Hardware Review: DWW-700H First Impressions

I just recieved my DWW-700H last night. I have yet to install or even power it but my first impressions out of the box are as follows:

1) Seems pretty sturdy, everything form the casing to the vertical and horizontal hinge mechanisms

2) The left/right tilt is cool, it clicks into place... There are, I believe, 5 different 'settings'(center, 2 clicks left, and 2 clicks right

3) When opening the screen... popping it out is fine, nice strong spring, however, turning it up requires a lot more force than I would like to apply. When it pops out is is pretty much locked in a downward facing position and you have to unlock/unclick it. Another thing that makes this akward is that there is no good place to pull it up from. I find myself pulling on the 'frame' surrounding the lcd, i could see this causing breakage in the future. Maybe it will loosen up in time and turning it up will not require so much force.

4) There are two ps/2(female end) style connectors built into the unit, attached by about 1ft. of wire.. The unit comes with one VGA->PS/2(male) wire and another (PWR, GND, IGN, Safety Wire, VGA1(with rca connector), VGA2(with rca connector))->PS/2(male) wire... These two wires connect to the ps/2 connectors that are molded to the cace. There is also a usb cable built into the unit.

5) The IGN on the above mentioned wire is REALLY thin.. I dont do car electronics, so maybe this is normal but this wire is like an insulated strand from a multistranded wire. I was going to use a tap in connector to hook up this wire but but it is so small I dont even think my tap in connector will accept it.

6) All wires are clearly labeled with stickers

7) Remote control has more functions than the actual unit.. Clearly a generic remote...

8) Software came on an unlabeled CD... I installed it and it had a 'Shutdown Utility' which looks to me like it just sits in your system tray and when you click on it gives you the options to hibernate, standby, shutdown, or exit the 'Shutdown Utility'... Looks like it was written in about 15 minutes. The install also gives you the option to install a ps/2 touchscreen driver which would not apply to the 700H so I chose to skip this.. There is also a Screen Rotation tool. Not sure what this does but I assume if you screen could flip upside down or something it would invert the image, like a Tablet PC.

9) No externally accessible fuse that I saw

I will be installing within the next couple days.. I'll probably have more feedback...

The user manual is here:
http://www.savefile.com/files.php?fid=9484889

I'm curious to see pictures of how far it sticks out of the dash, or how flush it is with the dash...

Great preliminary review buurin.
I've been using the 700H for a few weeks now.
I too was impressed with the apparent build quality when it arrived.
I ordered it from digitalWW and it arrived in record time. 4 business days from US to Canada is extremely fast (imo anyway). Kudos to Armen.

The box. Note the product illustrated isn't the 700H. I was a little excited at first, thinking I might have 'accidentally' received the motorized equivalent. :o
http://xspeed.ca/garage/images/700h_arrives_1.jpg

The contents.
http://xspeed.ca/garage/images/700h_arrives_4.jpg

The unit is quite non-descript when 'in-dash' - except for the cheesy white-lettering which is behind the plastic (can't be rubbed off). I plan to put some type of sticker over this.
http://xspeed.ca/garage/images/700h_arrives_2.jpg
http://xspeed.ca/garage/images/700h_arrives_3.jpg

The display is very bright (specs quote 400 cd/m²) and very easy to see in the day and brilliant at night. Even with sun shining in on the mat surface of the screen its still very easy to see. Especially great is the ability to swivel the screen toward you (or the passenger). Adjusting the screen both horizontally and vertically allows you to eliminate most glare in most situations. This feature alone had me sold on this unit.

Note that there is a thin protective film over the screen when shipped. Now, this is obvious to most people, but I figured I'd mention it anyway. In fact, I was bench testing the unit for a few hours before I even noticed the film - it was cut so clean I didn't see it right away.

Hooking it up was a breeze. Simply supply a 12v constant to the red wire, connect the acc (very thin blue wire) to ign (switched 12v) and ground out the black and green wires (I grounded them together as oppose to direct to batter/chassis as directed in the manual). All wires are clearly labeled and instructions are included and there's also a wiring diagram on the unit itself. I connected the ACC wire to the 12v rail on my DSATX so the LCD stays on as long as the PC does. Otherwise the LCD will turn off when the key is off (you may want it that way). Although the unit does turn off with the PC it doesn't turn on with the PC (no auto-on). But pressing the power button on the screen turns the display on in about 3 seconds - a small lag from button press to actual visuals but not a real issue imo.

I know this is burrin's review but I'd like to let everyone know about a small problem I had - hopefully this will help anyone having similar issues.

Once physically installed I immediately had A LOT of trouble with the touch screen. It would perform erratically and unreliably. The pointer would default to the upper right corner of the screen and stay there. Try moving it anywhere else and it would just 'bounce' back to the same location. A closer look at the inside of the casing surrounding the screen showed that the plastic was actually contacting the touch screen film and causing a false 'press'. A search on this found others had fixed it by running a credit card between case and screen - this didn't work in my case.

Here you can see the lack of gap. The plastic was making contact with the film once the LCD warmed up. The area on the left (A) has a nice gap; the area on the right (B) does not
http://xspeed.ca/garage/images/700h_...touching_2.jpg

I disassembled the screen (only 4 screws on the back of the plastic casing) and used a strip of paper to put a little more air gap between the bezel and the touch screen film (a piece of business card is thick enough). Be careful that nothing is touching the touchscreen film when reassembling.
http://xspeed.ca/garage/images/700h_...t_touching.jpg

Here are a few shots of the inside of the unit.
http://xspeed.ca/garage/images/700h_disassembly_2.jpg

Once inside remove the 4 screws (circled) holding the LCD to the casing (which sandwhiches the touchscreen). With the screws removed the LCD and touchscreen should fall out into your hand.
http://xspeed.ca/garage/images/700h_disassembly_1.jpg

With the case free from the screen, I don't have nearly as many problems now. Just the odd time the touchscreen controller isn't recognized by windows and shows as an 'unknown device'. Disabling and enabling doesn't seem to fix this. However, if I physically unplug the USB cable and plug it into a different USB port in the PC, windows will then see new hardware and install the drivers and it'll work great for days (this only happened twice in about 2 weeks).

Don't let this deter you though; apparently a lot of the touch screens seemingly have similar driver 'quirks'. A simple search will find LOTS of info on this. I found version 3.2.3.XXXX of the touchkit software (found on DigitalWW) worked best for me.

All in all I'm very happy with the screen - so far.

Here is a quick shot of the unit installed. I'll try to post better pictures later (including a side shot).
http://xspeed.ca/garage/images/700h_insatlled.jpg

hey buurin,

Does your remote control actually do anything for your unit? Mine does nothing.

I agree with the above reviews except I cannot get the touchscreen drivers to work. My car computer is having some other problems that might be related. I'm currently installing drivers on my laptop to test touchscreen. I will reply with results.

I have yet to even power my unit up so i dont know if the remote works

I also have heard you must install the drivers FIRST then plug the device into the usb port or else they will not work.

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/lcd-display/66975-powering-the-dww-700h.html

Edit:
So i powered up the unit now... No problems

I installed the drivers from the CD FIRST w/o the lcd or touchscreen connected.

Turned off the computer, attached lcd vga cable

booted up then connected the usb cable for the touchscreen. WinXP SP2 immediately responded and i installed the drivers (Did NOT let Windows check the internet for available drivers)

Touchscreen was immediately up and running.. no calibration, nothing... I am VERY pleased.

As for your remote, i assume you forgot to take the plastic off the battery in the remote (open the battery compartment, you'll see it)

And there is a SOLID 5 second delay when turning this thing on. And when it is on there is no indicator(LED, beep, etc...) letting you know :(

I havent taken off the protective film from the screen and quite honestly NEVER would have had speedjunkie not made me aware of it. I did see it, sort of, but i thought it was like the touchscreen overlay or something..

I found with my touchscreen i had to make sure i installed the drivers from the cd as when i tried to install it defaulted to a driver already in windows (just lazy of me), i had heaps of trouble until i made sure i installed the driver off the cd now ive had months of enjoyment, hope this helps.

i'm wondering if my drivers are messed up. With the CD drivers installed, it detects and starts to install them normally but then when it completes it says something like invalid inf. If I use the egalax drivers at the end of driver install it says Access Denied. Really weird.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by speedjunkie

The unit is quite non-descript when 'in-dash' - except for the cheesy white-lettering which is behind the plastic (can't be rubbed off). I plan to put some type of sticker over this.

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I agree on the cheesiness - Glad I read this though - I was going to peel that sticker off at some point and would have been quite annoyed to find the lettering still there! One of the points of me getting the flip out screen was for the stealth factor, but having a sticker saying "LCD monitor" sort of kills that (I know, hard to see from outside a car, but still).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by speedjunkie

Note that there is a thin protective film over the screen when shipped. Now, this is obvious to most people, but I figured I'd mention it anyway. In fact, I was bench testing the unit for a few hours before I even noticed the film - it was cut so clean I didn't see it right away.

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Is there any kind of noticable difference w/o the film, either in crispness of the image or the touchscreen or anything? I am leaving mine on for now basically out of the fear that as soon as I do I will immediately accidentally scratch or damage the screen. Also, I might be taking the screen out of the dash a few more times as I am in the process of adding things, so I would probably wait until everything is pretty settled before removing, unless of course it makes a huge difference.