Ian Grayson30 July 2007, 12:20 AM
Below $400 before Christmas, the Sony guy said, pointing proudly at the new Bluetooth car stereo that offers music streaming and handsfree.
 Sony's in-car audio: affordable and Bluetooth connected |
While a 70-inch LCD display, high-definition projectors and a visiting rock band got most of the attention at last week's marketing expo in Sydney, electronics giant Sony also showed off its latest in-car offerings.
A new $449 car stereo is aiming to make it as easy as possible for car audio enthusiasts to play music in any form or format they want.
The new Sony MEXBT2500 car audio head unit accepts music stored on CDs or DVDs in formats including WMA, MP3, AAC and (the spectacularly unpopular) ATRAC3plus.
Impressively, the unit's inbuilt Bluetooth connection also allows you to stream audio from any similarly equipped portable device, such as a phone or music player.
While streaming music from a mobile phone may not prove to be the most popular usage of the head unit's Bluetooth, the same connection doubles as an in-car phone kit. Sony says up to five phones can be paired with the unit at any one time. Sounds good, but it could get a little confusing if they all ring at once.
Meanwhile Sony was also showing off its CDXGT50UI (who names these things?) head unit that boasts an iPod connection. A cable connected to the rear of the unit can be trailed into the glove box compartment where it remains out of sight yet allows easy connection of an iPod. The cable doubles as a charger for those longer driving trips.
The unit's faceplate also houses a USB connection. Once a flash drive is inserted, the unit automatically recognises the storage format and plays the tracks. Song details can be viewed on the display. The disk player also accepts a variety of formats including MP3, WMA, AAC and ATRAC.
For those with a retro feel, there's a 3.5mm socket on the unit, allowing things such as cassette players or non-iPod music players to also be connected.
Sony car entertainment product manager Nick Wilson says the units are all about making file formats and storage devices irrelevant when it comes to listening to music in the car. "If you've got it with you, you can play it," he says.
Sounds good to us.