2012 Chrysler Town and Country Hard Drive Upload Movies
The Chrysler Corporation created the mini-van segment back in 1984 with the Contrivance Caravan. In 1989 Chrysler introduced the Town & Country (equally a 1990 model). It was an optioned-up sibling to the Caravan with some styling tweaks. The same formula is nevertheless in use today. Our 2013 Chrysler Town & Land, which is but available in long wheelbase course, is the base Touring Edition trim level. However, this vehicle is far from "base". Keep reading and you'll sympathize why.
Today's Boondocks & Country comes standard with Chrysler's Uconnect infotainment system. The base arrangement is called Uconnect 430, that's what nosotros have. It features a 6.5" color touchscreen with four concrete buttons on each side of the display and a volume knob. The system has a single CD/DVD drive capable of reading MP3 files. Digital sound files tin can also be played from either of the 2 USB ports, i on the radio and one in the upper glove box. There is a 3.5mm stereo audio jack also on the radio. Of grade in that location is standard AM/FM. Satellite radio is by way of Sirius. A 40gig difficult bulldoze lives inside, but only 28gigs are bachelor to apply. The system features vox commands along with Bluetooth for both telephone and audio streaming. There are redundant steering bike controls, oddly located on the back of the wheel. Not optioned on our vehicle is the Uconnect 730 navigation system, upgraded speakers package (9 speakers with sub), SiriusXM Travel Link, and 2d overhead DVD screen.
Radio Performance
Basic radio functioning is accomplished past a combination of difficult and soft (onscreen) buttons. Pressing the physical "radio" button will bring up screen for AM, FM, and Satellite. Onscreen are the buttons for seek/tune, browse, presets, station information, and and so on. There are 12 presets for each radio band, but only 4 are on screen at a time. You accept to press the down arrow to bring upwards more. This detracts a niggling from the quick access nature of a preset push. The screen gives you all the function you demand, only the layout busy and layered, as a result it make take a few seconds to zone in on the specific function you lot want. This decorated layout goes across virtually every radio function. On the plus side, the radio has accurate touch recognition. Information technology ever understands what key I was trying to press. The same cannot be said for some other infotainment systems. The response of the touchscreen is just above average, definitely faster than MyFord Touch on, simply not as quick equally Chevy MyLink. At that place were a few times I did observe the arrangement actually slowed down, commonly when accessing the USB ports. Fast screen response and a clean layout are ii keys to a practiced driver feel, do it wrong and you'll accept very unhappy customers (but ask Ford).
The touchscreen itself is fairly brilliant, non super bright, just definitely not lacking any illumination. The color scheme used on the display is themed for high contrast. Information technology'south like shooting fish in a barrel to read merely does not make things look pretty. This is compounded by the pixel resolution of the screen, which is not that cracking. You can easily see jagged edges on letters and images, although this is about average for radio displays. Go along in mind there are some other manufactures on a different level with actually beautiful high resolution screens.
Uconnect does have voice commands for radio functions and phone functions. The commands are a little limited and so you want to read through the list of bachelor commands first. Unfortunately it does not provide consistent vice confirmation on commands you speak. This becomes a trouble when trying to play a specific artist on your iPod just the system just sits in that location for a while and you don't know what it's doing, even though information technology accepted your command and is trying to pull up that creative person. In full general Uconnect recognized my voice accurately when I used the right command. Merely it is a little slow to interpret and respond, about a few seconds of delay. Employ the wrong vocalisation commands and the arrangement will tell you it does not sympathise, if y'all're lucky, or it will interpret it incorrectly and do something like telephone call your boss in the middle of meeting. The voice recognition yet needs a little work before it's really good.
DVD Playback
This Uconnect 430 arrangement has a single CD/DVD bulldoze. Watching a movie on the radio screen is possible, only when the minivan is in Park of course. Rear seat passengers can enjoy the movie, on the 9inch overhead flip-down screen, while you're driving. You, get to heed to the audio. There is the selection of sending the movie audio to the wireless infrared headphones just and having the vehicle speakers play a different audio source. Unfortunately since at that place is but i optical bulldoze, that different source can't be a CD.
The 9inch screen is equivalent to that of a cheap portable DVD histrion. Washed-out colors, poor lighting, depression resolution, and generally low quality. Notwithstanding, my three-year erstwhile niece didn't seem to mind.
Chrysler thoughtfully added an auxiliary composite audio/video connection, located merely rear of the commuter's side sliding door. This tin allow connecting of a game system, other media device. To access these jack press the "Media" button on the radio and so the "VES" tab.
USB
The "Media" button will permit you to access the internal hard drive, optical disc, USB devices or auxiliary port. If you have multiple devices continued to the radio at in one case, such as a Bluetooth telephone, USB drive, and music player in the 3.5mm jack, they are all listed under the "AUX" tab. Even more, you accept to press the "Device" button to select which 1 you desire to use. This goes back to my point of a poor layout. That is too many layer of interaction to get your device. An interesting annotation, the radio does not recognize both devices connected the ii USB ports at the aforementioned fourth dimension; merely 1 at a time. In that location is no reason for this, particularly since the ports office differently. I institute using the USB ports to be extremely slow. Waiting for the radio to read USB device tin exist frustrating since it may be 5 – x minutes. Scrolling through a list of songs is quicker, but there is notwithstanding a delay.
The USB port in the upper glove box (Chrysler calls it the remote USB port) is intended or connecting portable media player, such every bit an iPod. This port functions as y'all would await. It reads the data on the device, and allows you to play by creative person, album, genre, then on. Using the search button, you can jump to a specific letter of the alphabet of the alphabet, such as T, but yous will have to repeatedly press the down pointer to curlicue to "Taylor Swift". Y'all cannot type in a name, i.e. "Taylor". It'southward nice to be able to jump to the letter, but scrolling one screen at a fourth dimension could exist annoying if you have lot of artist in the Ts.
Connecting a drive to USB port directly on the radio results in a completely unlike operation. This volition not read the metadata (creative person, anthology, etc.). This reads folders on the device. The radio volition start playing the folder it thinks y'all want. Yous may have to navigate to unlike folders or subfolder to get to the files you want. Hither, you cannot search for anything, so you must press the down arrow repeatedly and scroll one page at a time to await for what yous want. Non a good implementation for a driver.
Hard Drive
To play files from the internal hard drive, you select the "Media" button, to the left of the screen, then select "HDD". However, calculation files involves pressing the "My Files" push to the right of the screen. Here you can add, delete, or rename files and folders on the difficult drive.
With a USB bulldoze (or phone gear up to USB bulldoze mode) connected to the principal USB port (directly on the radio), you can copy digital tracks to the internal difficult drive. Yous have to scroll through folders and many songs to manually select the tack you want. It'southward much easier to select a whole folder. Scrolling is a pain on this radio.
It's much easier to copy (aka rip) whole CD. If you lot don't want a specific track, you have to become back and manually delete information technology from the hard drive. It doesn't make sense to me, but with this Uconnect 430 organisation, its copy the entire CD or goose egg.
A squeamish feature is the power to copy pictures to the radio. This is done in the same manner as USB tracks, except hither you will have thumbnail images to select from. You can set the pictures as backgrounds, but it's only in a minor window of the screen and can merely exist seen if yous press the info button a couple of times. So it is nice, but not the useful.
Bluetooth
Pairing a bluetooth phone involves a combination of hard buttons, onscreen buttons, and voice commands. You are prompted to enter a pairing code on the radio, then over again on the phone. There are manner too many steps involved here. Other manufactures practise a better job of simplifying the pairing process. At least you can copy over your phonebook. Voice commands can be used to dial numbers or accost book contacts. Every bit I stated earlier, the vocalism recognition works fairly well as long as y'all know the right commands. There is still a filibuster in the organization of taking activeness on your command.
Bluetooth sound streaming worked well, but will only play what you media player has queued up, so select your playlist before you lot start steaming.
Speaker & Sound
Boondocks & Countries comes standard with 6 speakers, iv total range and two tweeters. Sound quality is what you would expect from a minivan or family unit sedan, acceptable but not good. It's muddy with bogus low end. Everything does come through, but subtle details are hard to notice. There is a three band equalizer that helps in tuning the sound for your liking. Peradventure the upgraded speaker packet sounds improve.
Using the main USB port produced a poor audio, almost every bit if the MP3 was a lower quality bitrate than it actually was. This is a like effect to what you hear on virtually cars with satellite radio. Oddly, using the iii.5mm jack can give you improve sound if your media player has a good D/A converter.
Rear Camera
The rear camera pick is what Chrysler calls "ParkView". This gives y'all some basic distance lines, letting you know how close you are to the automobile behind yous. These are non trajectory lines, so they don't turn with the bicycle. The camera brandish is lower quality, merely most are. On the plus side, its dark vision works pretty well. Objects are hands visible and conspicuously defined. This is a useful feature particularly with the tinted windows.
HVAC
Standard is the 3-zone automatic climate control system. There are split buttons for each function, only a big knob for fan speed. Each front rider can set their ain temperature. The rear passengers get three big knobs located on the overhead console almost the ix inch screen. Of course the driver can override the rear controls.
Determination
With this Uconnect 430 system Chrysler gives Town & Land buyers a lot of standard features. They can connect and play many types of media. It's a expert bargain as a standard system, simply there is room for much needed improvement. A new simpler layout, prettier wait, and faster USB operation are the chief things Chrysler should work on. For day to day use of the FM radio, iPod, DVD, and Bluetooth calling, I call back almost driver would exist perfectly happy.
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Source: http://www.cartechtalk.com/blog/2012/11/14/2013-chrysler-town-country-review