TomTom announce the iPhone Car Kit: We get our hands on it

[gatorguy6996]

Or take a look at the Magellan active carkit when it starts shipping in about a month.
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Garmin 1695 / 255 / 760 w/MSN - Droid w/Google nav + Navigon - Navigon 8100T - Dakota10 - GPSMap76C - GeoMate Jr.

[Darren]

Indeed and it looks quite tasty. Can you tell us more as regards is features?

http://www.gpsreview.net/magellan-roadmate-for-iphone/

It's a shame that Magellan's PR in the UK has ranged from sporadic to dire. The last launch they had we were told that no review units were available for UK.

That is not the way to garner coverage!
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Darren Griffin

[gatorguy6996]

Absolutely agreed that they are quite poor at marketing themselves. I'm on their beta list and still have trouble getting anything out of them. Actually get more thru the backdoor channels than via anything official.

Anyway, it's fully adjustable to accommodate different phone skins or the iPod. Rotates for use in landscape or portrait. Includes a built-in gps chipset, tho I don't know the supplier yet. Includes the expected Bluetooth handsfree and in-car charging along with an amplified speaker. All the features of TT's mount plus iPod compatibility. Designed to work with any of the TBT apps. I expect the price to come in at $99 as an educated guess.
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Garmin 1695 / 255 / 760 w/MSN - Droid w/Google nav + Navigon - Navigon 8100T - Dakota10 - GPSMap76C - GeoMate Jr.

[Ten98]

This mount uses an out of date GPS chipset that is actually worse than that inside the iPhone 3GS, which is fine if you have an original iPhone, but if you have a 3G or a 3GS it's simply not needed and bumps up the already stupidly high cost of the mount. The charging port is dumb, as it makes you use a mini USB car charger rather than an iPhone car charger which I already had, and the speaker is really poor too. The suction cup device TomTom have designed is second to none, all I really wanted was that suction cup and a simple plastic clip to hold the iPhone to my windscreen, all the electronics are completely not needed.

The iPhone app itself is kind of a cut-down TomTom. You can't get traffic information, update your speed camera notifications or any of the internet content on tomtom LIVE! Surprising that an iPhone app has no internet connectivity at all really when the whole point of the phone is internet access and so much of TomTom stuff these days relies on an internet connection.. Don't they want my £9 a month subscription to HD traffic then?

On the plus side, you do get the great iPhone screen, which is better than the TomTom screens and the app can be used portrait or landscape. It has some reasonably useful features you don't get on normal TomToms like setting an entry in your contacts list to a destination, using a speech synthesiser to read out road names, .

However, for the cost of this mount plus the TomTom app on the iPhone, you could buy a TomTom IQ Routes and still have change. And in my view you would have a far better Satnav and still be able to use your phone as a phone.

[Darren]

[Ten98]

[Darren]

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