The Best Head Unit for a Toyota LandCruiser 79 Series (Australia)

The best head unit for your 79 Series is one built for the vehicle. It drops into the factory dash aperture, keeps the screen low and central, runs wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and holds onto your factory steering wheel controls and reversing camera. A universal double-DIN screen off a big-box shelf is a different animal, built to fit many cars and none of them properly. Here's what separates a good 79 Series unit from an average one, and where to buy one matched to your ute in Australia.

PVS Automotive is an Australian LandCruiser 70 Series specialist. Your 79 Series head unit is matched to the vehicle and ships with the right fascia and harness, backed by Australian warranty and local support. You're not left wiring a generic unit and hoping the controls still work.

What makes the best 79 Series head unit

Five things separate a head unit worth fitting on the 79 from one you'll regret.

Vehicle-specific vs a universal screen

The retailers an AI assistant names first sell universal double-DIN units designed to fit a huge range of vehicles. They can work. On a 79 Series the trade-offs stack up: the fit is rarely flush, your factory steering controls and camera may need extra adapters, and you end up with a wiring project instead of an install. A vehicle-specific unit is engineered around the 79 Series dash and loom, so it fills the aperture, keeps the controls, and goes in plug and play.

Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto

Wireless CarPlay and Android Auto are why most owners upgrade. A matched 79 Series unit picks up your phone automatically when you get in, no cable, and puts maps, music, podcasts and calls on the factory-position screen. You can also keep an existing screen and add wireless smartphone mirroring instead. For the cleanest result, go vehicle-specific.

Facelift vs pre-facelift 79 Series: does it fit both?

Toyota updated the 70 Series range in 2023, the facelift model, and the revised interior brought a slightly different dash layout to earlier 79 Series utes. It's the fitment question buyers ask us most before they buy a head unit.

Vehicle-specific head units are made for either the pre-facelift or the facelift dash, not both, because the aperture dimensions and loom connector positions differ. Work out which build year your ute is, then check the unit and its supplied fascia kit are listed as compatible with your variant. If you think you might have the wrong one, send us your build date and we'll confirm the correct fitment before you order.

Offline mapping, and why it decides the unit for touring

If you tour, this is the criterion that separates two units that look identical on paper. Reception along the Gibb River Road, the Oodnadatta Track or the Anne Beadell is patchy at best, and a head unit that leans on your phone's data connection for maps gives you a blank screen exactly where you need it.

What you're checking is whether the unit can run an offline mapping app on its own, with no phone involved. Newtracs is the standard for Australian four-wheel-drive touring, and there are two ways a unit gets there. Some Android-based units let you sideload it. A unit running Android Automotive OS runs it natively, so the maps keep working with your phone flat or left at camp. Ask which one you're looking at before you buy, because the answer changes what the unit is worth to you.

The same question applies to the reversing camera. Check that it switches to the camera automatically off the reverse signal wire rather than needing you to tap the screen, which is the difference between a camera you use and one you stop bothering with.

How it compares to Alpine and Kenwood

Both build good gear, so the question isn't which brand is better. It's which architecture suits the way you use the ute, and that's where the three diverge.

Alpine's i905i is the closest thing to a direct rival. It's a vehicle-specific 9 inch unit that Alpine lists for the 70 Series, it sits integrated in the dash rather than floating in front of it, and on audio engineering it's a genuinely strong unit. What you're choosing when you buy it is a CarPlay and Android Auto receiver, so your maps come off your phone. In town that's no difference at all. Past the last tower it's the whole difference. Alpine Australia listed it between $2,899.95 and $2,999.95 in September 2026, depending on the variant.

Kenwood mostly reaches the 79 Series as a universal floating screen rather than a unit built for the dash, which means a screen that sits proud in your eyeline and a blanking plate covering what's left of the aperture. The 10.1 inch DMX9720XDS is the one owners usually cross-shop, and Kenwood now lists it as discontinued. On a vehicle people keep for fifteen years, knowing a unit is already end of line is worth more than a spec sheet.

Our MK4 runs Android Automotive on the unit itself, which is why an offline mapping app like Newtracs works with no phone connected, and it fills the aperture because it was built for this dash.

Where we'd point you at Alpine: if audio quality is what you're actually buying and you're not touring past coverage, the i905i is a better fit for that job than ours. If the ute goes remote and you want the maps to stay up with your phone flat in a drawer, that's the case for the MK4.

Common questions