Galaxy SII with MDI

[ReubenGT]

Hi guys,

I had a search for this but nothing showed up...

Has anyone managed to get a Samsung Galaxy SII (or similar) working through the MDI? I'd love to get away from an iPhone but I'd reallly hate to lose the steering wheel controls for the media.

Thanks all

[Rob]

Why not get the Samsung, but buy a used ipod and keep that in your car for music?

[ReubenGT]

Heya rob-p,

I do a lot of long journeys and need the time to charge my phone! Noone seems to need a phone which'll last more than 36 hours now! I really want to avoid the standard fag lighter cable dragged across the centre console!

[Rob]

Never tried it but could you not use the usb cable that goes to the mdi?

[ReubenGT]

Yeah I could try it but I was hoping someone had a for sure answer before I commited to a phone for 12 months or more! I really want to keep the steering wheel functions! - plus I'd have to buy the micro USB lead as it didn't come with the car - so that's another £35 odd quid to VAG!

[Rob]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VW-RCD510-RCD ... 911wt_1270" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

£7 all in!!

[trix]

no I dont think Reuben means that one Rob, he said micro usb. I dont think there are any other forms of the MDi cable other than the usb & ipod, & they will not work if you try to use another cable in conjunction (apple cable & usb cable together for example)
so to answer your question Reuben I don't think it will work how you are hoping, I would agree with rob to get the phone you want & a cheap ipod to store in the armrest. I have my phone (htc desire) tucked next to the gearstick or in the front cubby while charging from the front cigarette lighter & the cables are not in the way

S

[Deft]

I remember looking into this briefly, for an iPod type dock adaptor for a different phone. I have vague recollections of finding something that almost may have worked - but I'm still dubious that the controls would still really work (it might just do power).

[ayeaye]

Just been out and tried with my S2. It doesn't work when connected over MDI - comes up on the RNS "Device without function" and does nothing.
I've kept an old iPod 80Gb Classic in the car anyway so that I'm not continuously plugging/unplugging a device, so the S2 not working isn't a major hassle for me.

What I would probably do if I didn't have the iPod is buy a USB flash drive, put all music on that and use that - and stil get the S2 as it's a nice phone.

[ReubenGT]

Hi Trix. There is now "MEDIA IN Mini USB Adapter " I was hoping that had started to become a standard with some functionality but maybe not! I was really trying to make everything easy!

I will have to resort to Apple again by the sounds of it! Thanks for checking Ayeaye.

[montstable]

Hi All,

I have a SGS2 and it definitely does not work. Unfortunately Samsung decided to remove the standard USB protocol and force drivers to be installed to be able to see both the SD card memory and Phone memory at the same time (very annoying). Most other android phone work fine with the USB adapter - I previously had an HTC desire which worked perfectly.

However there is another problem with the USB adapter. A single USB port does not carry enough power to charge and power a phone when using Bluetooth, GPS, Sat nav, phone features etc etc. Therefore you will find that if using the phone heavily it will slowly drain the battery even when plugged in. The only way around this is to buy a dedicated car charger which has enough power to charge as well as do anything else on the phone.

I got round this by buying a 32gb usb stick and shoving my music on that. This uses the DAC's within the the headunit which gives significantly better sound quality than using an iPhone/iPod which use the on board DAC's within the device itself. I noticed a huge difference when comparing to my iPhone.

P.S. SGS2 is a very good phone, the screen is amazing. Ice Cream Sandwidge released on it next year also.

[Deft]

Seems odd that the headunit wouldn't pull off the digital audio from an iPod/iPhone, given that by design I believe you could choose either.
iOS5 has destroyed the audio quality on my iPhone 3GS, I might be better off bunging all my audio onto a USB stick too!

[montstable]

Mine was a 3gs also, however I was under the impression that the iphone outputs analog audio with digital signals to control the player. I could be wrong though but what I am sure of is that the audio quality was significantly better through the usb stick with exactly the same song.

Also don't get any of the annoying skipping that i used to with the iphone plus much quicker to access.

[ayeaye]

If you had any EQ setting enabled on the iPhone it would interfere with the quality. Turning EQ off on my iPod has significantly improved the quality - shame its taken me 2 years to do it.

I did also think the quality over USB was better when I tested a USB drive a year or so ago, now there's no difference.

[ReubenGT]

Thanks for all your answers guys. I will probably end up sticking with Apple. It's a shame Samsung have over complicated things using the drivers as I'd love to move to Android. There's just nothing else that catches my eye... All the phones available now and it feels more restrictve than ever buying a new phone!

[evo17paul]

Hi all,

I've got a SGS2 working with the MDI USB connector successfully. My SGS2 also has a 32gb card as well and originally I could not get it to see this storage, but I downloaded an app called multi-mount SDCard and now have all my tunes off the internal SD card and on the external.

Can control the volume and change tracks from steering wheel as well, only downer is unlike the iPhone where the EQ could be controlled by the iPhone, the SGS2 is just seen as a USB device so you are limited to the EQ on the RCD510 in my case.

[impingu1984]

Have you thought about installing a non Samsung Firmware on your SGSII (eg. Cyanogemod or MIUI) it may solve the issue?

I run Cyanogenmod on my SGSII and I will test the connection on USB *when* my Scirocco arrives (about 2 weeks).

[evo17paul]

Impingu1984,

I am running Cyanogenmod nightly 103 and all is working fine, but as I say I use the Multi-Mount app in order to mount md 32gb SDCard.

[sciroccoR25]

hope i can answer i own a samsung galaxy s2 my self .
srry about my poor writing in english

For it to work do the following

Go to "Settings
then "storage"
Uninstall sd card
go back to the setting menu and
Choose "wireless and network"
"Usb functions
"click conect storage to comp"
connect the cable
THe mdi will now work .


hope this will help .

[impingu1984]

Impingu1984,

I am running Cyanogenmod nightly 103 and all is working fine, but as I say I use the Multi-Mount app in order to mount md 32gb SDCard.

I pickup my Scirocco on wednesday, so I'm going to test it using multi mount and then a script to remount the external sdcard as mnt/sdcard/external_sd rather than /mnt/emmc.

I'll see how it all works out.