« Using the Samsung SCH-u740 with Mac OS X | Main | You CAN use 100% Recycled paper in any printer »
Using your Treo 700p with your car stereo
With just 2 accessories and an auto manufacturer with foresight enough to see past the iCraze and who uses the industry standard (and blasphemous) 1/8" "AUX" (auxiliary) port you can enjoy all of your pTunes with stunning quality on your next road trip.
THE ACCESSORIES:
Cheap 'ol Radio Shack 1/8" to 1/8" cable:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102949&cp=&sr=1&origkw=1%2F8%22+cable&kw=1%2F8+cable&parentPage=search
SPE to 1/8" Stereo adapter:
http://shop.treonauts.com/content/accessories/12-45--337.htm
THE EXPERIENCE
I don't have a list of manufacturers that provide an AUX port on their stereos but it really should be everybody. The reason? It is a universal standard. Every single music player on earth either uses it out-of-the-box or can be made to use it with no more than one adapter. Why make a dock for one generation of one music player? (*ahem iPod..*)
Our last two rental car upgrades were Chryslers (Jeep Grand Cherokee and PT Cruiser) and they both had the port right there for easy access. We also rented a Saturn Ion and it also had the Aux feature so this suggests you can also make it a certain distance into the GM line and jam out on the road.
The Treo battery life is just stellar and it survived the trip from New York to Washington D.C. and still had 75% of it's battery left.
On the way back we decided to try an experiment and use our all-you-can-eat data plan (which is a real bargain on Sprint) to pull up some streaming radio stations using the Blazer Browser.
Your mileage will certainly vary (so to speak) but we had a rock-solid (no skips) stream from no less than three stations along the 'Jersey turnpike. We tested:
- soma.fm (128k Groove Salad stream)
- a 128k shoutcast.com trance stream
- a 64k virgin.co.uk stream
Since you are using your transceiver this will chew up a fully charged battery in just over 2hrs so you may want to be plugged in to power to use this one.
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on May 11, 2007 12:02 PM