I'm trying to decide between a Plus and a Premium, and there are two main features that I am concerned about. Apparently if I get the Plus I will no longer be able to unlock both front doors and the hatch like I can in my Gen II Prius now. That would be a real bummer. But it appears that if I get the Premium to get the 3 door SKS, the audio system will no longer have a CD player because of the "upgrade". Is that true? I don't have a smart phone and have no need for all the app crap. I just want to play my CDs or my iPod. I also think I would prefer the smaller display screen like I have now.
Correct; page 22 of the sales brochure (PDF) says the Plus has “Smart Key System on driver’s door,” while the Premium and Advanced have “Smart Key System on three doors.” Yes. The same page lists the three options for the audio system, and the Premium has the 11.6-inch display, without a CD player. Interestingly, it says the Advanced has the 11.6-inch display with a CD player, which is different from the 2017 version of the brochure (PDF), but I don’t see a CD slot in photos of 2018 Advanced cars offered for sale. I suppose the brochure might be wrong, or Toyota could have made a mid-year change.
Just bought a 2018 Advanced. It does *not* have a CD slot. Guess I'll be transferring a lot of my CDs to iPod and/or MP3s on a USB stick.....
isn't there a way to put your cd's on a stick or your iPod? i was a cd guy, but my son made me a stick and it is so much better.
Yes, you can easily transfer the CD tracks to a computer as MP3 files and then put them on a USB stick or an iPod, but you do lose some audio quality. I just copied about 100 MP3 and M4A tracks (M4A is an AAC format) to a USB stick and it seems to work just fine.
There is support for up 320 kbps bit rate, while not "lossless", I doubt very many people can detect the (miniscule) drop in quality. The problem usually is that the ripping utility is not set for the highest quality (larger files).
