Hands-on with the Clarion AX1 car stereo with SwiftKey

When your car stereo is an Android tablet, you need a good way to type on it

Android Central @ CES

Android is on everything here at CES. And while the Clarion AX1 doesn't break a lot of new ground insofar as head units running Android go, it does bring one new feature that we've yet to see in the car.

The Clarion AX1 has the SwiftKey keyboard built in.

That is, you've got a high-quality Android keyboard on a double-DIN head unit, with a fairly stock Android experience. There's no Google Play, of course, so you'll be downloading other apps through Clarion's own app store. Maps are handled by iGO. And of course there's all the music (it outputs at 24x4, by the way) and video (while stationary, or piped out to external displays) the AX1 can muster.

It's not the sexiest or quickest interface we've seen — and it's not announced for North America just yet — so consider this a teaser, straight from the floor of the biggest toy show of the year.

Phil Nickinson