OT: Technology and Geek Stuff Thread

[Topweasel]

I priced out a Droid Bionic. At $270 plus over $250 for the keyboard dock I can't justify the cost yet

Played around with keyboard dock on the Atrix. Not the greatest thing in the world, much better off with a dedicated simple tablet or a netbook depending on what you are trying to use it for.

[nhwbrooklyn]

btw if I haven't said it already, Spotify is amazing. It's far better than pandora IMO.

[unknown lions fan]

I'm really disappointed in the state of car stereo with respect to digital media right now. I mean, why is the car stereo market so far behind the curve?

CDs are history. Where's my car stereo with a touch screen and a 150GB hard drive so I can put my entire collection on it and be done with it?

I bought a cheap-o unit for my boat this year that takes an SD card on the front. I put an 8GB card in it with a few thousand songs, and I'm all set. It's only a $45 stereo, but hook it up to a 300W amp and it's decent for the boat.

[Coop]

you raise an interesting point ULF. Guess I've never thought about it because I've had an iphone/ipod for so long.

[Tony G]

Where's my car stereo with a touch screen and a 150GB hard drive so I can put my entire collection on it and be done with it?

My car (2009) has the touch screen (borderline distracting) and with my ipod hooked to my SYNC system I have 160 GB of music available. I can put a 500 GB HD on it but it doesn't index that many songs.

[unknown lions fan]

Is that a factory radio Tony? And how would that HD hook up (usb?) and get power?

I know I can go with the Ipod / phone hookup thing, but I don't want to have to hook it up and disconnect it everytime I get in and out of the truck. It'd be pretty easy to have it all right there on an internal HD.

[SeattleLionsFan]

I think you can get an iPod pretty cheap. Especially used.

[Coop]

ULF - most aftermarket HU's come with ipod hookups these days, My Alpine one is intended for permanent hookup, as it has an AI for navigating the ipod directly from the deck.

[FVD]

A lot of car radios nowadays have an Aux cable input jack, I know Chrysler stock radios do. All you need is a stereo cable (which you can pick up at radio shack for less than $10), plug it into the headphone jack on your mp3 player and the other end into the radio and you've got all the music you want.

[Tony G]

Is that a factory radio Tony? And how would that HD hook up (usb?) and get power?

Yep, OEM. You have to look around but there are HDs that use a USB micro that don't require external power. The trick is to get one that doesn't have passwaord protection already installed.

The Aux jack works ok to just take the output of my ipod but with it plugged into the base I get to access playlists and control the ipod selections from the steering wheel controls. I keep my pod stashed in my armrest and I only take it out to update it. Crutchfield.com should have a bunch of radios that are capable of controlling ipods instead of just giving you the aux jack solution.

The alternative, trying to navigate the ipod while driving, can be a little chancey.

[froot loops]

I just got a brand new used minivan and it had a Sirius radio on it with a 25 GB hard drive on it.

[bimmer84]

My iPod plugs into the place in my trunk that used to be the CD changer. Then you run it from the radio head.

[Coop]

I did the aux input for quite a while and mounted the ipod/phone where I could get to it driving. Alpine at least has finally made controlling it from the HU possible.

[SeattleLionsFan]

To address ULFs point about the ease of the internal HD. I've always thought that would be really difficult to load and keep updated. Much easier to have a mobile HD like a USB drive or IPod.

Anyone have other experience?

[nhwbrooklyn]

Mobile for me. But it doesn't really matter. It's all about to be cloud based anyhow.

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