Review
by Mike Barrett
Brodit car mounts for mobiles phones
As many of you who follow our site will know we have started to
review navigation systems on mobile phones. Well that is fine but
you need somewhere to put them. As the screen is now  an
important factor in the navigation setup. My initial car mount was
one bought from my local halfords for £7.50. Although it was
a generic clamp type mount it didnt last long when my wife, with
the sublety of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, ripped the phone from the holder
and damaged one of the holder's grips. This meant that I had to look for
a better solution.
This was hampered somewhat by a number of factors:
- I typically have lots of gear in my car and there is competition
for space on the dashboard.
- I needed the capability to switch phones on a regular basis
depending on what I am testing.
- I tend to switch between 2 cars.
The image to the right shows a typical set-up in my car: PDAs all
over the place and very little space for anything else.
So how did I solve this little problem? Read on and find out...
The Base Platform
The base platform or foundation of my system is a Dashmount
car bracket. Click
here for the Dashmount site. This is a small plate that
slips under the trim of the centre console and uses the existing
screws to secure it firmly.
The face of the plate has a number of holes and slots allowing
a number of mounts and cradles to be bolted on.
The Intermediate Layers
On top of the foundations is a tilt/swivel mechanism. I used
the Brodit tilt/swivel mount. This bolted directly onto the
dashmount plate. This gives the mount the manouverability
required so the mobile phone can be angled in the correct
viewing angle.
To allow me to switch phones as I need required the use of
some form of stable but moveable fittment. Again Brodit came
to the rescue with one of their latest products the "Move
Mount". Peter of Brodit gave us some samples at CeBIT.
They are supplied with a male and 2 female mounting plates.
These plates are fitted using double sidded tape. These can
be stuck directly to the devices that you want to mount, or
in my case I stuck them to the phone cradles.
I had no problems sticking the Move Mounts to the Brodit
tilt/swivel and the Nokia 6600 cradle. I wanted to attach
the other Move Mount to my Sony Ericsson T610 cradle, this
was more tricky as there was no flat surface to stick it to.
I solved this problem by removing the tape and using a tried
and trusted Araldite adhesive to stick the mount and cradle
together.
That gave me the capability to switch between the Nokia 6600
and the Sony Ericsson T610 within seconds
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The mount in use.
Once again I have created a stable platform for my equipment, the
Dashmount is not as solid as using a ProClip, but has the economy
of a very small footprint, and although I do get a little vibration
it is not noticable in use. I have a spare ProClip for my other
car so when I get some more Move Mounts I will create more moveable
systems.
I really like the Move Mounts and am looking forward to trying
them with heavier equipment such as PDAs. This could be the start
of a really flexible system for people like me, or people who want
to move their equipment between two cars.
The Nokia 6600 mount is minimalistic, and the sleeve slightly covers
the side buttons, but is far more useable than the previous clamp
style mounts I have used. The Nokia has a Loudspeaker function,
which when used in the cradle is adequate to be used as a hands
free system.
When using the cradle with Wayfinder the speaker on the Nokia 6600
the mount does not muffle the directions. The sound produced is
still too low to be practical at all speeds, but the mount is crafter
in such a manner to retain as much sound and functionality as possible.
Review equipment supplied by
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