After I quickly reviewed everything that came in the box of this TTXSCAM T86 CarPlay/Android Auto receiver I bought via Amazon (*) it was time to power it up to see it in action. There were two test configurations. The first was powered by a solar charged battery and desktop speakers, the second round were powered by my car's battery and output to my car's speakers via an aftermarket audio input port. (Sylfex AuxMod Basic, now discontinued.) My observations are as follows:

The first thing I measured was the visible display area, and it was good news: it almost matched the size of stock navigation screen bezel. 4mm narrower in width and 3mm shorter in height, this is as close of a match as I could hope for. Mounting this inside the existing navigation hood would leave only a negligible black border.

When booting up, the screen displays this image which I think depicts a McLaren 720S. I want to change this image to maybe the Mazda logo or a picture of my own car, but I couldn't figure out how. The device also emits a little musical chime on startup on both its internal speaker and the audio line-out port. I didn't find a way to change or silence that, either. Neither of these boot-up behavior is a deal breaker but customization would be nice.

The device home screen has a few functions, the only one I cared about was "Android Auto". Pairing it with my phone as a Bluetooth peripheral enabled Android Auto. Scrolling around Google Maps on this device, I found the system responsiveness to be merely acceptable. There's a noticeable delay between input and response, and scrolling animations are chunky. It feels roughly on par with <$100 USD Android phones commonly sold with prepaid cellular services. I am optimistic the device's sluggish response won't matter, because if I want to do something like putting in a new address for navigation, I can use my (much more responsive) phone's screen.

Once connected to my phone, this receiver will try to reconnect to my phone every time it powers up. I counted ~30 seconds between turning on power and projecting information from my phone. It'd be nice if this was faster, but ~30s should be fast enough for everything to be up and running by the time I've backed out of the driveway.

Speaking of which, I also did a quick test of the bundled backup camera. I just connected the wires, no mechanical mounting. The camera is just sitting on the floor looking at my feet. With the camera connected and the signal wire tied to input voltage (emulating the power line of an illuminated reverse gear light bulb) it only takes ~10 seconds between screen power-on and showing backup camera view. This is roughly on par with the amount of time I allow the engine to settle down to idle before shifting into reverse, so I'm also filing it under "would be nice to be faster, but probably fast enough" as well.

When using audio line out, to my car's audio input port, I could control sound volume with the existing sound volume control knob or steering wheel controls. This worked as expected with no surprises.

Screen brightness is another story. The factory navigation system automatically adjusts screen brightness based on an ambient light sensor and a signal wire indicating if headlights are on. I can't tell if there's a brightness sensor built into this device, but it definitely doesn't have the headlight state. I have to manually adjust brightness to fit ambient light. I neglected to look for this aspect when listing my shopping criteria, oops. I'll have to see if this bothers me enough to make me pay for an upgrade.

I'm encouraged by the almost-perfect screen size fit, fast-enough startup time, and integration into existing volume control. I can probably learn to ignore the startup image and chime. I'm not so sure about screen brightness behavior, but that's not an immediate deal breaker. This cheap thing is not excellent, but it seems good enough to meet my needs. Before I take my car interior apart, though, I should do my homework and study information available online.

(*) Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.