Of all the ways to connect portable music players to your car, the Sync music and Bluetooth system in the 2008 Ford Focus represents the most thoughtful approach. It works with virtually every USB-jack device that plays or stores music, and it's cheap to implement. The dozen Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury cars getting Sync are now must-consider cars. Too bad Ford charges extra for a device that has "universal appeal," in the company's own words.

A brief history is in order. Ford hasn't had too many hits during the last decade, outside of SUVs and the resurrected Mustang; like most automakers, Ford was relatively clueless about the MP3 revolution only a few years ago. A visit to the First Church of Redmond changed all that and makes the Ford brands worth shopping. Even if you don't buy Ford, you'll know what you're missing if you go with the competition: the industry's best audio/Bluetooth interface.

Whether out of inspiration or desperation, Ford partnered with Microsoft to be the first U.S. automaker to implement a system Microsoft initially named T-Box, based around a cheap microprocessor and a version of Windows Mobile (Windows CE) software called Windows Automotive. Using no more than $150 in hardware and software (manufacturer costs), Microsoft provides a Bluetooth link for cell phones and other mobile devices; an interface to virtually every music player, including Apple iPods; voice recognition; a text-message reader; and an option (the automaker's, not yours) to integrate a rudimentary navigation system. Ford opted not to; a year earlier, Fiat did.

Ford embeds Sync on its high-line Focus, the $16,995 SES. On the mid-level SE ($15,995), it's a $395 option that also requires the optional $415 Driver's Group Package. That is, ordering Sync on a Focus SE chews up $710 of the $1,000 price difference. On the entry-level Focus S ($14,995), Sync isn't offered.

Sync will be offered on the 2008 Ford Edge, Fusion, Sportrac, Taurus, Taurus X; Lincoln MKX (the crossover) and MKZ (the sedan); and the Mercury Milan, Mountaineer, and Sable. Ford Motor Co. has a one-year exclusive, through November 2008, for the Microsoft technology in the U.S., just as Fiat had a one-year outside-the-U.S. exclusive. At least for Ford products, Sync will be included in the so-called high-line (best equipped, most costly) model, such as the Focus SES or Edge Limited. It wasn't immediately clear how many other models will require an options package that doubles the price.

Here's how it works in the Focus, a vehicle that came to the U.S. markets in 2000 and gets an overdue refresh as a 2008 model. (Europe gets an even better Focus for 2008; U.S. customers must wait till around 2010 for that.) At the base of the center stack, Ford embeds two 12-volt adapters, a line-in jack, a USB jack, and a chromed Sync badge. There's a microphone in the rearview mirror and controls on the steering wheel. In the dash is a small computer with a Freescale Semiconductor 400-MHz ARM11 32-bit processor, 256MB of memory, and Windows Automotive software.

Plug virtually any music-containing device into the USB jack, and Sync recognizes it quickly. Actually, not that quickly: First you endure a loud, long-winded warning to use Sync with respect and caution while underway: "[ding] For your safety, please stay alert to changing road conditions and use Sync's voice-activated features while your vehicle is in motion." The nag message appeared to play more loudly than the audio setting for the radio itself. Fortunately, you hear the warning only the first time you plug in a device; afterwards Sync remembers that device and doesn't nag you again.

Using either the Nuance-based voice-recognition software or buttons on the center stack, you can navigate among your music artists, albums, genres, and playlists, and select music to play. If you're not in music mode, you first have to issue the voice command "USB" to switch out of whatever else you were doing and connect to the music player. The Sync HMI (human-machine interface) is set up as firewalled departments: Sync (main menu), USB (the music device attached to USB), Bluetooth audio (music on a Bluetooth phone or other AAD Bluetooth device), line-in (other music), phone (a Bluetooth phone), plus setup and help menus.

When you're in the phone menu, Sync doesn't recognize music commands. When you're playing music, it doesn't recognize phone commands, except the command to switch modes or go back to the main menu. (Sync also recognizes an incoming call.) Ford and Microsoft say it's because it's not possible to store (in 256MB of memory) all the commands, all your contacts' names, all your playlists, and all the artist names. While that's true, they didn't meet you partway and let you, for instance, voice-dial a phone number using numbers (just 11 phrases to store: Dial, plus 1, 2, 3, …) or a list of 10 most-used numbers, such as Home, Work, and so forth, while you're in Music mode.

When you do get to your music, you can press the steering wheel's voice input button and issue commands such as "Play Artist Pearl Jam" or "Play Album Britney's Greatest Hits." Other commands are Play All, Play Playlist [name], Play Genre [name], Play Track [name], and What's Playing?

Did you like a song you just heard on your hard disk music player but don't have playlists fully set up yet? Press the steering wheel Media button, wait, then say Play Similar. Using the metadata embedded with the song, Sync finds other music that's similar, based on full genre information—meaning not just Rock but '80s Indie Rock. It's a feature Microsoft embedded into Sync's DNA.

Gracenote has a similar feature called Play More Like, which debuts on the 2008 Cadillac CTS. Gracenote says Play More Like makes extensive use of multiple bits of metadata information, such as specific genre, decade, and the country of the music's origin. It's not immediately clear if Sync's Play Similar is on par with Gracenote's Play More Like. But then, I didn't really expect Microsoft to tell me, "It's like what GraceNote does, only not as good yet." In our car, it matched folk rock with folk rock, and acoustic female vocalist with female vocalist. At the least it's a step in the right direction.

The Bluetooth module can be paired with up to a dozen phones. Sync has a hierarchy of which phone gets precedence if several are in the car, and there's a primary phone that gets precedence no matter what. I paired Sync with a couple phones, and everything worked fine, including transferring address books with multiple phone numbers (home, work, cellular).

To place a call, first issue the command Phone, if you're not in the phone menu. Then tell Sync to Call [name], Dial [to speak a number], Phonebook [name], or Go to Privacy to take the phone off hands-free mode. If a call comes in, Sync automatically goes to phone mode even if music is playing. Press the end-call button and Sync returns you to your music.

If your Bluetooth device contains music, issue the command Bluetooth Audio to stream music from the device. If you've got a solid data connection and you're paying by the month rather than by the megabyte, you could even stream music off the Web. Even Sirius or XM don't have that many channels; although Sirius is an affordable $195 option. Funny how an essentially similar Sirius module costs $200 in a $20,000 car and $500 in a $50,000 car.

If your phone or wireless PDA has text messaging (and what phone doesn't?) and an SMS message comes in, Sync stops whatever the audio system is doing, beeps, and lets you issue the command Read Message—which it does in a disembodied computer voice, expanding emoticons to full phrases such as "love and kisses" or "winking smiley." That was the closest I came to getting car-sick, but maybe others will find it cute. You can reply with 15 canned messages, but Sync and the Nuance voice recognizer aren't yet capable of parsing a spoken phrase into a free-form text reply. E-mail is not supported, only SMS.

When you're finished, the SMS readers sits patiently, like a dog waiting for its master to return, for you to press a button to take you back to your music. It won't make the next move. (Dogs at least run to the side door when the car drives up.) Ford says that's because you might want to hear the other messages you've heard before (unlikely) or respond to the message (possible). If you do nothing, Sync does nothing (such as give you back your music). At least if you hit the OK button, it asks if you want to reply.

Sync is an amazing first effort, but there are some curious choices in implementation. The big miss is not offering the navigation module that's ready to go and being used by Fiat and Alfa Romeo in Italy. Ford has a well-rehearsed sound bite about core customer desires, yada yada, but really it comes down to Ford's belief that Americans don't want navigation unless it's moving map navigation, the kind that costs $1,500 to $2,500 built into a car, or $200 to $1,000 in standalone (Garmin, TomTom) devices. The Sync navigation would be directional arrows with text prompts and spoken commands.

Every time you press the Voice Input / Media button on the steering wheel, there's a long-winded phrase telling you to enter your command after the beep. I thought it was an underpowered CPU in the Sync module or a limit on Nuance's ability to spool up to speed and the system was stalling for time. But if you double-tap the Voice Input/Media button, it's ready to go almost immediately. You can select short prompts in the advanced setup menu and get it down to, "[Ding] Please say a command", but they're really not much shorter.

On a test drive, we had both good luck and mixed luck getting the Sync voice recognizer to recognize our voices. At a rest stop, we hauled over a Ford person who helped explain what we were doing wrong. Here's Ford's helper putting Sync through its paces. To be fair, this was with the speaker sticking his head in an open window and some outside noise from others at a scenic rest stop outside Seattle.

Ford expert: "Search The Eagles"
Ford Sync: "[Ding] Search track "Havvy Feel," is that correct?"
"[pause] Search [pause] Eagles"
"[Ding] I didn't understand you."
"Search Eagles."
"[Ding] USB. Please say a command."
"Search Eagles."
"[Ding] Search playlist. Is that correct?"
"Cancel. … Search James Taylor."
"[Ding] Search track "James Dean" is that correct?" (The Eagles' "James Dean" was one of the songs on the memory card.)
"Cancel."
"[Ding] USB. Please say a command."
"Search artist The Eagles."
"[Ding] Say 1 after the tone for Search Playlist …"

In other words, perseverance does pay off. Most of the time it wasn't this challenging. Other times, you will find the buttons on the center stack somewhat comforting.

Sync worked fine with an iPod, an iPod with protected content, a Microsoft Zune player, a Motorola phone, three different USB keys, and several MP3 and WMA CDs. But it couldn't handle a 100GB Maxtor portable hard drive (USB powered) with a mix of music and data files; another writer on the same Ford press launch in Seattle reported he couldn't get a two-year-old Sandisk MP3 player recognized.

My sense from Microsoft's earlier positioning was that virtually all devices would work; I thought it would be near universal. Certainly the mainstream devices work, and that beats iPod-only adapters. Microsoft says iPod players transfer audio, not a digital signal, to the car, which is one way to work around Apple's protection.

As an entry-level car, the Focus is not over-rich with high-tech features beyond Sync. A six-disc CD changer (MP3 and WMA capable) is optional, as is premium audio with the changer and Sirius satellite radio. But there's no navigation system (rarely offered in $15,000 cars), let alone steerable xenon headlights. Ford did add a line-in jack to the Focus for 2008, Sync or no Sync.

You can buy the six-disc CD changer as a standalone option ($350), but the Audiophile System (part of the $645)) requires you to take the CD changer to get the upgraded amplifier and speakers. All Sync users really need is a single-disc player in the dash for the occasional CD, and if Ford wants to make music affordable for cost-conscious buyers, it should offer the upgrade audio separately. Ford certainly understands music, as one of only two automakers, along with BMW, to offer dazzling THX-certified audio on higher-end vehicles.

The Focus came out in 2000 in the U.S. The 2008 model puts a fresher skin on the existing chassis. There's one engine, a 2.4-liter engine that's fine with the five-speed manual transmission, a bit buzzy under hard acceleration with the four-speed automatic. The seats are redone this year and felt comfortable, at least for two- to three-hour driving stints. There's a big, chrome badge behind the front-wheel arches that, Ford designer says, acknowledges and celebrates the car's front-wheel drive. You need to decide if this celebration is a styling gimmick.

Side curtain airbags are now standard, as is tire-pressure monitoring. The tires are sort-of run-flats: If a tire goes flat, you pump it up with the supplied compressor and inject a can of tire sealant, which gets you 100-plus miles before you need to seek out a tire dealer. But Ford still doesn't offer stability control on the Focus, which I'd want on any car I bought. On a rear-drive car, it's a must-have; on a front-drive car such as the Focus, it's a should-have.

Ford's Web site is contemporary but a bit busy and overly caught up in cute animations that don't do a lot for accessibility. At Ford.com, you first must go through the Ford corporate line (Ford, Jaguar, Volvo, Land Rover) to reach Ford cars, at which point you have to move your mouse left or right to catch up with the individual Ford car models that are scrolling left-right of their own volition. It's a good test of hand-eye coordination. There are other ways to get to the Focus landing page, but they're less obvious.

When Sync adds features or a bug fix, you can download updates through Ford.com or the dedicated site, www.syncmyride.com, transfer them to a USB key, and plug the key into your car. Technophobes can have the work done by a Ford dealer.

Our 3.5 score for the Focus represents the average of a just-okay car (2.5) and a brilliant-with-minor-flaws (4.5) audio system built around Sync.

With Sync, Focus is putting new wine in an old bottle. The car is pleasant to drive, but you may find the interior of the two-year-old Honda Civic more appealing. The Focus does have a bigger trunk. Ford had on hand a slew of segment sales-leading Toyota Corollas for an unfair comparison—unfair since a new Corolla is due out in a month. The new Focus looks better than the old Corolla; we'll have to see how a reskinned eight-year-old Ford fares against the pending Toyota.

If this were my Ford Focus, I'd order the high-line SES with Sync integrated and ignore the $1,000-cheaper SE, where Sync really costs $710 because of a required options package. I'd also take Sirius radio for $195 and grudgingly order the upgrade sound system and grouse about having to take the CD changer, too. I'd take the five-speed manual for better performance and I'd absolutely take the anti-lock brakes and traction control ($385). I'd take automatic stability control were it offered, but it isn't, and that will be a deal-breaker for many. I've got life insurance, so lack of stability control isn't a deal-breaker for me, but I've got a teenager about to drive, and I wouldn't compromise there. Would you?

With the Focus, you'll find basic, sub-$20,000 transportation that's not unpleasant to look at or drive. No competitor has anything like Sync, except Fiat and Alfa Romeo, and they aren't sold here. If you're shopping small cars, you at least owe it to yourself to try out Focus. You may find the combination of the styling refresh, the additional airbags, a huge trunk, comfy seats, decent rear-seat room, and Sync to be just what you want in a small car. Just make sure you order anti-lock brakes, and let the dealer know how you feel about a car without stability control.

Play Slide Show/All Shots (13)

$14,995.00 - $21,105.00

EPA Mileage: 23 mpg city, 35 highway (2008 ratings)

Ford has refreshed its aging subcompact Focus with Sync, an iPod adapter that works with virtually every other music player, too. The U.S. Focus's Sync also includes an excellent Bluetooth adapter and SMS reader, but not the navigation system available on European versions.

World-class audio adapter and Bluetooth. In-dash USB jack connects iPods, other digital music players, even USB memory keys and portable hard drives with music. Streams music off Bluetooth devices, reads text messages. Tire pressure monitors.

Lacks navigation option of Blue & Me, similar Fiat-Microsoft product. Sync's voice-command menu structure is overly rigid; some glitches in voice recognition. The 2008 design facelift can't mask the age of the underlying vehicle. ABS costs extra; no stability control at any price.