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HTC Car StereoClip Bluetooth dongle (hands-on)

HTC Car StereoClip Bluetooth dongle (hands-on)

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The HTC Car StereoClip (Aux) accessory is a USB flash drive-sized Bluetooth dongle that will receive wireless audio from your phone and pass it off to a speaker with its male 3.5mm headphone jack.

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With new phones always come new accessories, and HTC's One series is no different. Today we got a chance to see one of the company's more interesting offerings, the Car StereoClip. The accessory is a USB flash drive-sized Bluetooth dongle that will receive wireless audio from your phone and pass it off to a speaker with its male 3.5mm headphone jack. What's different about the StereoClip is that it supports Bluetooth 4.0 and aptX, which means the audio quality from phones that support both those standards should be significantly better than what you might be used to on typical A2DP Bluetooth devices.


The StereoClip itself is an incredibly simple affair hardware-wise — it's essentially a handsome USB flash drive with a 3.5mm jack instead of a USB plug under the cap. The device is powered by a Micro USB port, and while it says "car" in the name, it can be used to wirelessly transmit audio to any system with a 3.5mm input — which is to say, just about anything. Whether you're beaming audio to your car speakers or your home stereo, if you're using an One X or One S it'll enter the Sense 4.0 version of Android's car mode, which offers a touch-friendly interface. We didn't get to hear the audio quality for ourselves outside of the noisy CTIA show floor, but aptX does offer a noticeable improvement. If you're interested, the Car StereoClip will run you $59.99 from Sprint when it releases alongside the Evo 4G LTE on May 18th, and we're told that AT&T will be selling it "in the next 30 days."

HTC Car StereoClip (Aux) hands-on pictures

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