Podcastplayer.org news

The radio in my car is pretty much rubbish. A bulk-standard AM/FM/Cassette head unit. No CD, No MP3. Nothing useful for podcasts unless I go to the considerable trouble of recording them onto cassette tape (yikes, does anyone do that?)

So, just like so many others, I resort to litening using headphones and a portable player. But it’s uncomfortable and irritating when driving.

To solve this problem, I’ve been looking around for a while for a “car stereo” which works better with the podcasts I want to listen to. I’ve seen several with MP3-CD support, but that’s only a little bit less clumsy than burning to tape. I’ve seen a few with either a front-mounted audio input or a SD/MMC slot, but these are usually “high end” devices costing more than I want to pay.

So you can imagine that I was particularly impressed to see that (in the UK at least) budget supermarket chain ALDI are offering a low-cost head unit for just £49.99 which offers CD-MP3, SD/MMC slot and (best of all) a regular USB connection so (presumably) I can plug in any USB mass-storage device such as an MP3 player, “thumb drive", or maybe even a USB hard drive.

No details about things like how much power the built-in USB port supplies, which USB profiles it really works with, or which of the many USB plug standards the USB port supports.

I definately plan to go in and take a look at one when they get stocks in on 22nd December!

Read more at: ALDI: Car CD/MP3 Radio

Update: looks like there are several of these on sale on eBay, too: