn't stand out like some ricey upgrade. Overall the unit is OK, but I wouldn't go as far as saying its great or excellent and doesn't quiet deserve a 7/10. The best features are the bluetooth DVD/CD and GPS (now that its working), SD card is OK as well but the radio really lets it down, if the radio reception was better it would probably be 7.5 so if you don't use them much particularily AM you may find it more satisfactory. I am not a big ipod user so the limited functionality may be an issue for other people. It has some annoying things that I'll probably learn to live with (like the beeping every time you adjust the volume - I never noticed before how much I turned up and down the volume and don't know how to fix this but if you do please let me know) but if you are looking for low cost value for money whilst retaining OEM looks and want GPS and bluetooth without having bits hanging off your windscreen or visor then it fits the bill.
Also if you can read chinese; get the chinese manual it could be a shed load easier.
Here are some shots:
Instruction Manual
Installed
and TV - E-mail:
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