Most of us spend a lot of money and care on buying cars, as we are passionate about what we drive. But I would any day spend more and take more care over fitting my car with exquisite gadgets. For the past week, I have been looking all over the city for a car stereo that will play the music on my iPhone and iPod and at the same time let me listen to local FM stations with the minimum of hassles.

Most top-of-the-line cars come with a car stereo and the controls are all on the steering. You can control the volume of the iPhone, take calls and even block your children from playing games if screens are fitted on the backrest of the front seat. One thing that annoys everyone is that you can use the steering wheel controls only to change songs and volume, nothing else. However, that varies from car to car.

As for me, I found my ideal car stereo. I have ordered the JVC KDR-606 and it’s superb. It gives you the option of the iPod control mode (play / select tracks with the head unit or with iPod or the iPhone itself). The best part is that it charges your iPhone through a USB port. A major complaint of the iPhone is that the battery finishes too fast if your settings are not correct. To correct your settings, all you need to do is put off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and watch the battery life improve drastically.

The JVC KDR works brilliantly with the iPhone 3G too. Incoming calls cause music to fade out which automatically starts to back up when the call ends. This system uses an Auxiliary in jack and the sound is much better than that of the FM Transmitter we were familiar with a few years ago.

With the JVC’s Variable-Colour Illumination, you can select from 30 colours, or even customise your own colour from over 30,000 variations. Other features include Front AUX-IN, tuner, and 3-band iEQ (equaliser). The unit is also ready for Bluetooth Wireless Technology via an optional adaptor.

If you have a lot of money to burn, you could go for a Sony car stereo that is iPhone and iPod compatible. Most models, however, are not available in India. Sony’s best model is CDX-GT930UI. It has USB 1-wire head unit with MP3/WMA/AAC compatible CD players. Plus Rear USB 1-wire for connecting to a Walkman, iPod, iPhone and other compatible music players. Other features include —

* Quick-BrowZer with Jump Mode allows you to search and access your music instantly

* The Zappin feature lets you select your music after hearing small clips

* Passenger control allows someone else to control the music while you concentrate on driving

* Its controls can readably be connected to the steering wheel if you so desire.

Kenwood’s KDC-W7544U is also iPhone friendly and is specially designed to work with Apple’s mobile devices. I would give it a high rating. Kenwood’s KDC-W7544U benefits from a five-line, full dot display that can show five lines of text. This, combined with its Direct Digital iPod connection, means that a multitude of music information data can be viewed quickly and clearly. The other Kenwood model is KDC-W7044U.

And then there is Pioneer, which is also iPhone and iPod ready. The Pioneer DEH-P6000UB is a stylish one with several options. It has the standard iPod support and a wealth of audio tweaking and processing options, including its Advanced Sound Retrieval for compressed audio files.

The bad part is that the stereo’s multi-centre interface can take a while to master because of the large number of functions that it controls and its tendency to tip over easily.

One thing you can safely dispense with is your cigarette lighter, which earlier acted as an iPhone / iPod charger. The other thing you can now dispense with is the FM transmitter that would play your iPod song onto a single set frequency of your car radio. The auxiliary cables give you immensely better sound.

Apart from these, there is the Belkin range of products which lets you charge your iPhone, iPod and even your Mac. It’s a good product, but is best used with a larger car. Its TuneBase FM lets you listen to music from your iPhone or iPod in your car while simultaneously charging it. Its ClearScan feature automatically searches for the clearest FM frequency.

The BlackBerry too has car chargers, but they are dependent on the cigarette lighters. A word of warning: cigarette lighters in India have a very poor life and can sometimes ruin your front panel due to a short circuit. I have personally experienced this.

You should also check out accessories from iTrip (www.griffintechnology.com) and PDO (www.pdostore.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_ID=145)

Whatever you do, avoid buying the FM Transmitter for the iPod. Technology has progressed and the auxillary in cables give you much better sound.

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