Sony's Ho-Hum Car Offerings

After a spin through Sony's booth to check out the latest it has for car-tech lovers, I found a couple of interesting intros this year in its Xplod in-car line.

The first is the petite Sony Nav-U NV-U70 portable satellite navigation system, which reminds me a lot of Tom Tom's GPS units. Sony's device has a 3.5-inch touchscreen display that goes with you in and out of the car, has two-way speakers for better audio guidance, and helps you map your way not only via standard input (address, city, points of interest, and so on) but also zip code – something Sony claims the competition doesn't have. That may be, but is it really worth crowing about? For the most part, it's nothing new, aside from it being from Sony. It'll be out in mid-February for sale at $700.

Second up, the electronics giant is touting the MEX-1GP car stereo head unit, which has a detachable faceplate that has 1GB of flash memory on board to serve as your in-car MP3 player. The idea is that you'll hook up that faceplate to your PC via USB whenever you want to change your tunes. But with only 1GB, supplying you with about 500 songs at best, you may be better off getting one of their satellite-radio-ready units or one with a simple auxiliary-in connection that will let you use your portable music device of choice.

Sony may be a big hitter, but I wasn't really bowled over by where they're going in the car space. How about you?