[elsmandino]

Hi there.

​I am looking to try and upgrade the standard sound system in my Volvo V50 and would be really grateful for some advice.

​The current stereo is the most basic one - just has an FM stereo, CD player and auxiliary in.

I have an old Amazon Firetablet 8 (7 gen) that I had a go with, first but ran into a few initial problems:

1. That tablet cannot tether data via Bluetooth. No problem, I thought, tether it via wifi instead.

2. Need a launcher to give me a proper car experience - forgot that Amazon does not Play so had to sideload that.

3. Lots of the expected Launchers did not show up as available - realised that this is because the tablet was really old and uses Android 5!!

4. Found a couple of launchers that would work but was not impressed - seemed really clunky. Furthermore, realised that the tablet does not have its own GPS so Google Maps didn't work properly.

5. Realised that the lack of Ram (1GB) and poor CPU on the tablet probably contributed to a really poor experience.

6. I decided to try and use my Android phone, instead - my thinking being that if I could mirror and control the screen on a much larger 7" screen, things would be better. Unfortunately not - I used AirDroid and it was so laggy that it was unusable. I really didn't want to go down that route in the first place, either - if I leave the car and take my phone with me, the passengers are stuck without any media.

Any advice on what to do would be much appreciated.

I did look at the official Volvo Android stereo upgrade but that costs over £600.00, which is just too much.

One other quick thing - maybe I am asking for too much, but if I could somehow add a dashcam and reversing camera to the mix, that would be even better.