Sony XNV-770BT – car audio receiver with TomTom’s GPS

Sony XNV-770BT has three main functions and they are spelled out by the device – BT Phone, Navigation and AV source. The handsfree calling functions are handled by the BT phone section. After pairing the handset through the four digit PIN number, you get the option of syncing the phone book. Once you do this, you can browse through the address book using the touch screen interface. There is also an option for browsing phone book for the devices that cannot sync. Finally, you get access to the recent calls list and manual numerical dialer. The frequently accessed contacts can be saved in one of the six preset keys on the home screen of the phone menu.

The main screen of BT phone menu also has a key for voice dialing; which gives up the commands for the voice dialing engine of the paired handset. One complaint that I have here is that the button is buried two levels beneath the main menu and you have to dig inside every time for it. May be Sony will take care of this problem in the next iteration.

In the AV sources menu of Sony XNV-770BT; you get a bird’s eye view of the video and audio entertainment sources. It includes DVD/CD playback, AM/FM radio, aux analog video and audio input, Bluetooth audio streaming, and iPod/USB connectivity. iPod connectivity is cool here because you can connect the Apple’s gadget to the dock connector for watching videos on the gorgeous seven inch screen when the car is parked. I used Nano and iPod Classic without any problems but content from iPhone 4 didn’t get displayed. All I got was a message of ‘Device not compatible’. In spite of this, I could still read the audio data very well.

User interface’s navigation portion is generated by external TomTom GPS module and it is quite similar to standalone TomTom portable navigation device like XL 550. On the main menu, there are two big options for selecting destinations either through a series of searches and menus or by browsing maps along with POI graphic icons. There is another row containing smaller icons for fine-tuning and adjusting the options for navigation.

Sony has outsourced the navigation activities to TomTom for Sony XNV-770BT and hence the functions are totally separated from that of Sony’s. For me, this was a bit awkward for tasks like changing the radio stations or selecting different playlists on iPod.