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Sony adds tomtom to car stereos

Posted by Mike Redrobe | Posted in Gadgets | Posted on 03-09-2010

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Sony adds tomtom to car stereos

Sony’s just announced two new car stereos that feature built-in TomTom satellite navigation.

The Xplod XNV-L77BT and XNV-L66BT in-dash head units feature 7-inch and 6.1-inch displays respectively and take advantage of a wealth of TomTom Live services you don’t get with bog standard sat-navs.

Those with a need for speed should find the HD Traffic and Safety Alerts features particularly useful, as they help drivers avoid traffic jams and provide advance warnings about speed cameras and accident black spots.

Both devices also include TomTom’s Local Search with Google — a service that lets users find and interact with local points of interest. Whilst driving you could, for example, search for a nearby restaurant,  make a call to said restaurant via your Bluetooth-connected mobile phone and book a table — all via the touchscreen display.

This being a TomTom, map coverage is fairly comprehensive. The Xplod XNV-L77BT and XNV-L66BT include TeleAtlas map data for 45 European countries and have a Map Share feature that lets you edit out of date maps and download map updates from Tom Tom’s Map Share user community.

It’s probably worth mentioning that both the XNV-L66BT and XNV-L66BT let you play music and video, too. DAB radio isn’t present, but Sony’s thrown in a CD player, AM/FM radio tuner plus iPhone and iPod connectors and a USB port so you can connect your own memory keys.

Both devices support DVD, DivX and MPEG-4 video playback at a fairly respectable 800×480-pixel resolution — though not while the vehicle is in motion — and it’s possible to connect external video devices including a rear-view camera, though this isn’t supplied in the box.

Sony’s yet to announce pricing for these devices, but  both the Xplod XNV-L77BT and XNV-L66BT will be available in the UK from October 2010