- Alright, look. I gotta be completely honest with you, OK?
Once you've driven a Tesla model 3 with its 15 inch
touchscreen, you're kind of spoiled for everything else.
Going back to my 2005 Honda Civic,
even with an aftermarket seven inch touchscreen:
just not the same.
This is the Alpine Halo9, and let me just cut to the chase:
I love this thing.
And if you're way in to car stereos
you probably already know, alright?
This thing is nuts.
For my purposes, though, it's really made
the way I drive my car safer, including
with Android Auto and CarPlay.
And for me, that's more important.
Full disclosure here: Alpine actually sent
this over for review, and I tell you
we liked it so much we bought it off them
at a little bit of a discount.
Just wanted you to know that up front.
So let's go take a look.
This is the Halo9 car stereo from Alpine.
(modern music)
First things first: The basics, boys and girls.
The Halo9 is $900 and this is not a cheap car stereo.
If you're just looking for something cheaper
for Android Auto or CarPlay?
Well, you can definitely find it.
But if you're going to spend the time and the money
to have a new car stereo put in your car
for the long haul, definitely look at this one.
So what is it? Well, it's a nine inch capacitive touchscreen
that fits in a single-DIN unit.
No CD/DVD drive, no SD cards, no remote.
It's just screen.
It's also adjustable, so it can tilt up and down and fit
in to a number of positions so it works
the best in your car.
You're gonna want to figure all that out
as it's being installed, right?
As you can see, it's actually covering up
my air conditioning vents just a little bit.
It's going to be different in every car, right?
For me, I wanted to be able to get
to those buttons down below.
So, again, work with your installer on that.
What else do we have? Bluetooth connections, of course.
There's also a dedicated GPS antenna, plus
it does HD radio if you're still old school.
A ridiculous amount of bells and whistles
if you're a car stereo enthusiast.
So me? I'm all about Android Auto and CarPlay.
And what's great here is that you can use one
or the other on the fly.
Just plug in to the USB port and it works.
You don't have to change any settings.
And I haven't had a single connection issue
here with the Halo9.
That's not something can say
for other head units that I've used.
I've seen other videos where people
have had issues with the Halo9.
All I can tell you is there are a lot of variables
that still go in to this, okay?
Your phone, the software on your phone,
the cable you're using...all I can tell you:
I haven't had any issues with the Pixel 2 or an iPhone.
Having a larger screen here gets really interesting.
It's a WVGA display and that's definitely
not bad for use in a car.
But you will see individual pixels,
even when you're doing things quickly,
like when you're driving.
It's less noticeable, I think,
when you're using Android Auto versus CarPlay.
It just handles the rendering a little better.
And that's also in part, I think, because
Android Auto is just a more visual experience.
You have backgrounds that take away
a little bit of the jank every now and then.
But whatever, okay? The touch points are huge.
You don't have to stab at the screen
to make sure you hit what you're aiming for.
That means your eyes stay on the road more,
where they are supposed to be.
My only real complaint here, and the
one thing I'm not crazy about,
is the capacitive buttons on the bottom.
I've never really liked capacitive buttons
in cars because you just don't have any tactile feel.
Especially for volume buttons
which you are going to use the most.
On the other hand, if you have steering wheel controls,
and my car just doesn't, that kinda makes all this moot.
I don't use any of the built-in Alpine controls
all that much, but the ability
to set favorites from across all the different inputs:
radio, satellite radio, hands-free calls, whatever...
that's really cool.
But I tell you, it really is all about
this floating screen, though, and
the ability to put something this large
in to a normal, single-DIN space is just incredible.
I mean, the screen really is about getting
all the information you need
without distracting you from driving.
And that goes for CarPlay as much
as it does for Android Auto.
One is still very much better than the other, I think.
But there's simply no denying that
having this large of a screen this close
to your face and your hands
is a much, much better experience.
And, again, single-DIN, so you're going to be able
to put this in to so many more cars.
That brings CarPlay and Android Auto to a lot more people
and that's a really big deal.
You're just going to have to shell out some cash to get it.
So that's it for the Alpine Halo9.
It's one hell of a head unit.
And, again, single-DIN. It's going to fit
in so many cars and it's ridiculously good
for Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
If you got any more questions on it,
or Android Auto and CarPlay and all that stuff,
hit me up down below in the comments.
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(modern music)