The number of buttons is one of the best things about the Camelot. On the car player, Central, Receiver, in fact all our other products there are very few controls which is neat and versatile, yet requires careful control and attention by the user.

For an automotive application, however, this approach is not really suitable since it means that everything must be menu driven, and menu navigation does not mix well with driving as you will all have experienced with the car player. Furthermore, removing functionality from buttons results in deeper menu structures.

I think if you actually used the 'genre' and 'year' buttons you would change your mind. These buttons give you a direct shortcut into the play by 'artist', 'album', 'genre', & 'year' menus. The latest software will also put the currently playing 'album', 'artist', etc at the top of the menu allowing you to quickly select music from the same 'album', 'genre', etc.

As 'Half-geek' mentioned the design was not specific to the project, but taken from a stock radio for ease-of-prototyping purposes.

A touchscreen wouldn't really help in my opinion, particularly for an automotive application, because 1) The controls would have to be moved from the buttons to the screen, resulting in loss of screen estate. 2) As already mentioned, it is convenient to be able to control the device 'blind' - A touchscreen would have to change the on screen button context to maximise use of the screen space. This would mean that again, the user would have to look at the screen to control the device.

Finally, yes, the screen is small, but it is a good resolution, and a very clear, crisp, and bright image with a high refresh rate - The best screen on any product we have ever worked on in fact. The screen size could not really be increased without making the device take up 3 slots, or having an external display. The photos posted on this thread really don't do the screen justice.

I am unable to comment on the navigation side of things as we have not coded that yet, and I have never used the original radio in a car.

Toby