I was recently assigned a new company car by IBM, a 2007 Toyota Camry. I must say that, so far, I have been pleased with it. My only major complain has been related to the audio system, which cannot be replaced by a different one. The reason I wanted to change it was because of the poor integration it offered with the iPod. Sure, there is an AUX entry which can be used to connect any MP3 player to the car’s audio system, however, this is not very practical as you need to take your eyes off the road in order to control your device. Furthermore, if you are charge your device by connecting it to the cigarette lighter, you will immediately notice an annoying noise distorting the sound, which makes it very unpleasant to listen to music while charging your iPod (this is not considered a flaw, it is documented in the car’s manual).
In my previous car, a Chevrolect Vectra (also known as Opel Vectra in Europe), I had replaced my built-in stereo with a Pioneer device that allowed me to easily control the iPod from the radio controls, with my MP3 player hidden in the glove compartment. That is why I immediately started looking for a similar product for my Camry.
I must say that there weren’t many options for my vehicle. Products like the iCruze from Monster simply do not support my car and I know that many other car owners face similar problems. So, when I finally found the drive+play system from Harman Kardon, which works on any car, I was relieved to see that there was a solution to my problem. The best part is that the functionality I get from this product is much better than what my previous car stereo offered me, as I can now have access to all my songs and not just a limited number of playlists. In addition, this device not only allows me to easily control my iPod but also see the songs that are playing on a small but slick screen that does not obstruct my vision. Last but not least, I can also finally listen to the music while charging the iPod. The background noise is still there, but is much less noticeable. I can even swear that I get better audio quality than before, but this is just my particular perception, your mileage may vary. No wonder this product has won so many awards, it is an outstanding, well built solution.
Although I totally recommend this product to any serious iPod user, it has a number of small irritating flaws. The first one is that it cannot handle non-ASCII characters. Since I listen to a lot of international music which often includes accentuated characters in the song metadata (title and artist), seeing them replaced by blanks is disappointing. The other problem is that the scroll wheel is not as responsive as the iPod’s and therefore, navigating through long lists of songs, albums or artists can be cumbersome. However, this does not change my overall opinion that the Drive+Play product is the best car accessory I have seen so far for the iPod.