Mirrorlink Q&A on 601BT & other Sony units

[DSG4ME]

This is my opinion on Mirrorlink having had it for the last 4 weeks,

I use a 601BT unit with an Xperia Z so this is how these two go together,

Phone - Clear as the BT function outside of the ML

Music - Works pretty good, I can hear the odd not supposed to be there noises now and again although this could be dodgy ripping at fault rather than anything on the phone of HU

Video - This one needs work, on the latest FW it's getting there but there is still a lag between the phone and HU and it shows on the HU as microsecond judder

Nav through phone - Google maps works lovely, other nav programs from the phone (android) work but some shut out the video when in motion, Google doesn't and it gives you street view as well, I use this with a Camalert overlay or Navfree which is worldwide mapping with poi and camera alerts

Interface - when using it to control; phone settings by way of a swipe down it's esential to use your finger slowly, a swipe results in a bounce to close thing happening, you get Nav,Media and App control plus you can custom link anything on your phone to launch also, simply hitting the X on Sony Car on the display takes you back to the Android interface where you can opp anything on the phone like radio,media,internet etc from the HU

The latest FW adds ML in fullscreen and it is imo a great addition giving you a 6 inch sat nav and a better viewing experience

As for the rest of the unit, I really like it, I started out looking at a £180 JVC sale off model and thought I want BT phone use, so looking deeper I found the 601BT at £299 sadly the place I got it from is now out of stock (well sadly for those wanting one anyway) and Halfords who were selling it for £299 at the time now list it at £599 RRP in the UK is supposed to be £479 or thereabouts, if you can snag one at sub £300 it's a bargain, over and up to £450 I'd say it's a good buy but over that I think it's moving into serious money, it resumes well and plays video without sound sync issues, you have a WVGA screen which is sharp and can play higher res than a VGA unit can, overall I'm pleased with it and happy I bought it, I found ML by accident but even though it's just cost me a new phone contract it's a great thing to have, working with what I have seen if you have an Android phone that will work with ML get this, if you have an iPhone 4 or 4s look at the Pioneer app radio, if you have an iPhone 5 be prepared to spend out on more leads regardless of what you choose,

One dam fine effort of a total incar entertainment system imo, snag one if you can you won't regret it especially if you can get it sub £300 and there aren't many face off units at that price, 60PERCENTAGESIGN of the reason I chose it tbh as I had a Pioneer unit before that had to go as I always had it in my miond would I still have a door window when I got back to the car, this sorts that and gives me piece of mind.

p.s I forgot to add USB HDD support, don't bother with mechanical HDD's they simply aren't fast enough for a good experience, however SSD is another ball game, fast enough and the way to go, I've had a 1TB WD Elements work ok but it does run out of buffer steam and a 60GB OCZ Agility drive that works ace, I would think the way to go with this is a 256GB SSD eventually when they come down in price, you don't want too large a drive anyway as it takes an age to update the library, I cut my mSD cards in half by way of folders named Video & Music, you can use a deeper folder structure as well if you want but simply dumping a 1000 random tracks on a card will still sort out if you slect album or artist, well as long as your tags are correct anyway and always format to FAT32.

Message was edited by: DSG4ME

Message was edited by: DSG4ME