By Andrew Liszewski
Yesterday Sony unveiled a new lineup of car stereo receivers, eight in total, ranging from low-end, affordable entry level models to the most interesting and expensive DSX-S310BTX. From what I can tell it eschews a built-in CD player in favor of providing connectivity to MP3 players and smartphones. Instead of a disc slot the stereo’s faceplate hides a Tune Tray which allows you to connect and stash away your MP3 player so you don’t have to deal with unsightly wires. There’s also a USB port on the front which lets you connect a flash drive full of MP3s, but most users will probably be installing one for its Bluetooth support.
The wireless connection allows you to keep your internet-connected smartphone easily available when driving, while still letting you stream music from Pandora through your car’s stereo system. The Pandora controls are even accessible via the stereo’s faceplate buttons so you don’t need to operate or even unlock your smartphone to skip tracks. Whether that phone happens to be an Android device, Blackberry or iPhone. And while I don’t see any mention of it in the official press release, I’m hoping the DSX-S310BTX also lets you stream your regular music from your iPhone over BT, like with the ever growing collection of BT speakers out there. Available in September for $280, but if you’re an iPhone user wary of your phone’s battery life, there’s also the DSX-S210X iPhone-only version which ditches the Bluetooth for a more reasonable $200 price point.
[ PR – Sony Connects Drivers With SiriusXM and Pandora On New Car Stereo Lineup ] VIA [ Chip Chick ]
If you’ve ever tried one of these “integrated” units that reads the music and metadata over USB, you know they suck. As one might expect, it’s slow as hell to read all that information over USB and offer it up for navigation.
Music devices (including phones) already have a UI, which usually kicks ass over the puny display on a radio like this. Give people a proper place to mount the phone and plug it in with a discreet connector. That’s all you need.
Unfortunately, it seems that most Android phones lack audio line-out jacks. Dumb.
The point of a device like this is to stream your music and podcasts via bluetooth. It is one of the few head units available that supports the A2DP and ARVP protocols in a single din configuration. This allows the music to play, the metadata to be displayed and as a bonus – when the phone rings it automatically cuts the music.