Yesterday I installed an EONON Satellite Navigation System / Radio that I purchased from EBay, replacing the original base radio and MFD in the e39 540i SportWagon.
The old radio, while functional, lacked an auxiliary input, the CD changer was located in the trunk, and it didn’t have many of the modern conveniences we’ve come to take for granted in the newer vehicles – namely bluetooth and satellite navigation.
I found the EONON system on Ebay for about $375, with free shipping. What made it attractive, aside from the price, was the fact that the display had been customized with BMW style elements and branding, and it was a direct fit for the car – and it somewhat resembles the very late-model pre-iDrive BMW navigation system. It had all of the features I was looking for – satellite navigation, bluetooth, and it even integrated with the car’s steering wheel audio control. On top of that, it has inputs for rear backup camera, can play DVD movies, and has both USB and SD card integrations. It came with everything you need, including a wiring harness adapter.
The package arrived pretty quickly considering that it had to come across the Pacific – it was shipped from China and arrived in a couple of days. The packaging itself was pretty good quality, and the actual unit was properly packaged and braced, so there was no chance of getting damaged during shipping.
The build quality on the radio/nav system is actually quite good too – nice plastics, nothing flimsy.
The installation was relatively straightforward (I’ll be doing a video on this later), and the final result is as close to factory as one could hope – the only thing that really gives it away is the EONON logo at the bottom of the unit.
So, on to the performance. The new head unit sounds pretty good, especially when compared to the old one. There’s actually bass output (before, the stock system seemed too underpowered to drive the factory subwoofer) all of the music sounds fantastic, even the radio, and it’s revised our opinion of the actual factory speakers that were originally installed.
The touch screen itself is surprisingly responsive, everything loads quite quickly. The Navigation system, while not quite as detailed or flashy as a stock BMW system, is easy to use and far more than adequate.
Due to the fact that you can switch the color of the LED backlight on all of the controls, at night, the head unit’s illumination matches the amber in the rest of the car, which is a nice touch.
The only downsides are the occasional spelling error on some of the menus, and the fact that you loose a tiny bit of functionality in the car with the Multi-Information Display removed (i.e. you can’t set the time on the actual instrument cluster, and you loose the station readouts up there too).
In summary, it was well worth the price, and so far I’m extremely pleased with it.
The Good:
- Viable, relatively inexpensive replacement for OEM headunit
- Improved sound quality and functionality
- Good build quality
- Simple installation
- Very feature rich
- Steering wheel controls work
- Has BMW branding
The Bad:
- Some spelling errors here and there on settings, etc
- Some loss of MID functions
- Documentation could be a little better