ROSEN Carshow GM-1210 Acadia Install & First Impressions

[asonitez]

Disclaimer: I purchased and personally use this unit in my everyday vehicle. This unit was not provided as a review unit and no special things were done. I have no "real" experience installing electronics in vehicles. I use the internet and first hand experiences of friends to guide me in the right direction.

 

 

My Car: 2012 GMC Acadia SLT-1 Fully Loaded (Minus Navigation)

+Built in OnStar, SiriusXM, Premium Bose Audio System, Fold Down Rear entertainment Screen & Console. As of this post I have 26,445 Miles on the ODO.

 

Retailer/E-tailer: I purchased my system from Walt at www.adcmobile.com. Amazon had it a little cheaper and so did quite a few other places. However, when I call Walt... he answers and I speak to a live person that knows his product intimately. Other Retailers.. not so much.

 

Why this Unit and not the OGM-1: In my search for the perfect head unit I had a few considerations. The unit needed to be plug and play and easily removable. It had to be upgradeable and the Maps had to be up-to-date and easily accessible. It also had to support my iPhone and Bluetooth. I was not willing to loose ANY Functionality AT ALL. I had to concede (1) thing but more on that later. While the Advent OGM-1 was a great first choice... sadly they do not make them anymore. Its undetermined when the refurbished units will be back and even then... wheres that leave me if mine breaks within 3 years from purchase?

 

I spoke to Walt about this and he told me about the Rosen and compared it to Advent. I could not really find a difference in the units except that the Rosen's interface is significantly nicer looking and the backup camera is INSTANT ON instead of delayed like the Advent. The Advent seems to offer a few more things than the Rosen in the form of Backup Sensors and the like that the Rosen does not have. (Or I haven't found it yet.)

 

The Installation: This was surprisingly not that difficult. The Rosen's instructions are useless.. Completely and utterly useless. I suggest getting the online version If you can, and watching multiple installation videos of the Advent because they are strikingly similiar. I would also purchase a set of Interior installation tools from Harbor Freight. (I Purchased the Yellow 4/5 Piece Set for $6.95). They were incredibly usefuly and easy to use.

 

The hardest part of the Acadia install was locating the position of the GPS receiver. Rosen sends you a GPS reciver and a 3" X 3" Aluminum Plate that it attaches to. The Aluminum plate has a Peel and Stick side. The Antenna attaches to the plate by a powerful magnet. However the surface of the plate causes the magnet to slide around but not OFF. to Rectify this I used a small piece of tacky tape and secured it to the plate. In the Acadia if you lift the front mose part of the dash board.. to the right hand side there is a FLAT area with 3" Marked on it on some cars. Its flat right under some white foam pieces. The Rosen Plate and antenna can be stuck down there. The Antenna is then run through the gap to the left of the flat area and down behind the stereo's left hand side. I BELIVE this is the factory location for this GPS antenna. I have yet to SEE a picture of the factory location.

 

As for the rear of the radio and wich harnesses to use.. that part is fairly easy as well. The TOP of the rosen has a diagram with which cables need to be plugged where. You can PRE-PLUG the Rosen before going out side with the harness. when you get there and remove the stock radio the OEM plugs will hook right up. they are also color coded.

 

To Keep our unit from locking us out when the car was in motion.... we stripped the end off the parking break trigger and slightly unscrewed a screw on the rosen's back plate. We made a loop of the exposed wire and screwed it down with the wire. We basically grounded the parking break trigger to the unit itself bypassing the Navi/Video Lockout that happens.

 

I did this at night with my brother and it took us about 1.5 hours. HALF of that time was spent looking for and trying the GPS antenna in different spots. The rest of the time was spent testing and making sure wires were tucked in securely and nothing was popping out.

 

We did not run the RCA cable to the top of the rear-view mirror for the backup camera. (More on that later.)

 

 

 

First Impressions

 

The interface is gorgeous. Based off a clarion system the interface looks like someone spent some time to really go in and design it to look nice. Its bright, crisp and pretty. I belive it wins hands down over the Advent in this regards. There are some questionable uses of FONT color though. For instance the text when a song is playing over the FM radio is RED.. on a Grey background making it hard to see.

 

The screen is vey responsive and FAST. The transitions are SMOOTH and Clean. The menu's make sense and feel very "Apple" like. If you have ever used a in dash navigation system then you should figure your way around very quickly.

 

I didn't feel very confident installing the rear backup camera through the Navi. This install requires you to T-TAP the wires in the overhead rear-view mirror, run them along the head liner, down the Passenger A Pillar, through the glovebox and to the back of the unit. I didn't install it because I didn't get the RCA cables with the unit, the T-Taps, and I didn't feel confident tapping the wires in the rearview mirror. I might pay to have this done professionally this weekend. Another reason I didn't do the rear view mirror tap is that I didn't think I would want to look down at my DECK while reversing. I'm more prone to look at my rear view mirror (that already has a screen) than down at my deck. I KNOW the unit supports this feature and as such I WANT it to work. Along with a front facing camera as well. I also thought about replacing the Factory camera with a nice high Def licenseplate one from ADC Mobile.

 

 

My Gripes! :

 

Alright. There are a few things that kind of annoys me aside from the occasional design flaw. First off is the Bluetooth. If your car comes equipped with factory bluetooth then the microphone is a part of the OnStar cluster.This means that you cannot use your Rosen with the factory bluetooth. This further means that you have to make a choice of which one to use.

 

If you use the factory bluetooth then you get the same generic features that you had before. Steering wheel controls for the phone (Aaccept/Disconnect) included. If you choose the ROSEN bluetooth then you get the Phonebook/Phonecall features in addition to the A2DP for media streaming. You DON'T get to use the Steering wheel controls to pickup and hang up calls!!This is one thing I had to concede with. Disabling the ROSEN bluetooth means that you loose 25% of the features of your shiny new 800 dollar headunit. Also...since you are using the ROSEN unit it would be a good idea to run the external Parrot Microphone at the same time as the cables for your reverse backup camera. (I plan to) The built in microphone on the head-unit itself works great and I haven't had issues with it. However, I know the parrot microphone is quality and might make the quality of calls better.

 

A2DP on this Rosen unit does not display song or audio information. In older Toyotas A2DP is able to display song information, and album art and yet in this unit it can't? very weird.

 

There are SOFT buttons in the Rosen's menu that are not activated. Example would be the CarInfo button. It is greyed out. Its also not mentioned anywhere what this does. But it seems to track Mileage,Gas, and few other things. Maybe this ties into the GPS.

 

Navigation and GPS are excellent. I cannot for one second knock the GPS because it trumps every other one I have ever had. Its FAST, Accurate and the graphics are excellent. Its software upgradeable so I hope that iGO comes out with some sick stuff in the future. If anyone knows theres a Robust iGO aftermarket scene that takes distribs of iGO and adds some other functionality.

 

FYI the Carshow GM-1210 is the Same as ROSEN "Pirahana". This unit is updated and much faster than the older units. It should be compatible with almost everything that the Advent is.

 

Backlighting: The backlighting of the ROSEN unit is Green. It looks FINE in the Acadia with the red main controls and blue Ac controls. Afterall there are hints of blue in both the Drive gauges and the Ac controls. The green looks factory as if it was supposed to be there.

 

I will snap and upload lots of Pics today when I get off work. I installed this unit last night after a weekend of camping and was dog tired after I finished the install with my brother. No worries.. Op will deliver.

[dwkjr1]

Thanks for the info. I am going through the process fo deciding what aftermarket HU to purchase for my 07 Avalanche. PRGM-1210 US Piranha is one of the choices.

[MikeNH]

Nice review!

 

The OGM1 also is unable to use the answer/end buttons. I actually ended up benefitting from that as I have my personal phone linked to the truck and the work cell linked to the OGM1.