Over the past few months, I’ve been using my Droid X in the car a lot more. It started with just the voice-activated bluetooth calling, which is quite handy.
Then I got the windshield mount and started using Google Navigation for a few trips, leaving my Garmin in the other car for my wife. Google Navigation is quite awesome and it has a few things that I just love:
- I can have it show satellite imagery instead of just beige maps, which is great for big parking lots and a little nicer to look at on the screen.
- It automatically syncs with my “starred places” in Google Maps, so I can just look up a location in Google Maps on my PC, “star” it, and it’ll automatically be waiting for me on the phone.
- It incorporates real-time traffic info into the time estimates, which make them much more accurate than most other GPS models.
- It’s free! Free to use, and all of the road/POI updates are free and seamless.
Next, I started using Pandora
quite a bit at home, so I loaded the app on the phone and I’ve been using it in the car (again, via bluetooth). I have a variety of stations for myself, but also a few for when the girls are in the car with me (Disney, etc). I pay the few dollars a month for the “plus” version, which means I have stations that:
- Have no commercials. Most Sirius/XM stations don’t have commercials, but they still have hosts that interrupt after every song to promote themselves and/or other stations on Sirius.
- Are tuned to my tastes. As I rate each song, it gets better and better.
- Keep a variety. With my iPod, I tend to be bad about listening to the same songs all the time. Pandora does a nice job of mixing it up with new songs, based on which songs I’ve told it I like.
Even with all of that happening at the same time on the phone, it handles it remarkably well. Here’s a quick video showing how I have things set up in the car and how easy it is to use:
Do you have a similar set-up in your car? Leave a comment and tell me about it.
