This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 at 11:03 and is filed under Accessories, Analysis & Commentary, Hardware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Tuesday, September 5, 2006
So I’m in the market to purchase a new vehicle and like my current two (my wife’s and my car,) I want iPod integration for it. I’ve done the FM modulator thing and am done with that. That’s a band-aid, not integration.
Not being too happy with my current Pioneer setup (it’s about three years old) and its limited functionality of the iPod through my once top-of-the-line Pioneer, I’m considering all brands and options. Consideration ain’t easy though, folks. While Apple’s “iPod Your Car” is a good start, with all the “Coming Soon” links under various car models, one quickly starts getting a sinking feeling. The After-Market Solutions link is a bit better, but it too lacks what a true “iPod Your Car” person would need: examples, demos, reviews. Research material.
Google isn’t much help, either, as FM modulators are the number one hit in the results set. Digging deeper through the web leaves you with little nuggets of gold. In fact, the leading authority on iPod stuff, iLounge, has not a single after market deck reviewed! If it does, I couldn’t find it.
Despairingly, I could have sworn I once tripped over a site that did indeed have a list of car stereos with built-in iPod integration but I couldn’t find it. Maybe someone via the comments will be able to better assist in locating that page.
While Apple does a good job getting you started, it just doesn’t do a good enough of one in really showing how your iPod could shine in your dash. I want to avoid dumping a few hundred dollars into a system to only find eight characters will display at a time and browsing through my 60 GB iPod takes for ever. I need someone to say, “Hey this is the bomb and replicates your iPod information to a T on the display.” Or if it’s on the other end of the spectrum, “This is a dog and I wouldn’t recommend it.” That’s what I, and you, need.
I spent some time in Circuit City on Labor Day and played with one Pioneer deck (the actual one I’m considering, the DEH-P6800MP) and while the iPod mini Circuit City had connected to it had nothing on it but the default Smart Playlists, it did give me an idea how it would handle. I was at least able to see that, sure enough, My Top 25 Rated Songs displayed on the OLED as “My Top 25 R”. It truncated even though it had plenty of room on the display. Ugh, what is Pioneers problem? Thankfully, Pioneer does give some indication how its upper end products will work with a nice Flash presentation on its site (which is down right now, hence the lack of a link.) Thing is, I’m not spending $2,200 on a head-unit for my iPod.
At this point, in all seriousness, Harmon Kardon’s drive+play is the best choice for the price. At $150, it’s the biggest bang for the buck. Hands down. I’ve got one in my wife’s truck and it’ll be coming to review real soon. We have loved it and how it replicates the iPod almost perfectly. Again, at $150, it’s just too incredible of deal for me to ignore and maybe I can just forget about wasting hours on the web for no real indication as to if the product I’m looking at won’t cut text off on the display or lag in its search.
Stay tuned, I’ll be revisiting this in the coming weeks for sure.
September 5th, 2006 at 19:46
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-Gc3kUCxPC6L/cgi-bin/tools/digitalDriveThru/digitalDriveThruIntro.asp?cm_re_o=fBBk_B0*kbELn*pbTbfzkjpybMwjftyA
Reasonable prices considering the quality of service provided.