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>> Back in the day, the Integra was the car that made Acura a household name, a mass volume player. And this is its latest descendent. Let's Check the Tech in the TSX.
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Using positioning with the TSX, especially when you get it with nav. You can't get too much tech on it, nor can you get too little tech. It's really kind of dialed in, with a nice complement of the greatest hits of in-car tech. Let's take a look. First of all, here's the nav screen, your eyes go to that immediately. Good size on this guy. We know the interface, well it's a standard Acura Honda piece. One thing I do notice though, the resolution on this one seems rough compared to more expensive Acuras. There might be some difference in the quality of the screen, or some kind of the driver chips behind it that are actually resolving the detail. That's a little bit fuzzy to my eyes, but same interface we've known and liked on Acuras and Hondas before. This thing I never liked the little joggy wheel, forget about it, don't use it if you can avoid it, because you do have voice command on this car, which I prefer for a lot of things. You can handle the radio, the HVAC, and nav, all with voice commands. One interesting bit of ergonomics here is the way they've laid out the buttons alongside what is typically used as the nav screen. Now a lot of things happen on that screen, but most of us think of it and use it as navigation. But the buttons alongside it aren't related to navigation. They're strictly heater and air conditioner, all the HVAC stuff's around there. Buttons for most things are along the bottom of the screen down here, you can get to your audio settings, your setups, your various menus. This is kind of your utility ribbon down here underneath the screen. Let's go to the audio system now, it's this compact ribbon of equipment down here below the screen. AM FM of course, XM is base on this car with three months of activation included, six disc internal CD changer, and CD only by the way, no WMA or MP3 ability on this guy. And as you can see, highly proprietary. If you don't like this system and you want to go aftermarket, you better bring a lot of money to your local stereo store and leave the car for a while, cause they've got to fabricate something. Now there are some options to make sure that happens. You can get a cassette player that would go down here in what's otherwise an empty storage bin, but there's about a three hundred dollar option at the dealer to get a cassette deck put in there, for whatever reason. iPod ability, there's the ability to get something called the Acura Music Link. It lives over here in the glove box, and it's an iPod cable that you hook your iPod of any recent vintage to, and then of course get the control charging, and audio transfer all through this head unit. That's an inexpensive option by the way, a couple hundred bucks plus dealer labor. The other audio on this car is Bluetooth, and this car has Bluetooth hands-free built it. It's part of the positioning of the TSX, an affordable car with Bluetooth is kind of one of those tech messages that Acura's putting out there. Now all of this sound goes out over eight speakers around the cabin, pumped up by three hundred and sixty watts of amplification. Not an overwhelming system, but I find it's very clean. Has very tight bass, so it's pleasant to listen to. Now the gear shift in our car is not a gear shift at all, it's just a selector for the automatic. We have a five speed automatic with sports shift, which means you've got the gate down here for influencing the gears, but no paddles on this car. You can also get a six speed manual. Now whatever transmission you get will be [inaudible] up to the same engine, two point four liter, inline four, dual overhead cam, iV-tech, variable valve timing. Bottom line is it's a four banger with about two hundred and five horsepower, happy to rev. Pricing a TSX is pretty simple. This nav model with the five speed automatic is thirty thousand ninety, seven something for destination. The tech options are pretty simple. You might add three hundred bucks plus dealer install for the cassette adapter, more than likely you're gonna add two hundred dollars plus dealer install for the iPod adapter.
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