Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

iPod-friendly car stereos are nothing new. In fact, you’d probably be hard-pressed to find a stereo these days that didn’t feature some kind of iPod connectivity. But most of the time it’s just a cable or a dock that leaves your MP3 player sitting out in the open, tempting those who walk by your vehicle. But not the CA-IP500 from Fusion Electronics Ltd. The face of the head unit flips down revealing a spot where you can safely stash your iPod while it’s connected. And the unit currently supports the iPod Touch Gen1 & Gen2, the iPod Classic Gen5, Gen6 & Gen7 and the iPod Nano Gen2, Gen3 & Gen4.

Once hidden away, the iPod can still be controlled via the CA-IP500’s joystick and rotary controls, which operate not unlike the iPod’s own click-wheel. Other features include a dot matrix OLED display, SRS Wos sound shaping, AM/FM tuner, 7-band equalizer, security code, aux-in port and it will even charge your player while it’s docked inside. At $349 it’s not the cheapest iPod-compatible car stereo on the market, but if it saves your vehicle from a break-in, it could be worth it in the long run.

[ Fusion CA-IP500 ] VIA [ Chip Chick ]

By David Ponce

So hey, I was thinking. I bought this here car stereo a couple weeks back, the JVC KD-NX5000. It’s pretty nice. So, below is my two minutes’ worth of impressions on it.

Out here, the three-word verdict: awesome, slightly quirky.

By Shane McGlaun

Blaupunkt has been making car stereos for a long time now and recently it announced its newest stereo head unit called the Melbourne SD27. The Melbourne SD27 ditches that oh so 90’s CD player in favor of getting its recorded music from SD and MMC cards. Now you don’t need that FM transmitter or a cable to play your digital music files in your car, all you need is a SD card or miniSD card with an adapter and you can play your tunes directly through the radio.

The cards have to be formatted in FAT 16 of FAT 32 and it can playback MP3 or WMA files. The SD27 also can display up to 127 directories of file names and ID3 tags of up to 30 characters. There is also an optional Bluetooth module and iPod control module available that allows connectivity to music phones wirelessly and control of your iPod from the radio.

VIA [ Blaupunkt ]