Computer,Music,Books

Magellan Premium Car Kit for iPhone and iPod touch

List Price: $99.99
Price: $84.69 ( Click to see lower price ! )
You Save: $15.30 (15%)

Product Features:

Compatibility: iPod touch 2G, 3G; iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4

Transform your iPhone or iPod touch into a complete in-car solution for GPS navigation

Charge your device while mounted; built-in GPS receiver enhances performance

Noise-cancelling, hands-free speakerphone with powerful amplified speaker

Works with any navigation or location-based app, including Magellan's RoadMate app

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Technical Details:

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Customer Reviews:

Good build quality, stupid AUX port design

Well I have been using this for a bit over a week now and here are my impressions:

Pros:
-Excellent build quality; very solid and holds my iPhone (in a Speck PixelSkin case) very sturdily.
-Good mounting of iPhone with swivelling dock connector and flexible/adjustable top clip.
-Fits iPhone perfectly with my Speck PixelSkin case. But be warned - it was adjusted to its highest point, so it wont fit a case larger than the PixelSkin.
-GPS fix more accurate than iPhone's internal GPS. This resulted in less jerky movements and less jumping around during GPS application usage.

Cons:
-GPS signal dropped out far more often than my standalone TomTom PND. This is unacceptable in a product meant to improve GPS reception that actually uses the same GPS chip as the TomTom PND I am comparing it with.
-With kit mounted on windscreen the iPhone overheated and stopped working (displayed a temperature warning message and forced itself into sleep mode) once. Mind you this was after three hours of driving, directly towards the Australian summer sun on a 35C/95F day. This is not a shortcoming of this Magellan kit, but rather an issue with mounting iPhones in car windscreens in general.
-When switching the car ignition from 'accessories' to 'run' and then to 'on', the Magellan kit naturally loses power momentarily. However when it powers back on, it often would not sync with the iPhone's Bluetooth as the power cycle was too fast. I would need to manually power cycle the Magellan kit (ie. remove power plug, then reconnect) allowing enough time for the iPhone to lose Bluetooth sync before re-establishing the power.

MAJOR MAJOR CON:
-When you plug a 3.5mm audio cable into the AUX connector on the Magellan kit (for attaching to a car stereo, or external powered speakers, etc.), the music and application sounds CONTINUE COMING OUT OF THE BUILT-IN SPEAKER!!! This is a ridiculous design, as it means to listen to music through your car stereo without the crappy built-in speaker ruining the music for you, you need to turn down the volume on the Magellan Kit (as this only controls the volume of the built-in speaker). But then if you receive a call, the call audio (via Bluetooth) cannot be heard (as you have turned the volume down on the built-in speaker, which is where the call audio is sent), so you have to manually turn the volume up on the Magellan kit again (using a fiddly little dial that is difficult and dangerous to find while trying to concentrate on driving). You have to do this EVERY TIME a call arrives... STUPID!

Why oh why was the kit designed like this? We will never know. However Magellan have responded to my question about it and have indicated that they will release some sort of firmware/software/application fix for this speaker problem in the near future.

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