Review Tuesday: Podofo Portable Automobile Assistant

 

 

 
Podofo Portable Car Stereo Wireless Carplay & Android Auto & Backup Camera, 7 Inch IPS Touchscreen Radio Carplay Screen in Dash Navigation Unit with Bluetooth, Mirror Link, Voice Control, FM, AUX

 

All cars seem to come with some sort of a built in automobile assistant that syncs with the Bluetooth from you phone and connects you to EVERYTHING. Of course, people have been wanting to update their older cars with this sort of technology. Putting your smartphone on a bracket only goes so far. As you expect, this opened up a whole new market of aftermarket products for your car. 

When this arrives, the first thing you notice is surprisingly small packaging. This is supposed to contain a control unit with a SEVEN INCH DISPLAY MONITOR with power cord, backup camera with wire harness, and TWO different types of brackets, heavy duty AUX cable, and instruction booklet. They manages to pack it all, very nicely into this box. The one I received had a terrible smash on the corner (which looked like it was shipped like that as the delivery packaging had NO damage) but everything within was perfectly safe and intact. 

FIRST: TESTING. I took the monitor out and inspected it. It boasts a 7" viewable screen, but the device seems small. I compared it in size to my First Gen Kindle Fire that also has a 7" screen, and sure enough, the viewable area is the same! This monitor comes with a car plug with a USB-C adapter that delivers five volts to the device. You plug it in, hit the power button and it comes to life pretty quickly. At this point you need the instruction booklet. There appears to be four methods to connect your phone to this device, two each for the main operating systems. I use a fairly generic Android phone so my options were using Android Auto or Mirror Cast. Since the booklet explained how to use Android Auto first, I chose that method, which was pretty easy. Make sure you have Android Auto on your phone and that it is up to date. Click the Android Auto icon on the screen of this device. It provides a Bluetooth ID. Open up Bluetooth on your phone and look for that ID, then pair with it. DONE! It was surprisingly easy. It basically pulls your GPS apps, phone, messaging, and audio apps onto it's main screen. That is all customizable. You can add or remove icons easily, as you see fit. 

 

I opted for the suction cup bracket that attaches to the windshield. The other bracket has a flat base and comes with double faced tape and screws for a more permanent set up. That would not fit the curve of my dashboard, so I passed on it. The monitor snaps in snugly and doesn't move. The screen is nice and large and bright! For the first test I set it for a 20 mile drive and hit the road. For me, it took a little getting used to. It defaulted to Google maps, but I prefer Waze. Easy enough to swap. This device is only viewable horizontally, and I was used to vertically so I could see farther along the map. These are the little details that are just a matter of getting used to doing things in a different way. No biggie. The onboard is muffles, like it's talking through a pillow. Again, not a big deal. While driving, when I got messages on my various apps (SMS, FBM, Discord) they all popped up to one side which was pretty convenient and didn't block the map as I was using it. I didn't get any calls while driving with this on, yet, but I usually use a bluetooth headset, so I don't expect anything to change with that. 

 

Other functions. This device has a Micro SD slot and has a built in media player. My initial thought was, I could dump MP3s onto a card, and have all my music when i drive to that places with no radio reception. The only problem is that, when I tried to get it to work, it says the media player won't work while using Android Auto. Oh well, that's a bummer. I will keep playing with it to try to see if there is some way around that. It has an FM transmitter and an AUX jack so you can connect directly to your existing radio. Since it didn't want to play MP3s while using Android Auto, I didn't test these options. If the GPS was working on this and I could still use my radio and CD player, I am fine. 

 

The Backup Camera.  This kit comes with a nice looking backup cam and plenty of wire. What it DOESN'T come with is any sort of instructions on how to set it up. To test it out, I plugged the camera into the included harness, then plugged that into the AV IN plug. The screen immediately changed to camera view for a couple seconds, then went back to the previous screen that it was on. I haven't been able to figure this out yet. There IS a red wire coming off the harness, but nothing says what it's supposed to splice into. RED usually means POWER, but does it need a steady power? Do I run it into the back-up lights so it send a signal that I am in reverse? That's my guess, but I don't want to wire anything up until I know for sure. I don't want to burn out anything in this unit. I will need to do more research since the instructions don't even reference the backup cam at all.  

 

Whether your car is old enough that it didn't come with one of these, or if yours stopped working / you don't want to pay for a subscription anymore, this might be a solution for you. It's pretty useful and easier to see than the small screen of your typical cell-phone. Things I wish were better on this: more detailed instruction booklet because most of the functions aren't described. I also wish it came with some sort of sleeve to put the display in when you get out of the car. I wouldn't leave hanging from my windshield if I parked anyplace, even in my own driveway. 

You can get it on AMAZON