Highline Vs S100

Mod Description

The Bosch Highline stereo is the top of the range model for the facelift 451, how does it fare against a unit costing half the price?

Mod Details

PremiumNo Difficulty Mod ID903 Creditevilution For Linkhttps://dev.evilution.co.uk/mod/highline-vs-s1001.htm Copy to Clipboard

The S100 looks like a cross between a Radio 9 and the Forfour Navigator. The Highline is a simple layout, 3 buttons and a screen. Both look good and quite at home in the 451 dash.

Main Menu

This is where you start noticing the difference between the 2 units. The Highline is very plain and flat due to the 400×234 screen. The S100 has a more interesting menu with nice bright colours on the 800×480 screen. That’s 4 times the pixels than the Highline.

Radio

Again, the S100 looks far better than the bland Highline. Both sound good but to my ears, the S100 sounds a bit better. The Highline allows 4 favourites to be saved on the main page for easy access, the S100 can save 100 FM channels but you have to access a list view to select something. This could be distracting whilst driving.

DVD

The difference in picture quality is poles apart. The S100 is sharp and bright. The Highline lacks definition, colour and brightness and seems to squash the picture. You have more controls on the S100 too.

Navigation

This is where the Highline gets most complaints. No full postcode search, No TMC in UK or America, Maps are seriously out of date, slow to set up a route and not all that accurate.

However, this is where the S100 shines. You aren’t limited to what ever navi software you are given like the Highline. The S100 runs on Windows CE6 and the navigation path can be changed to any program you wish to use on your Micro SD card.

Mine came with iGo Primo installed which is alright, not excellent compared to TomTom but a damned sight better than Blaupunkt’s Street Director on the Highline. It’s up to you if you want to stick with iGo Primo, it does have full postcode searching and the maps are cheap and easy to update.

Of course, you could also go for Garmin, Route 66, Polnav, Destinator, Sygic, iGo 8 etc. The 1 program you might have problems getting to work is TomTom.

Bluetooth Hands Free

Easy to set up on the Highline. Not yet tested on the S100.

Analogue TV

Not yet tested on the S100 but not applicable to the Highline.

DVR Recording And Rear View Camera Input

Not tested on the S100 yet but not available on the Highline.

Conclusion

I’ll update this page and conclusion as I use both units however, so far, the S100 wins on every test. The resistive touch screens are just as bad to use as each other, they are very much like a TomTom. It’s because we have been spoiled by capacitive touch screens like those originally found on iPhones.

Where Do I Buy One?

Read this page, then buy one from here.