There is nothing better than a road trip. Piling into a vehicle with your best friends, setting a destination, and hitting the open road is almost an American tradition. The only thing missing is your favorite tunes. Twenty years ago, this might have come in the form of a cassette tape, passed around from pal to pal with each pair of hands dubbing in the latest hit off of the FM radio. But today, we've moved past this antiquated technology. Now, we've got much more choice for how we entertain ourselves. In vehicles, this is more important than ever. Whether you're taking a quick burn down to the grocery store or traveling across the country, these are the four most high-tech entertainment systems in modern vehicles.
Porsche Panamera
Porsche wanted to design a vehicle that packed some audio punch, and that's exactly what they did in their 2011 Panamera. To this day, we haven't heard an audio system that sounds nearly as impressive. In order to get access to this sound system, you'd have to buy into the expensive Burmester upgrade. But what you get is 1000 watts of power pumped out through 15 specifically placed speakers. The end result is a vehicle sound system that even an audiophile can get behind.
Jeep Renegade
Many audio manufacturers focus on only one aspect of the vehicle entertainment system. Some focus on sound, others on navigation. But Jeep built one of the best all-around systems on the market. The technology found in the newest Renegade is simply striking. Featuring a high-resolution touch screen, powerful navigation, Beats Audio, and 8-channel amplifier with DSP, this system has everything you could possibly want in a vehicle. But the best part of all? Most of the best infotainment systems are only available in high-end luxury vehicles. But the Fiat-Chrysler Uconnect infotainment system is still one of the best in testing, and it's available in a large number of consumer vehicles that don't cost an arm and a leg.
Infiniti M
In order to take audio to the next level, Infiniti partnered up with Bose to create a specially designed audio system that offered sound quality beyond what you'd find in your typical economy car. The car also features a DVD-Audio player. If you really want to take advantage of this system, you'll want to use audio files that use FLAC compression or the DVD-A standard. But this doesn't mean that you can't just throw in your favorite Spotify playlist either.
BMW X3
This vehicle features BMWs large console-mounted display that can be controlled through and equally large knob that is easy to access, even for the driver. This control system is increasingly handy in a world where we're working to focus on the road, and not on digital distractions.
There are a large variety of high-tech infotainment systems available in almost every vehicle on the market. The important thing is to shop around and see which one fits your needs the best. Technology continues to improve year to year, so with all of the powerful systems available today, we can't wait to see what is released next year.