For those of you who want to do voice recognition for the navigation system and don't have a BMW cell phone installed, the cost of the required microphone for the headliner (part number 84 31 8 380 338) is $85.20. (This is a tiny little mic that probably sells for less than $10 at Radio Shack.)
It almost makes it worthwhile to order the entire phone installation kit ($405.00) which includes the microphone.
Unfortunately for me, BMW doesn't offer a tri-mode phone (CDMA 800/1900 MHz, AMPS 800 MHz) that's compatible with any of the Verizon (Bell Atlantic/Airtouch/GTE) nationwide plans. Because I use my cellphone mostly when traveling around the country, I'll have to stick with my non-BMW tri-mode StarTAC phone. I like the Verizon service because it offers the best geographic coverage in places such as here in the DC area and Silicon Valley.
(And as we all know, BMW purposely made its system incompatible with non-BMW StarTAC phones.)
- Dave
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