OUSMIN A8 Pro Wireless Apple CarPlay / Android Auto car Stereo Review
Reviewed by @CarPlay Life
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In this video I check out the A8 Pro low-price wired and also wireless CarPlay and Android Auto double-din stereo from OUSMIN.
Unboxing~
The A8 Pro stereo is your standard double din stereo with a 7-inch capacitive screen with a wireless infrared remote, a mechanical front facing button arrangement with a physical volume knob, which also powers on/off and there’s a menu, backwards and forwards seek buttons for audio playback. This also have a front facing USB a port for USB Media as well as to connect to your phone for use with wired CarPlay or Android Auto.
On the back do you have the harness connector socket, a bunch of RF input connectors, an antenna socket and a 3.5mm microphone input socket. Attached to the unit at the back is also a USB cable with a female connector to connect an Apple Lightning or USB-C or USB-Mini cable to also connect with Android Auto or Apple CarPlay.
I have installed this stereo unit in my Pioneer demo pod that I used to use on my previous videos. Installation was very simple, with the demo pod cables matching the cable alignment on the OUSMIN harness. So for me it was plug and play. The harness is clearly labeled and there is a short area in the manual that will give more information on cable pin connections.
Once powered up the display is nice and bright with relative ok field of view. I found the colours (outside of a car environment) to be a little undersaturated, but the display has controls for saturation and contrast, so increasing this to around 60% (from 50%) felt much better.
The menu is very clear and both its background wallpaper, LED lighting, and also its startup image can be customised to your liking. The former and latter options can be adjusted with media from a plugged in USB drive.
Straight out of the box, both Wired CarPlay and Android Auto worked perfectly fine. The stereo also charging the device at the same time. GPS is handled in both devices, so there isn't an issue that this stereo doesn't come with a separate GPS module that you have to locate around your car.
Without an Android 11 OS device, I could only test wireless Apple CarPlay. Pairing and booting into CarPlay wirelessly was fairly seamless once paired to the stereo's Bluetooth profile. Boot up time was less than 25 seconds, so a decent connection speed there. Audio lag was still ever present due to the standard Wi-Fi audio lag.
Siri and Google Assistant didn't have any issues understanding me when using the bundled microphone. However call quality is a little disappointing. Although you can be heard, there was a noticeable interference hiss in the background....:(
Bluetooth Audio and Calling is catered for, and I didn't get the chance to try out the steering wheel button mapping. Neither could I try the AV/Rear parking camera or front camera video feed on this system.
Overall, the A8 Pro is a capable wireless CarPlay system. Let down a little by its microphone interference quality and lacklustre phone mirroring stability. But with wireless CarPlay and Android Auto, 4x48W output and a full blown audio and video customisations, if you're shopping on a budget, the OUSMIN A8 Pro is something you might want to consider.
