So i compared this to my trusted autel mk900bt, and heres an honest review, i paid for the unit myself, and despite having talks with support, and even the company founder himself, i wasnt able to score any freebies haha.
Pros that the youcanic beat the autel-
1. For live data, all the live data values have a recommended parameter value, example: if your one sensor is reading 10mv, and you have no clue what that means, the youcanic will tell you it should be .9-.11 indicating it's all good(i dont know if every bit is 100%, but i assume its all a great guideline)
2. Topology, i spoke to the support team who told me the topology works by actually communicating with the vehicle and plotting out the map of the systems, unlike something like Xtools that just takes a wild guess, although i do think topology is overated, and always has the risk of sending you down a wrong path, it's still good and cool to have over not having it.
3. Free updates, doesn't look like youcanic os going under soon, so that's a huge plus, they seem to care about their product.
4. Autovin scan is not subscription or Internet based, meaning you should be able to connect and automatically scan a vehicle without internet connection, without choosing make, model, submidel/ typing in vin, nice plus if you're mobile and dont have a good hotspot.
5. Scan time of vehicle (detecting vehicle and running diagnostics) takes roughly the same time as autel, 2 minutes. Some cars it was a few seconds faster, some slower.
6. Ive looked into all the scan tools, and this is the best bang for the buck, I'd avoid xtools/ gear wrench, not a fan of topdon, thinkacar, as they are a bit pricey and you should just chose autel, ancel/ foxwell are underwhelming, and autel (mk/ mx 900) is the only other scantool I'd chose for the $500ish range, it is about $50 more than this.
7. Although the autel has some fancy shop management features that kinda beat the youcannic, the youcanic's shop management set up seemed good enough and many times simpler from my quick messing around with, and I feel like it's easier and fine vs the autel.
Now some cons that ive already talked to the company about and they listened to my concerns quite genuinely.
Currently (may be subject to change):
1. The case sucks, the latches are junk and you must use both hands to pry them open when closing the case, and although the scan tool/ dongle wont get banged up, they kinda just sit in their own compartment and wiggle around, feels cheap, and the charger works, but looks sketchy.
2. The hardware is much weaker than the slightly more expensive autel, same storage, but weaker and cheaper quality CPU, smaller/ inferior battery, less/ older gen RAM, worse camera, lower res screen, ect... despite the considerably worse specs, it still seems to perform great when new (minus camera), that being said, i am going to assume after a few years the scan tool may becoming more sluggish, or have hardware issues before the autel, i dont know it that will be 3, 5 or 10 years from now. But it is a factor i considered.
3. While you can find the odemeter reading from each system that stores that data, such as ECU or ABS, you must navigate to diagnostics, run a scan, choose one system, go to live data and scroll through the menu and hope you can find "distance traveled" and read that, and let's say this is some used vehicle you might want to look at a couple other sensors to make sure they all read the same and that nothing was spoofed or replaced, the autel has a "hot function" easy to get to, that reads every system for its distance traveled reading and displays it in a row so you can compare everything to make sure although Domino readings align with each other. Again the youcannic can do the same thing, but the autel is much quicker and better of this is important to you, the team at youcannic said they will look into this.
4. Some active tests seem a bit less refined, and may possibly have you scratching your head, and what I mean by this is certain tests such as sunroof opening and closing with the autel, you tell the autel to open sunroof, and the sunroof opens all the way with one button push, the youcannic on the other hand will only open the center roof about 1 or 2 in per click. So while it can control the module, it sends more of a pulse than a constant signal until the operation completes/ is terminated, I can only imagine there can be certain jobs you're trying to figure out where this will leave you wondering if that is supposed to happen or not, another thing i let support know about.
Tldr. If you're just a diyer who wants something good enough, feature packed for the price, so subscriptions, and is designed for the non-professional while offering near pro level stuff, I'd go with this.
