>> Hi folks, Brian Cooley here with the JVC El Kameleon car stereo. It's our top pick in the car tech category for this year's CNET holiday gift guide. ^m00:00:11 [ music ] ^m00:00:18 The Kameleon is really innovative and can do just about everything in a single den sized unit; not one of those huge things that require the lucky gift recipient to re-engineer their dashboard. This heavily screen based interface lets you know we're in cutting edge territory. First of all check it out - there's a proximity sensor so when your hand gets near it, it'll change the display, wake up certain functions, and change what's being shown. It has this sort of touch screen compass navigation device here and there are 4 physical buttons around the faceplate on the far corners. Now I must say that screen based design does make navigating the unit kind of sluggish sometimes. There are times when nothing is better than a good ole fashioned button right? Try lowering the volume in a big hurry and you'll see what I mean. The Kameleon can play MP3, AAC, WMA files - all of those from either an iPod or any other MP3 player, also can play from USB drives or streaming Blue Tooth phones and it can play DVD and DivX Video from a disk; though you wouldn't necessarily want to watch a feature film on that little screen. There is also Blue Tooth hands free and a built in mic for your everyday phone calls. It has a lot of useful connections here on the back to integrate with your existing gear, and you can add JVC modules to enable satellite radio, HD radio, even the image from a separate back up camera. 50 watts come out of each of 4 channels and it has a 5 dot 1 output as well, if you want to do surround sound to buy your own amps and speakers. The Kameleon is a bargain at under 400 dollars street price. And it's our top pick in the car tech category for this year's CNET holiday gift guide. [ music ]
