As the car audio aftermarket continues its slow decline towards dinosaur status, like many A-list names in the business, Alpine is stepping up its OEM offerings. The company has in the past been a marquee nameplate in luxury vehicles such as Jaguar (before getting bumped in favor of fellow Brit's B&W) and Lincoln. At the 2009 Detroit Auto Show, Alpine announced it has scored a trifecta and unveiled new tech that will appear in vehicles from BMW, GM and Mercedes-Benz.
These include a whopping 8.8-inch in-dash display in the center stack of the 2009 BMW Z4 Roadster (rear-seat entertainment systems in some minivans don't have a monitor that size), a new head unit for a global Mercedes platform and the first infotainment system -- OEM or aftermarket -- with 2 GB of flash memory for the 2010 Buick LaCrosse, 2010 Chevrolet Equinox and 2010 Cadillac SRX.
As if having a large hi-res display in the dash of a car this small isn't cool enough, the monitor that Alpine is supplying for the new Z4 Roadster comes encased in a "clam-shell" display that pops open at the touch of a button. Which will be cool, that is, until the first time it malfunctions and you have to pry it open.
The 1280-x-480 resolution "Double VGA" display will be used for audio and navigation functions, as well as a back-up camera to make sure you don't run over Junior's bike, or worse, Junior while backing out of the driveway ensconced in the Z4 Roadster's low-slung seats. Alpine also claims that the display "helps improve at-a-glance recognition and reduces eye strain."
The Mercedes deal is a major coup for Alpine, since the German automaker has for years been aligned with uber mobile electronics supplier Harmon/Kardon for most of the company's audio/video needs, although Alpine has supplied electronics for Mercedes audio systems, sans logo. Alpine head units will be available as standard and optional equipment on the Mercedes-Benz SLK, SL, E-Class, CLS, A-Class, B-Class, M-Class, R-Class, GL, and G-Class vehicles in North America, Europe, Japan, China, Russia, Southeast Asia, Middle East, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand almost all Mercedes vehicles everywhere in the world.
Lastly, the highlight of the new head unit Alpine will supply for the CXL and CXS LaCrosse, the LT and LTZ Equinox and the Cadillac SRX is its 2 GB of flash memory, which allows for quickly transferring music from a USB drive -- as opposed to the painfully slow process of ripping CDs to an on-board hard disc.
The new CD/DVD head also has a USB 2.0 port for plugging in an iPod (without a proprietary cable) or other MP3 player and allows time-shifting XM or FM/AM broadcasts. And it has the ability to simultaneously play two digital media files for front-seat and rear-seat occupants so that the driver can, say, rock out to Radiohead while the kids in the backseat jam to the Jonas Brothers.
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