Well, my new car stereo finally arrived.
Xplod Info Center - The New Sony MEX-BT5000 Bluetooth Enabled CD Receiver
I went for the BT5000 instead of it's cheaper brother the BT2500 for two main reasons;
The BT5000 has a seperate sub-out and a port to connect your factory stalk control. There are, i'm sure, many other differences, but that was it for me.
Other than that, the only feature I was after was Bluetooth Streaming. And it works a treat.
Pairing is a little tricky as the BT5000 searches for the phone, but the phone wont see it unless that is also in pairing mode. It's a bit strange, but once paired and set to auto connect, it's wonderful.
As I walk towards the car, I just open the media player and start up a playlist which comes out of the phone speaker, 3 or 4 seconds after I switch on the car, the music is coming out of the car speakers... It's ace.
Although sound is particularly poor when you have the stereo widening switched on, for some reason. Not sure why.
The controller on the front of the stereo changes tracks on the phone as does the connected stalk control.
When a call comes in, the music pauses and you can press the green button to pickup or the red to reject. Call quality depends on noise in the car and road noise as the mic is in the stereo.
Initiating a call is equally simple and the BT-5000 has it's own address book. Not sure if you can import it over bluetooth - a job for tomorrow.
But all in all, a really easy to setup and use. Just looks really ugly!
I'll post some more stuff as I play with it and If anyone want's to know anything specific before they buy one, I'll be happy to try and answer, but it's basically thumbs up from me.
Linear Mode
