Part of: First 5000 – Ford Fusion series.

Microsoft Sync

So the Fusion I’m doing for this round’s First 5000 has Microsoft’s Sync in it. At first I thought it somewhat a novelty that I might or might not use. I started using it a little bit with the iPhone…calling friends without having to take it out of my pocket, answering calls by simply pressing a button, being able to talk hands free without taking either hand off the steering wheel. I used it more as a hands free kit than an entertainment system at first. All that has changed in the past few days.

I don’t use my iPod much as I have an iPhone now. When I plugged up my iPhone it gave me a message along the lines of “Device not compatible with iPhone.” AKA – doesn’t work.

The Revelation

After a few minutes of searching around my house for a jump drive (the USB port can index music from a storage device like a jump drive) to put some music onto and then it hit me…what’s the difference between a jump drive and say…a portable hard drive? Well I had my 750gb Western Digital My Book external hard drive that I keep all of my music on, so with an AC/DC converter I plugged it up in the car and after Sync indexed the music on the drive (took a good 10 minutes…) it began playing it. The 750gb drive wouldn’t allow for voice commands although I thought this a minor nuisance. I decided that having to have an AC/DC converter was just too much of a hassle and after some advice from my friend AJ, I went out and bought a 160gb Western Digital Passport from Bestbuy for $95.

The pros:

• It doesn’t require external power to operate – just the juice that comes out of Sync’s USB port.
• It’s quiet, no sound comes from this hard drive that you’re going to hear in a car.
• It’s cheap for 160gb of music in your car.
• Picks up where you left off each time.

The cons:

• I can’t think of any…
• Maybe the blue LED…if you don’t keep it in your console.
• For 11,000 songs it took about 10 minutes to index the music the first time

Every time I take it out of the car with me and then plug it back in to Sync, it automatically starts right where you left off last time the drive was plugged in. It has to index all the music the first time you plug it in and select USB with Sync. Once it’s indexed though, it won’t have to do it again until you add more music to it. The voice activation works with this drive, too! I have 2 folders on the drive: “Music” and “Other”. I keep anything from work or home in the “Other” folder and all my music in the “Music” folder and it works flawlessly. Nothing like being able to hop in the car and say “Play genre blues” and kick back and relax to the entire catalog of Muddy Waters or John Lee Hooker.

First 5000 – Ford Fusion (Part 1)