2009 Australian InCar Entertainment Awards

2009 Australian InCar Entertainment Awards

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Issue: Incar-#3-2009

INCAR Features

Once again it’s the time of the year where the cream-of-the-crop in mobile entertainment products gets to walk the red carpet in anticipation for the coveted prize of Product of the Year…

It seems like it was only yesterday that we were going through the arduous task of selecting last year’s Awardees for the inaugural stand-alone Australian InCar Entertainment Awards. Well, here we are again, and believe us, this year’s outstanding products made our judge’s decisions even harder.

New multimedia head units, in particular, are progress and technology-advancement-driven, making for feature lists that are growing exponentially – in item complexity and count. Sifting and sorting through these is in itself a challenge – never mind audio and visual quality comparisons. Even more traditional single-DIN head units are growing in intricacy and functionality, with many of their capabilities steadily trickling down from the models above.

Progress hasn’t stood still in the upper-echelons of amplification either, with some models now taking digital signals directly from either head units or digital processors. Some also include sophisticated digital crossover and equalisation circuitry, making for potentially significant sound quality advancements when set-up by a skilled in-car installations professional.

GPS navigation systems have had steady growth and acceptance in the Australian market, some offering cross-over features such as built-in cameras, games and MP3 players. Many upper models now come with the new SUNA Live Traffic Update system (Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane) which provides live-to-your-GPS information on traffic conditions.

We’ve also fine-tuned and tweaked (pardon the pun) some of the categories, and omitted others, in order to concentrate our efforts on core audio and visual products.

So, the last year has seen a wealth of technology-driven and feature-rich products that we are incredibly lucky to have access to in this country.

Now, here are a few very useful suggestions on how to spend your economic stimulus package…