Review: Alpine Blackbird Portable Navigation System

October 2006 By —Brett Solomon

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The Alpine accepts MP3 or WMA music files from an SD or MMC card. The unit could not be simpler to access your music, but I had a problem with the strength of the output from the FM Modulator/Transmitter. Although you have your choice of 12 different radio frequencies to choose from, I could not find a station that did not have a lot of background static at lower volume levels.

All portable units do a good job, but the long boot-up time of the Blackbird versus instantaneous twist-the-key-and-go of a hardwired unit makes me salivate for the latter. If I was a business traveler who had a hardwired Alpine-based navigation system in my daily driver, the Blackbird would be a great addition when I was traveling in a rental car or in a friend’s car. yy