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Comment by expertentipp | Hacker News Reader

I wonder the year of its touchscreen. 5 years old car? Almost brand new. 5 years old touchscreen and software? It's going to be painful.

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I have a 2017 Civic, and based on the info in the OP, it's the same as the 2021 models, and yes, it's severely dated.

Though it's Android 4.4, which gives me some nostalgia from my Nexus 4 and the Holo era of Android

Awww nostalgia hits... some very very long time ago I was working on software tested on KitKat. It's better not to mention it during interviews otherwise will be dismissed as a dinosaur.

I have it on my 2020 civic and at least it doesn't lag. Problem with newer builds is the inevitable creep of increased CPU and memory usage until eventually perfectly good hardware is no longer able to run anything.

Yea I tend to have pretty high memory usage, including when I was running close to stock (i.e., before installing a bunch of third-party apps). My model didn't come with a built-in GPS app, but I was told that the next trim up/more expensive model did. I think more expensive trims came with headunits with more RAM (I think 4GB?) but I can't confirm. It'd be great to see a PR from someone with better hardware to see the actual headunit differences between trims

I'll check mine. I have the Sport Touring so it's the top trim below the Type R with built in GPS but I never actually use the GPS cause my phone's is better.

yep, I also have a 2020 Civic and the software actually is alright, though perhaps my expectations were set really low by the amount of hate I read about the software online. But hey, it supports CarPlay just fine (although does have some weird graphical artifacts sometimes) and the screen is responsive enough which is all that I really want.

I can't speak to CarPlay but yea I'll say the headunit software is certainly usable. One of the reasons I started this project was because I admire the engineering involved. I wish they would've shipped wireless Android Auto though. My car only works with wired Android Auto. It was only a minor inconvenience until I broke a USB-C cable. I rely on my car, I didn't need a failure point in my navigation. I ended up buying an adapter (the Motorola MA1) that lets me use Android Auto wirelessly (the MA1 worked okay, I had a few issues where it would randomly reboot but one day that stopped and I still don't know why; it's finicky). It just seems absurd to have a whole separate hardware/software stack in the form of an adapter just because Honda couldn't use a newer Wi-Fi/Bluetooth chip

Nexus 4 was a great phone. Honestly I don't remember it being particularly slower than my more recent phones, since most of what I do is browse the web, listen to music, and watch YouTube videos.

I bet on today's web it would feel quite slow though, because everything is terrible.

I still have my Nexus 4 as a backup device, now running whatever the latest version of Lineage is offered for it (15.1, based on Android 8).

Still works okay, a little slow, and the battery only lasts a couple hours. A great phone back in its day.

Probably a resistive type like on really old tablets running Android 4!

I have serious doubt there were any tablets shipping with Android 4 that used a resistive screen. At least not any that didn't come from some no-name manufacturer for eighty bucks.

i'm probably thinking a bit older. I had an "Arnova 10G2"[0] tablet back in the day which had a resistive screen!

[0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Archos-Arnova-10b-G2-Ta...

Poor Archos. Went from making some of the earliest, coolest portable media players on the market to the worst android devices.

I have the same system in my 2017 Civic. It's definitely a capacitive touchscreen. Essentially just a Android tablet from 2012, and it's responsive enough.

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