Eonon Android 13 Car Stereo for Mazda 3 2010-2013, Octa Core 6+64GB, Wireless CarPlay & Android Auto Car Radio, 9 Inch Touchscreen Car Stereo Receiver, 4G LTE/Bluetooth/HDMI/SWC - M3BLA12S

Fast, big screen, updated Android version, all the apps you want, voice assistant, fits perfectly, great sound easy to install, easy to use and works with Alexa too.

This unit was SOOO easy to install, absolutely no cutting or splicing wires was necessary to install it in my 2010 Mazda3 hatchback. If there is a drawback, the phone buttons and voice command button on my steering wheel are no longer functional. I'm not sure that I miss them that much after several months of using this head unit, but once in a while I look at them and think "sure would have been nice if they did work," purely as a well-rounded, fully featured product. The volume is superb, and I am really enjoying the EQ features. My vehicle does not have the Bose system, but with stock speakers, I'm truly impressed with the range and sound quality from this head unit. Apple Car Play was a little buggy to get set up (most of my problems stemming from my VPN), but once I got it connected, it's been working flawlessly. In spite of the reduced functionality of the left hand steering wheel buttons, I'd still whole heartedly recommend this head unit.

Pros:• Perfect fit for 2011 Mazda 3 – almost looks like factory• Almost drop-in installation with adapter cables provided to mate with car connectors• Includes 4G LTE cellular capability• Sounds very good – equal or better than OEM radio• Supports playing most digital music formats from USB drive• AM and FM radio with FM RDS support• Steering wheel volume, up/down, and mode buttons work• Dash radio display will show station or music playback time• Supports wireless Apple CarPlay (Android Auto also)• Really nice bright, clear display (1280 x 720 QLED)• Highly configurable• Dedicated touch buttons on left side for basic functions (Home, Vol up/down, etc.)• Supports back up camera, (and front camera – didn’t install that)• Fast “snappy” user interface, including with CarPlay• Car dashboard display will show radio frequency• Manufacturer is responsive with rapid replies to their many YouTube videos.Cons:• No response to 2 support requests on Eonon web site (it was lunar New Year)• SIM stopped being read, head unit was the cause, fixed with replacement unit• Lots of configurability provided, but you will need it.• No HD Radio support• Sometimes car dashboard display doesn’t update to the current station• Didn’t work with Eonon OBD2 interface• Stopped switching to CarPlay audio source – needed to reset unit to correct[Note: this review is quite long – short review: Good option if willing to configure many settings]This M3BLA12S Android 13 Octa-Core radio is a near perfect radio upgrade for a 2011 Mazda 3. The radio itself simply drops in in place of the OEM radio. No additional trim kits are required, the radio face matches the car, and the mounting snaps line up with where the OEM radio snapped in, and provides snap holes for the HVAC vents to mount to.Electrically, all interface adapters are also included. Adapters are provided to connect between the radio wiring harnesses and the vehicle connectors. Except for 1 minor complication of the AUX input it just plugs in a minute or two. This also includes a CAN bus interface that informs the radio of car status (backup, lights on/off, most steering wheel controls).The radio also supports a high-definition backup camera. At least at the time of my purchase the camera was bundled for free (click the get 1 item free link when buying). This camera is the fairly common AHD (Analog High Definition) format that only requires a single coaxial cable. The camera comes with a cable the provides the video connection (RCA/phono plugs on each end) along with a power/trigger wire.The radio is informed through the CAN bus when the car is in backup and provides a power output to the camera that can be carried through the provided cable. With this cable there is no need to connect to brake lights as is typically required.The camera works surprisingly well, with a clear high-definition image even in fairly low lighting conditions.The radio is much shallower than the OEM radio, it is only a few inches deep. This does mean that the back support pin of the OEM radio is not used. There is a lot of room behind the radio. That is good though because there will be a mess of wires. Even with neatly bundling and tying cables, there will be a lot of wire. There are the cables that connect to the radio connectors and adapt to the car connectors. There are coaxial cables to the included GPS antenna and 2 4G LTE antennas that also serve as Bluetooth and WiFi antennas (at least that is how they are marked). There is also the camera video cable, power cable, up to 3 USB cables, and a SIM connector cable. Even with all these cables, at least with them dressed as neatly as reasonable, the radio fits in without any issue and just snaps in place where the OEM radio snapped in.The radio ONLY snaps in though, and the snaps don’t seem very tight either. The OEM radio had snaps, plus 2 screws on the top, plus a support pin on the rear. This radio only mounts with the snaps. The HVAC duct above the radio also snaps into the radio, so they kind of support each other. So far, I’ve had no issues and it does seem sturdy enough, but it has only been a few weeks since I’ve installed it.The radio matches the car perfectly. It looks almost OEM. The reason I say almost is extremely subtle. The radio black is a slightly darker shade than the dash, and the texture is much smoother than the dash, and that of the OEM radio surface. That isn’t really all that obvious though and it really looks like a factory radio – only far more modern and capable than what the car originally was available with. The radio also mostly matches the surface of the HVAC assembly above it, so it does look very much like OEM.The only wiring issue was with the AUX connector. There are 2 pairs of left/right RCA/phono plugs from the car adapter to the Audio input connectors. I connected the right to one pair and the left to the other pair and then connected an audio source. Sound originally only came out of the right channel, so I moved the left channel to the same pair as the right, then they both worked.The radio also has a total of 3 USB ports. There are two short cables that connect between the radio connectors and USB-A female connectors. One is a single cable, the other with two. I used a single and a dual extension and mounting brackets. I used BATIGE brand available on Amazon. One was just a single USB-A, the other a USB-A and USB-C connector, for flexibility. There are already small holes in the extreme back to of the glove box. I was able to fish these through those holes into the radio area. I used double-stick tape to mount the mounting brackets to the top of glove box. Really, only one or the double connector is needed. I routed all 3 available, but that is overkill.The SIM socket is in a plastic case with a bit longer wire than the USB. I ran that down to the area where there is a plastic cover that is removed to replace the cabin air filter. I used some Velcro tape to attach the SIM holder to the air handler plastic under the cover. This allows access with just removing the cover, and not the entire radio. The plastic holder can just be pulled off the Velcro for easy access and then stuck back in place.I put the 4G antennas in the top of the dash area where there is only plastic from the dash to the car right below the windshield. I put one near the driver near the instrument cluster. I put the other closer to the passenger, also rotated slightly. This provides less correlation between the 2 diversity antennas. I put the GPS antenna between the 2 4G antennas, near the center and directly below the plastic top of the dash to get good signal. Even in my garage it found multiple GPS and Glonass satellites.This radio is based on a Qualcomm chip set originally targeting mid-tier smartphones. It has support for 4G LTE. It has a full implementation, and you can go into the extended menus and enable voice. Google Maps, Chrome, and more come preloaded.From what I’ve read online, it seems this radio will work best with the T-Mobile cellular network. I did install a trial SIM for an MVNO that uses T-Mobile. With that SIM it immediately found the network, loaded system time, and more – even before activating the SIM.After the installation was complete, I went to activate the cellular account with the MVNO that I installed the SIM for above. Well, there was no longer any cellular service. The SIM doesn’t show up at all. I tried another SIM, the same thing. I did a full factory reset, same thing. I pulled the unit out of the dash and inspected the cable to the SIM, nothing obviously wrong. There was no longer any Voltage on the SIM Vcc pin either. I was not sure if the problem is with the cable, or the head unit, but the SIM stopped being recognized. Without the SIM no cellular options show up – they are greyed out in the menus.I tried to contact Eonon with the support page of the web site. I received an automated email that the request was received, but no support response was received in over a day. I then sent the same request to the support link on the Amazon site. Again, no response. I requested a replacement unit through Amazon support instead.I did receive a replacement unit from Amazon. The replacement was obviously a re-pack or refurbished, but looked OK. I first swapped out the SIM cable. The SIM still did not work. I then swapped the entire unit with the replacement, and the SIM and cellular once again worked.I activated the trial for MVNO and voice calls and data worked (on the replacement unit). There does not seem to be any support for messaging at all (SMS or MMS), at least with installed applications. This is a bit of a challenge as the MVNO wants to send an SMS to further set up an account. I did have to load the MVNO app through the Google Play store to activate the SIM (no web activation option). That was also a challenge as the IMEI and activation code fields would not enable the virtual keyboard. I ended up typing that information into a contact, then cutting from the contact app field and pasting into the activation screen. Other fields did pop up the keyboard. This was with the MVNO that has a fox as a mascot. Other MVNOs or T-Mobile itself might have different experience. Again, once I finally got the SIM activated though, cellular does work with data for Google Maps, Chrome, Google Play and whatever else you would want working. Voice phone calls could be placed or received. Again, no text messages though.I will primarily be using this with CarPlay, so I’m not sure I will keep a phone plan active. It is a nice option though. While I haven’t tried it yet, I also expect that music apps would also work and could be installed through the Google Play store, albeit using quite a bit of data.Also note that after the factory reset without the SIM, even with GPS time and time zone enabled it showed the wrong time. It turns out the default time zone is for China, and GPS time zone didn’t update – even though GPS time and location was being read. Manually setting the time zone (Eastern Standard) had the correct time. Also note that the default time display is 24 hour. This can be changed in the GPS location settings menu.There are many YouTube videos for Eonon radios, both from Eonon, or many others. Many are helpful. There is a lot of configurability provided. Much of that is in the factory extended menu that users typically don’t get access too. There is a password to access it, that is provided in the manual (126). However, videos posted from Eonon show different menus, and different passwords).The good thing is that these menus are accessible and give flexibility. The bad thing is you will probably need them. Audio levels between different sources (radio, AUX [AVIN], more) vary widely. They can be adjusted somewhat – the naming is odd; it is called Voices. With this I was able to get the correct volume.I was also able to enable a mixing option for audio from CarPlay using Google Maps on an iPhone. This option is under Navigation menu. By default, the volume is extremely low as compared to the radio though, but this can also be adjusted on the same set of menus.There is very little actual documentation. There is a manual, FAQs and as mentioned many videos. There is a diagram that calls out the signals from the radio on connectors, but not much is provided other than the name. There is no documentation at all for the car adapter cables. As bad as that sounds, it mostly is self-explanatory. There are adapter cables with the radio connectors on one end and the car connectors on the other. The antennas, USB, SIM are all marked. The only issue really was the two pairs of connectors from the car AUX to the single pair of audio in connectors from the radio cable.The vehicle steering wheel controls mostly work. Some of the buttons for phone pick up, voice assist, phone end went directly to the Hyundai Bluetooth handsfree module and not through the CAN bus, so the radio can’t see these buttons. The other buttons for Volume up/down channel up down and mode do work. The up/down steering wheel control for radio stations, etcetera was backwards. There is a menu option to flip this too. Volume was correct by default.CAN bus signals also tell the radio when the lights are on, and optionally the radio can go to a dimmer night mode. Backup is also received from the CAN bus. With this, the radio can turn on 12V camera power, and turn on the back camera mode. Optionally this can also reduce or mute audio to eliminate distractions. There are multiple programmable levels. The steering wheel controls mostly work, but you do need to hold them a bit to be recognized.The OEM radio display does show the frequency of the current station when using the radio, and various levels of support for other sources. The Media play will show time remaining. There have been more than a few times though when changing radio stations that the display did not update and showed the previous channel.I’m still finding where all the menus are. I did find though is that there is an option to show vehicle battery Voltage. It is off by default, but now I have the battery Voltage right on the Android status bar! This is nice, as most vehicles today, including this Mazda 3, have neither an Ammeter or Voltmeter. This can give much more insight as to what is happening than an “idiot” light that doesn’t come on until things are really bad and it may be too late to do anything about. This was a nice hidden feature that wasn’t even mentioned. The Voltage does seem to be low by about 100 mV~200 mV though, but it is still useful. Many of the menus, including the hidden factory settings are somewhat self-explanatory, even if the wording isn’t perfect English. Other menus perhaps not as much. There are many videos online discussing these menus, but many are for similar units and the menus do not match. One suggestion in those videos though that I will repeat is to take a photo of the settings that you may be unsure of before changing so that you can go back to the original settings.One of the hidden menus is to change the boot logo. While the first boot logo remains the same, now I have a Mazda logo for the second boot screen. I found the logo online, and scaled it to the 720p dimensions of the display. You can use almost any JPEG file with the correct dimensions.Another consideration is security. In order to use the Google Play store to load the activation app for the MVNO SIM, I entered by Google credentials. Not only did this sign me into the Play store, it also loaded all of my contacts into the contacts app. Chrome and Maps do require a separate login in. This is essentially like an Android cell phone that isn’t locked though. If anyone else is in the car, they can access this information. There are no options to lock the screen, or have a Valet mode like some modern cars offer. While having my contacts for the phone dialer may be convenient, I do have security concerns. I may just either log out of the Play store when not using it, or set up an alternate Google account without all my personal information. I will also look for some type of screen lock app or valet mode app. Initial searches did not show anything, but I will look more. Eonon support states it does not support a lock screen. Also be aware that if you use the native Google Maps anyone else having access to the vehicle, such as a valet, service shop, another family member, etcetera would have access to all of your history, favorite locations, home, work location, more. This is another advantage of CarPlay. Once your phone is out of the vehicle, all that information is removed.The radio itself is relatively sensitive, and receives all the FM stations I would expect. AM also works reasonably well. There are a lot of presets ( I believe 12 FM and 6 AM) too that can be set.Updates:For messages I downloaded from Google Play the Google messages app. This does seem to both send and receive SMS. I haven’t tried it yet, but it also showed that it was setting up RCS messaging support.My trial with the first MVNO expired, and I swapped SIMs to another MVNO that also uses T-Mobile as the actual carrier. That MVNO allows setting up the account on the web, so much easier. So far phone (VoLTE), SMS, and data are all working. Note however that when I initially swapped the SIM, I was left with no SIM detected. This persisted even after pressing the Reset button on the front. I was concerned I had the same defect again. However, if you go into the hidden menu, change an item, and then reset from there that does a full Android reset, the SIM shows back up. So, it was not another hardware failure.I purchased the Eonon OBD2 reader that is supposed to work with the pre-loaded Torque app. It didn’t. Also, the app shown with the Eonon OBD2 reader was not available in the Google Play store. It was available for iOS, and my iPhone did find the OBD2 device, but the radio never found the reader on Bluetooth. I tried downloading another OBD2 Android app, and it too never found the device on Bluetooth. I haven’t contacted Eonon yet about this.Eonon did finally respond to my support requests. They did apologize for the delay, and yes it was Lunar New Year, but my original request was prior to the holiday. They also should have had some support during the holiday that was over a week. They really didn’t add much value anyway, and the it was the Amazon exchange with a replacement unit that actually solved the problem. I have serious doubts about the level of support that will be received after the Amazon exchange window, but within the device warranty period.While, as mentioned, I did resolve the lack of SMS support with the official Google messages app from the Play Store, I haven’t resolved the lack of any type of lock screen – even a valet mode type lock similar to what OEMs now provide, even after some searching. I will definitely be removing my primary Google account credentials from the device and use a secondary account with less personal information.The final summary is that I am pleased with product. It did take considerable tweaking to find all the menus to set Navigation audio mix volume, back up camera audio attenuation (so it doesn’t completely mute), arrange the icons, clock 12h mode, and a lot more. The good thing is that at least somewhere buried in menus are options to resolve many of these issues. Plan on spending quite a bit of time setting everything up. I still find myself diving into set up screens after parking somewhere to set something up properly.I would have liked support for HD Radio as many OEM radios and premium after-market radios support. While it does show RDS text display on the radio screen, it doesn’t show album art as some OEM radios do, nor does it show this information on the main home screen with the radio display. It is only on the radio app itself. The layout of that screen could also be better. There are also some options on the screen that I still haven’t figured out. There are options for Stereo/Mono, Local/Distant, but others that aren’t obvious, and there is no documentation to explain them.I’ve had at least a few times now where the radio gets “stuck” and won’t switch audio to CarPlay audio and continues playing the radio as the audio source – even though CarPlay, and the audio source is displayed on the screen. Resetting the unit resolved this, but it is a bit buggy.Update March 2025:Losing CarPlay audio seems to be a regular problem.I had one case now where the radio was in a continuous boot loop and kept restarting.

Bought this for my 2013 Mazda 3 with the Bose system. It was horrible .. It lasted 9 months. Just quit working.. Contacted the customer support. They wanted to sale me for a lower price.. BUYER BEWARE

An absolutely incredible head unit. The install was straight forward and clean. It’s like my car jumped forward 13 years and is now a modern vehicle. Great job EONON!

The wireless android auto experience is a big disappointment. The AA software is very slow and unresponsive despite the actual Eonon software actually being fast and responsive.It's like the radio struggles to run Android Auto.When playing music through Android auto, the music lags and cuts out every now and then and it's consistent enough to be annoying.I can't control the music volume through my phone either, so at volume 1 the music is still pretty loud.The steering wheel controls are also disappointing, the controls don't always register so I end up having to press the button multiple times for it to work.The only good things about this are the ease of install and the sound quality. It was very easy to install, just connect all of the cables and it's ready to go. No need for screws either, which is a good thing and a bad thing because the fit isn't 100% perfect either.I wouldn't say the sound quality is better than OEM (I have the Bose system) but the ability to EQ is a nice thing to have and I'm sure it's better if you don't have the Bose system. It's just relieving as I've heard multiple people state that it's worse that OEM. But that doesn't matter at all if your music is cutting out.I bought this headunit mainly for Android auto and I even got a replacement because I thought maybe I just happened to get a bad model, but the replacement had the same issues. Unfortunately the Eonon unit did not live up to the hype surrounding it.