Took my first ride with the Maxca the other day, and yup, it's basically the same to use.
I found one difference. The Amazon one had an option to set a time frame for the screen to switch to night mode. With the Maxca, you have to manually switch it. It's the little "sun" icon in the status bar at the top - tapping it toggles between day (sun) and night (moon) modes. You can configure a brightness level for each mode in the settings, then switch between the two with a tap.
I got
the latest firmware from Maxca, which has one small change - the volume slider clears off the screen after 3 seconds instead of 10.
However, I ran into a problem updating it. I inserted the MicroSD card with the new firmware, went into the menu, and started the update. It showed the update screen, with the current and new firmware versions. It went through the progress bar, then said "Burn unsuccessful, please try again." It rebooted, only it was dead after that. It didn't seem to power on at all. I got worried that I was going to have to deal with sending it back to China for replacement. I messaged Maxca on AliExpress, and they responded quickly, and told me to read the bottom of the email where they sent the firmware link. Oops, missed that part.
You can enter an "emergency restore" sort of flashing mode by holding the on/off button as power is applied. Did that with the MicroSD card inserted, and the flashing screen showed "Unknown" as the current firmware version, and the correct version for the firmware file on the MicroSD. I flashed it back to the first version with no issues. I then repeated the process with the new version, and that worked also. Afterward, I also put a custom boot logo on the MicroSD and added that, so now I have the Ninja 400 logo on the screen when I turn the bike on.
It's a combination of easy and annoying to use the device off the bike (for flashing, changing settings, getting devices paired, etc.). The mount powers it via spring-loaded pins that contact pads on the back of the device. There's not really a good way to apply power to those short of buying an
extra mounting kit. However, it can be powered via the MiniUSB port on the side. That's really handy, except that you have to remove the side cover (with its 2 tiny screws) to access the port. Also, the included USB-A adapter plugs into the MiniUSB port, so you can't use that if you're powering the device that way. Because of that, I'd recommend getting a good quality MicroSD and using that for any sort of file operations you want to do. The firmware is only about 75MB and an 800x480 JPG boot logo isn't very big, so even a 128MB MicroSD is plenty. However, you don't want flaky data when you're flashing stuff, so make sure it's a quality memory card. For reference, Amazon currently has a 32GB Kingston UHS-1 MicroSD for under $7.
The device pretty much does what it says on the box. If you've used CarPlay before, this is a great way to get it on your bike, and linked up to your Bluetooth headset. It gives you a pretty good screen (same size and resolution as the
Garmin Montana 700) for showing a driving-oriented UI, wirelessly linked to both your phone (safely in your pocket) and headset. I have no complaints about the device itself, but there's honestly not a whole lot to it. The fact that it enables you to have the CarPlay experience on your bike is the great part. It was really handy being able to tap the on-screen button to
open my garage door when my Sena's battery died while I was riding (I normally just tap the headset button and tell Siri "Open garage bay 1"). Despite Apple's limitations, I do prefer the CarPlay UI (I wish you could just set an iPhone to show the CarPlay UI directly). It would be great if I could pull up GasBuddy or use CarScanner as an auxiliary dashboard to show some extra OBDII data, but I guess I'll survive.
(I assume you could substitute Android Auto pretty much everywhere I refer to CarPlay, but my mess-around-with-stuff Android is so old it doesn't support AA.)