Gear4 AirZone FM ‘Follow Me’

As I mentioned in my previous post (Vectra SRI CDTi), I was bugged that it didn’t have an MP3 player. Well I thought, maybe I can change the head unit, or pull this one out, and see if it had any auxiliary sockets at the back, then I thought….Ooooo, why don’t I just get one of the FM transmitter thingys.

First off I bought myself a ITrip, which even though it stated on the box that it was compatible with the Ipod touch, this apparently didn’t mean the 2G. I bought it, plugged it into my ipod, sat in the car, turned on the stereo, pressed play….and nothing, no LCD display, nothing. So lucky for me, I hadn’t even left Curry’s carpark, so took it back for a refund Pretty glad I did, as it was almost double the price that is was online at other leading retailers.

That night I came home and did a little research, and found that Gear4 also did one, however this used the RDS technology to a, display the ID tags as the radio station, and b, send a signal to the headunit, if it moved stations.

This turned up on Thursday at work, ripped it out of the box, plugged it in…..nothing……

Luckily, my office seems to have been taken over by Apple in the last couple of months, it went from nothing apple to, 4 Iphone 3G’s, and 4 Ipod Touch 2G’s.

I kindly as a few people to try it in their, and it worked….DOH !

Got home that night pretty gutted, as my Ipod seemed to have a fault with it, so C decided she ought to by an Ipod Touch as it had been tested and working with several in the office.

Long story short, C bought an Ipod Touch from the shiny Mecca that is the Apple store (there are no Ipod touches anywhere…..believe me, we tried, but that’s another story), and we got to try it out.

It works, and works well.

The button on the left scans the radio waves where you are and finds the clearest frequencies, once found it sets itself to this (eg 99.9 FM seems good near me). Hit play and your away, it scrolls the ID tag along it’s own screen in a very cool blue LED font, as well as displays the frequency it’s using. Program your radio to pick this up, and all is cool.

The quality is good, I wouldn’t say is it CD quality, but around the same as a well tuned in radio station (I know, I know, obviously, however just thought I’d point that out if anybody though it was going to be as good as the MP3 dock you get is some cars, personally I don’t think it is).

We did get a little interference, however this was fixed by moving the Ipod from underneath the head unit, to a SunGlasses holder above the centre console, we realised we were actually getting interference from the windscreen wipers.

While driving from home to Leicester, it did adjust it’s frequency from 99.9 to 99.7 and with it being RDS, the Head Unit re-tuned itself (very cleaver I thought).

Conclusion, for £30, it beats buying and fitting a new head unit, the quality isn’t perfect, but very good.

Spec Below.

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The MacBook Pro Unboxing.

Gotta love the apple packaging

What’s underneath the MacBook Pro

The stylishly designed document holder

The multi ended power supple cable (which if you didn’t know is held onto the Mac with a magnet, so no fear of breaking off the end of the power adapter if you were to trip over the cable, Clever I know !)

Well, in true geek style, I thought I’d take shots of the unboxing of the MacBook Pro.

btw, forgot to mention in my previous blog “Apple Day, Hurray !” , that we went to the Apple store, because the one I had ordered, was due to turn up on Wednesday, and I’m just far to impatient, got home, only to find it had been delivered and left with the neighbour ! I know, the irony ! However it did mean that both myself and C could start the Apple learning curve together.

Below is the shiny new one from the Apple Store

and here are the 2

So, on with the unboxing

Out of the box

The huge trackpad

The left hand side connectors

The SuperMutli Drive Slot

Such a nice Gloss Screen

The first switch on !

The welcome message

The backlit keyboard

Finally the lit up Apple logo on the back

Below is the now slightly over crowded computer room

However, C may have lost her MacBook to the cat, as he seems to think it’s his new bed, lol

Tags: adapter, Apple, Apple Day, apple logo, apple store, backlit keyboard, Below, blog, btw, cable, Clever, computer room, document, document holder, end, fear, geek, Gotta, holder, hurray, irony, learning curve, left hand side, lit up, love, mac, macbook, macbook pro, magnet, multi, neighbour, packaging, power, power adapter, style, supple, trackpad, trip, true geek style, unboxing

Apple day ! Hurray !

Well, as planned, we went to the Apple store in Leicester after work today.

If you’ve never been to an Apple store before, then I can highly recommend it. If you asked me to describe what heaven looked like, it would be an Apple store.

We walked though the …… looking for the store as we’ve never venture to …. before. Walked through the carpark, through John Lewis (the store, not a person, LOL)….saw next, new look and the I saw it, no words outside the shop, just a huge 10 foot illuminated apple logo above the door. I swear, it was like seeing a roller coaster for the first time (as you can probably tell, this is the first time I’ve been to a Apple store, I know, I need to get out more)

Walking into the store itself, first table had 6 macbooks, all connected to Iphones,  next table had MacBook Pro’s both the 15″ and 17″ models all connected to Iphones, all with internet access.

Down the outside wall, there was just a wall of Imac 24″ s (so nearly bought one of them too).

The staff in there were chilled, very chilled, weren’t pushy and really helpful, Very very sweet place !

Anyway, to cut a long ish story short, we walked out of there is a 15.4″ MacBook Pro, a pair of the earbud headphones, a wireless mighty mouse, and a dock for my Ipod Touch

Tags: Apple, apple logo, apple store, carpark, earbud, earbud headphones, foot, heaven, internet access, Iphones, ipod, ipod touch, ish, John Lewis, leicester, logo, lol, look, mac, macbook, macbooks, mighty mouse, models, Person, pro, roller coaster, shop, store, sweet place, table, time, today, venture, Walked, wall, work