Road Ready PC

At almost every SEMA some company touts a new computer for the car, but the in-dash PCs never seem to make it out on the road. Audiovox may have finally nailed it with its Jensen Anyware NVX3000PC ($1,500), mainly because it’s not just for the car. The lightweight tablet PC comes with a car kit, but it’s also easy to take with you, well, anywhere. It has a 7-inch touch screen, a 30 GB hard drive, two USB ports, twin SD card slots, A/V outputs and an expansion IO port. It also comes with Bluetooth and built-in GPS antenna for navigation, can run Windows XP or Vista and has broadband access with the addition of a wireless card.

Rock Dock

While there are hundreds of ways to hook up an iPod to an existing car stereo system, The Dock ($250) from Integrated Mobile Electronics levels the playing filed by offering a way to integrate a Zune, Sansa and, yes, even an iPod into any car audio system, stock or aftermarket. The Dock is hardwired into the car stereo for sound quality that’s superior to FM transmitter solutions. Depending on the type of player you use, an insert connects it to The Dock and connection is made through the player’s bottom-mounted pin connector which also charges the player. And in addition to music, The Dock can also send video to a car’s entertainment system.

Safety First

If you want to get some of the most advanced automotive safety features available, such as lane-departure and forward-collision warning, you usually have to buy a car that costs upwards of $50,000. But Mobileye is now offering some of the same technology that it supplies to car manufacturers to the aftermarket. A variety of the company’s products, such as the AWS-4000 (approximately $1,500), use a small camera and an in-vehicle module to provide the driver with visual and audible warnings when a car, pedestrian or object is too close or when the vehicle drifts out of its lane.

Cheap Nav

Portable navigation is one of the fastest growing categories in aftermarket car electronics, and prices have dropped low enough so that almost everyone can afford one. Magellan RoadMate 1200, for example, has a suggested retail price of $230, is small enough to fit in a pocket and weighs less than 5 ounces. But it packs some impressive features, such as a 3.5-inch touch-screen display and a SmartDetour feature that routes the user around traffic. Mapping software for the continental U.S., Hawaii and Puerto Rico is provided on an SD card and contains 1.3 million points of interests such as ATMs, restaurants and hotels. The RoadMate 1200 also has an integrated, rechargeable battery.

Blues Rock

As Bluetooth becomes more mainstream, the wireless technology’s second act—music streaming—is ready to move center stage. Motorola’s MOTRROKR T505 ($130 to $140) clips on to a car’s sun visor and links to a Bluetooth phone like most such kits, but it also can stream music from a Bluetooth-enabled phone, MP3 player or some combination thereof to any car stereo using its built-in FM transmitter. And rather than having to manually locate an empty slot on the FM dial, the T505 will tune one in for you using its StationFinder feature. Also, when a call comes in, the device automatically mutes the music and announces who is on the line using CallerID..

Even Swap

Even if you want to replace your car stereo head unit, it’s gotten harder and harder. So one car audio manufacturer decided if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Original Entertainment Media offers radios that look and fit just like the ones from the factory but offer more features than most stock radios, including Bluetooth, navigation, USB connectivity, a back-up camera system and touch-screen control. The radios are available for a variety of Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep, Ford-Lincoln-Mercury, GM, Honda, Toyota-Scion, and Volkswagen vehicles and range in price from $1,000 without navigation to $1,500 with nav.

Power Trip

At SEMA, bigger is always better, which is why Kicker chose the show to introduce its massive Warhorse WX10000.1 amplifier ($7,0000), which is rated to produce 10,000 watts into a single mono channel. The behemoth amplifier is almost a yard long and two and half feet wide and weighs just under 67 pounds. But it won’t fit into just any old vehicle, since it requires power from eight 12-volt batteries and a pair of 200-watt alternators. In other words, it’s not for your Scion.

Sound Resurrection

Polk Audio made a name for itself early on in the car audio world with its Mobile Monitor speakers. At SEMA the company announced that it has resurrected the line with its MM series, and the new versions look as good as they sound. The speakers in the series include a 6.5-inch coaxial and 10-inch subwoofer with wheel-inspired grilles, and the subwoofer is an inch shallower than Polk’s existing subs.  Prices have not yet been determined.

Easy Add

Not everyone wants to rip out their stock radio to install an aftermarket head unit and, in fact, fewer and fewer people do these days. But many want to be able to add aftermarket features such as iPod integration, Bluetooth hands-free and satellite radio. That’s where products like the Civita Avstarr ($170) save the day. The small “black box” processor plugs into the electrical system of many popular GM vehicles—without permanent modification—so that a variety of aftermarket accessories can be added and controlled through the stock stereo system.

Tons of Tunes

These days, car stereo is all about how many songs you can take on the road, and the Kenwood Excelon KDC-X991 CD receiver ($650) allows a bunch of ways to load up on tunes. It has a CD slot, of course, but it also incorporates 512 MB of flash-memory storage capacity onto which you can rip tunes from CDs. A USB port allows access to even more music files as well as a way to hook up an MP3 player. The KDC-X991 also lets you tweak all of your tunes with a built-in four-band parametric equalizer.