[RedHelix]

So I bought my first new car this weekend, and drove it home from the dealership last night. I got the 2008 Ford Focus SES, primarily because it comes with anti-lock brakes standard. To my surprise, it also comes with SYNC and a few months of Sirius standard.

I spent about 20 minutes setting up the SYNC last night. Despite the majority of ads you see for it, voice-activated multimedia stuff is only one function of it. It can also sync to any bluetooth-enabled phone and allow you to upload your phone book directly to the storage device on the car. After you do that, you can make calls through the car - no headset or anything - by pushing the voice command button on the steering wheel and saying who you want to talk to.

It sounds cool, but here's where it gets amazing. For both the phone and media functionality, I expected to have to record a voice signature for each person for when I wanted to call them.

I didn't.

The SYNC's voice recognition is so intelligent that it was able to understand "Call Michele" without ever having heard my voice before, and got the number correct. I started playing around with the media functionality, and it was able to understand the name of every artist and song title I said without exception.

There are also lots of safeguards in place to ensure you're not playing around with the system when you shouldn't be. I tried syncing up my phone while the car was moving, and the SYNC voice politely informed me that this featured was disabled while driving for my safety. Thanks, car!

I can foresee a long, happy relationship with this car over the next decade

[etaf]

sound great - I have just purchased a saab 93 convertable 57 plate (2007 model) and it also has the blue tooth and voice recognition, I also expected to record the commands and assign - but it recognised my voice - although I keep forgetting I have it and rarely use - Note to self - use more

[JohnWill]

I have a 2007 350Z with a similar system. It is pretty cool, and I've yet to scratch the surface of it.