Bill Wattison

I've been thinking about installing a small computer under the passenger side seat for the sole purpose of playing mp3 files. But before I spend the time, money, and effort to make it happen, are there any commercial alternatives available?

I've looked into such popular in-dash car-mp3 players manufactured by Empeg and Rio, but their radically designed faceplates do nothing to uphold the classy interior of the i30. I would prefer it if the unit would be kept out of sight as well; my windows are not tinted and a car-mp3 player would attract too much attention for comfort, especially in the midst of all these posts about car vandalisms, break-ins, and thefts.

All relevant advice, whether beneficial or not, will be highly appreciated. Thanks.

EDIT: I've just stumbled across the Neo MP3 Player. From the picture it looks like the unit can be mounted anywhere (like in the trunk where these fugly things belongs); and the equally fugly controller can be stored in the glovebox. Does anyone have any opinions on this item? The URL to the product can be found at:

http://www.ssiamerica.com/products/neo35/

OgreDave

iTrader: (1)

the portable computer thing has been done. i helped my friend do it in his 3rd gen. its kinda lame having a machine boot up each time you start the car. we set up his explorer to = winamp with the numeric pad plugin.. and then theres win98/win95 (forgot) which doesnt need to scandisk all the time like win98se+ on all the nice shutdowns. we did everything off a small hd, and cdrom with playlist. this way he didnt have to remove anything to switch songs.. just burn another cd.

You might wanna look into somethin like a phatbox or something, tho i never liked the idea of having media in my trunk with my sub. (magnetic, anyways)

I do however really like the looks of kenwoods z828 (i have one) .. and the forthcoming x929. (damn its sweet, kinda makes me jealous)

Good luck

RedMax95

another option you could look into is that some manfacturers are putting them as options on new cars, they may a better look if its a factory one

Ants97SE

Neo sucks, get a Rio. Trust me, its worth having a strange face plate.

RedMax95

and hids as i saw last night

Wizeguy

I've thought about using my Compaq Ipaq Pocketpc (think palm pilot) to play mp3's in the car. It has an earphone jack. What I was thinking was either making a earphone jack -> RCA Outputs, and pluging it onto my aftermarket rca's inputs (on my Sentra) or getting one of those tapes that plug into the tape deck and connecting it to the Ipaq (on my Maxima w/ factory Bose). The problem with this setup is that selecting a song would be dangerous while on the road (small screen). You can buy additional compact flash cards for it. Just download the songs you want for your trip onto the device create a playlist and go. Heck the ipaq fits nicely into the slot below the Bose.

I've got a spread sheet with my gas mileage on it too.