Parrot CK3300 BT Handsfree carkit with GPS review

MikeB · Last edited by MikeB on Fri May 13, 2005 9:09 am; edited 1 time in total

In a lot of countries it is illegal to drive and use a mobile phone. Most legislation, however, allows you to use a handsfree carkit. Even where it is not yet against the law to use a mobile it makes sense to use a handsfree system purely for the sake of safety.

Parrot are a well known manufacturer of mobile phone accessories. In their product range they have a number of handsfree devices, but the one that caught our attention was the Parrot CK3300 handsfree car kit with an integrated bluetooth GPS receiver.

We have been playing with this handsfree kit for quite a while now and thought it about time we did a write up on it. So here it is.

Click here for our Parrot CK3300 review.
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Mike Barrett

pgirgis

I have been testing the Parrot 3300 with an iMate PocketPC and Nokia 6600.

I managed to get the Nokia 6600 all working but cannot tell you how. It just seemed to work one morning with a bit of playing around and yes, the audio all runs through the car speakers and the GPS works simultaneously.

With the iMate PocketPC it is a great little set up and I absolutely love it.

While I have found it very stable with the connections, it took me a while. The audio and microphone is probably one off from being excellent. I had to mvoe the microphone around the car dash to get the quality just right but it really is great.

All in all, I have to say that I have been really happy with the unit and if anyone is looking for a high quality hands free car kit and GPS Receiver, I reckon this is a great solution.

By the way, I have never installed wiring to a car before and I bought a little cheap multi-meter and it took me an hour to get it all hooked up (no ISO cables either) so I reckon it is not that tricky but suggest a professional install to be safe :-)

Peter Girgis

Eldorado · Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 10:41 pm Post subject:

I've been using the Parrot 3300 for the past few months with my hx4700 for GPS and C500 for handsfree and found it to be an excelent system compared with other handsfree kits I've used in the past.

I had a fault with the backlight not working on the display after having it for about a month, contacted Parrot via there website and they advised me to send them my address and they would replace the screen. I got the replacement screen within a couple of weeks (coming from France to the UK), Parrot didn't charge for the postage or request the fault screen be sent back or require proof of purchase. I wouldn't hesitate in buying one of there products again.

pgirgis · Posted: Sun May 15, 2005 11:18 pm Post subject: Nokia 6600 and Kludge gone

The review talks about the Nokia 6600 and I worked out, under advanced settings you can specify a Nokia 6600 and when you do this the connection and GPS works seamlessly. If you connect as a general device it is "a bit kludgy". There are other phone profiles under the Advanced settings so highly recommend setting to the appropriate device.

cheers
Peter

smorriss · Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 11:34 am Post subject: Parrot 3300 and Noikia 6310i

I've been using one of these since last September and had real compatability problems with it at first.

My (work supplied) Nokia 6310i worked fine as long as you didn't use the GPS component. I had an iPaq at the time, and everything looked fine until I received a call or tried to make a call....at which point, the Nokia would lose connection to the car kit. After getting no response from Parrot I gave up and used my old Ericcson T68 which worked as a headset but at least stayed connected.

I changed to a Dell Axim, and tried the Nokia again, with the same results. I've upgraded the firmware whenever new releases came out (the Parrot had 4.04 when I got it, and is now on 4.10), same results.

I finaly gave up on the 6310i and got a 6230 which works fine and even syncs all numbers on the contact and not just the main number as happened with the 6310i

I have noticed that some of the newer Sony Ericsson phones cause the Axim to lose it's connection to the parrot when a call is in progress, so although I'm happy with the setup I have, I feel that there's still comptability issues that need to be resolved....

If you're going to get one of these, make sure everythings works as you expect.....not sure how you're going to do this, but if you're midlands based and thinking of one of these, then let me know and maybe we can check out your stuff on one of these kits

Steve

honda6600 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 18, 2005 Posts: 3

i've got a nokia 6600 and running tomtom mobile 5 on it. works fine.
Now i'm trying to get it to connect to a parrot ck3300 carkit for the gps funtion.
The phone connects to the carkit without any problems but the gps does not seem to work. it keeps saying "not connected" .
Am i doing something wrong???

datajack · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 24, 2005 Posts: 2

I have the same problem.
I got a new car, and decided to get the CK-3300 in order to reduce the number of loose wires in the cabin, and so I didn't have to fiddle with plugging multiple devices in. The device apparently works with 'TomTom'.

I very nearly bought a new Palm PDA and TomTom for that, when I noticed that MOBILE was available and would work on my new phone (Orange C500).

I found out, too late, that TomTom have crippled MOBILE. It explicitly does not support third-paty GPS receivers (even though their PDA offerings apparently do). This means that if I go on a journey langer than 3 and a half hours or so (or decide to make a phone call en-route), I can either get lost or get some sort of power splitter and have a birds-nexst of wies hanging out of the cigarrette lighter.

When I come to upgrade, I'm taking my money elsewhere.

datajack · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 24, 2005 Posts: 2

Actually - their knowledge-base now does state that MOBILE 5 does support third-party PS units.

Either I'm confused, or TOmTOm support is - I'll ask them for clarification.

MikeB · Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 8:15 pm Post subject:

Mobile 5 is supposed to work with 3rd party BT GPS devices, and I certainly had it working with my GlobalSat 338. I could not get it to work with the parrot though. It was a problem of configuring the BT and handsfree. The C500 didnt "see" the GPS.
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Mike Barrett

seanog · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 25, 2005 Posts: 1

I'm looking to the CK3300 at the moment. I have an XDAII, I presume I'll need a cradle and power supply for it. Any ideas on the best way to do this?

ernstbobbyenderest · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 28, 2005 Posts: 1

I'm new here.
Sorry for my Englisch but its not my home speak.

I have a C500 working on a CK3300.

Also i have a few problems.

* Parrot stops gps when i want to make a call
* Spoken directions are NOT going over the 3300.

The Parrot furum says that i must pair the divice twice????But that is not possible.

Has anyone got the c500 working correctly?

@ the Tomtom users with the GPS problem.Use the traffic update plugin.This plugin contains drivers for alternative GPS modules.

Greetings

swing · Posted: Tue May 31, 2005 11:17 am Post subject:

swing · Posted: Tue May 31, 2005 11:32 am Post subject:

eqcons · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 17

I've been using the CK3300 with an iPaq H6340 for a couple of months. A bit quirky, works pretty well most of the time, but it can get a bit confused from time to time. HOWEVER - I wouldn't buy one again; next time I'd go for the CK3100 without GPS, and get a separate BT GPS antenna. Why? Firstly, if you are on a journey, and stop for any reason, turning the engine off makes the GPS BT connection stop, of course, and while the phone BT connection will be re-made when the car is started again, the GPS one is not, which causes a huge palaver to restart everything. Secondly, the GPS antenna that comes with the kit is, as the review suggests, less than sensitive! I can sometimes acquire sat signals within a minute, other times I can take 20 minutes, or sometimes a couple of hours (!) goes by, with no data being received (though the satellites can be seen.) So next time, definitely a CK3100 for me....

briesmith · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 1

I have used the Parrot CK330 GPS unit withb several mobile phones from Nokia (6230i, 6320) and from Sony K750i and all work without difficulty.

It's when I tried to use the Parrot with GPS that my problems began. When initially installed, the GPS function paired with and worked well through the TomTom 5 Navigator product on my iPAQ rz 1710 and iPAQ 2210.

One day, for no discernible reason, the GPS stopped working reporting "No GPS Device Configured". That was in April and now, in September, the set-up still doesn't work.

It is quite simply impossible to fix or sort out a Parrot system because the manual is non-existent, there are no diagnostics that would let you debug the system when it fails, the manufacturers are in France and don't give a merde and the only other hope, the Parrot forum, is incomprehensible containing as it does posts from all over the world in all sorts of "English".

Do not buy a Parrot. Honestly. If you do it will drive you mad.

If you don't believe me have a quick look at their forum and some of the questions - all largely unanswered by Parrot - that get asked.

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