All cars from Honda currently sold in the USA can come with an optional GPS system nicknamed “Navi” featuring GPS navigation with voice recognition (the voice recognition system also commands the audio system and air conditioning). Thru the screen of the navigation system you can also command the car audio system, which supports MP3 files. In this review we will analyze the MP3 feature of the Honda Navi system.

Several car CD players support MP3 files these days, but the advantage of the Honda Navi system is the presence of a big LCD screen, making the selection of songs far easier than a traditional CD player. It also supports memory cards thru a PC Card (a.k.a. PCMCIA) slot, feature not found on regular CD players. Even though the Navi system commands a 6-disc CD changer, MP3 support is found only on the CD slot present behind the LCD screen.

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Figure 1: Honda Navi system.

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Figure 2: CD slot behind the LCD screen. See also the PC Card slot.