Car dock, Very disappointed!

[FinallyDroid]

I have been waiting and waiting for the Nexus One car dock to come out, I must say though, now its out, I am VERY disapointed.

Reason A: you can't use a bluetooth headset when docked! This is a CAR dock, right?!?!?!? I don't want to use it as a speakerphone while docked, I want to use my handsfree bluetooth. I hope there is a way to turn this off, but it doesn't appear this way.

Reason B: I think $55 is excessive... way too much for this dock. More reasonable would be $25-30 max, like the car dock for the droid. I had paid the $45 for the desktop dock when I purchased my Nexus One, and I must say that dock is in no way worth the $45 price tag. That too, should be no more than $25-30 max. $20 would be more like it though.

I guess its time to start shopping aftermarket car docks for my awesome new phone. Any suggestions?

Guess I got some shopping around to do. The thing I don’t understand, they added in a built-in speaker, cool to be able to listen to your music, but being that it’s a CAR Dock, why not instead just add an FM transmitter to listen through your stereo, much better than stupid little built in speakers… and two, being a dock, it is physically attached to the unit, why not use a headphone jack on a cable to connect… but instead they connect the phone to the dock via bluetooth when inserted, so you can’t even use your bluetooth headset when docked… makes NO sense… so annoying. That engineer/designer needs to be reprimanded!

 

[RayKinStL]

No suggestions. I bought the car dock and cant wait to get it!

 

[DellyBelly]

No suggestions. I bought the car dock and cant wait to get it!

Just received my car dock; have to say the quality feels good on it; has a nice weight and the suction mount is solid.

Not sure if i am going to mount it on the windshield or in my cubby underneath my radio (Where my sirius radio is now).

 

[cred05]

According to the brochure:

"When the phone is in the dock, you
can use the dock as a hands-free
speakerphone or use a Bluetooth
headset"

 

[DellyBelly]

According to the brochure:

"When the phone is in the dock, you
can use the dock as a hands-free
speakerphone or use a Bluetooth
headset"

Just to add to this; when you first put the device in the dock it asks you how you want to use the speakerphone.

So far, it's OK, for me it takes a few seconds to actually get the phone in and out of the cradle so i'm not sure how annoying that may get. It has a "clip" on the top side that you need to pull down before you can get the phone in which adds a little bit of time.

The phone will default to the Drive Home screen which has navigation options; haven't received a call just yet to see how good or bad the speaker will output.

 

[FinallyDroid]

According to the brochure:

"When the phone is in the dock, you
can use the dock as a hands-free
speakerphone or use a Bluetooth
headset"

That's interesting... they must have changed the "printable car dock user's guide", it previously stated in BOLD print that it could not be used with a bluetooth headset... that is a welcomed change/correction... but still... $55?? makes me think twice now that I know I can use my headset instead of the speaker. It'd still be better if it included an FM transmitter... Pandora on the road...

 

[WoodrowB]

Just received my car dock; have to say the quality feels good on it; has a nice weight and the suction mount is solid.

Not sure if i am going to mount it on the windshield or in my cubby underneath my radio (Where my sirius radio is now).

Can the post be extended at all? If so, how long can you extend it. I'm narrowed my search to the Google product or......

I've done a good bit of research into the kind of car holder I want. I think I've settled on a two-part solution:
1. The Motorola T305 Bluetooth speaker
2. A phone holder by thoughtout.biz. They offer holders meant for a sleeved-iphone. Their holders seem, well, really thought out.

I'm looking to be able to use one phone holder to have the phone in position near my right hand while driving, but easily moveable up closer to the dashboard while using it for driving instrctions so I don't have to move my attention too far from the road. Their holder, with an extension or two, should do the trick.

My solution is a bit more pricey than the Google solution, but it may be better in the long run.

 

[ParishyM]

i use a motorola T505 and it works great !

 

[DellyBelly]

Can the post be extended at all? If so, how long can you extend it. I'm narrowed my search to the Google product or......

I've done a good bit of research into the kind of car holder I want. I think I've settled on a two-part solution:
1. The Motorola T305 Bluetooth speaker
2. A phone holder by thoughtout.biz. They offer holders meant for a sleeved-iphone. Their holders seem, well, really thought out.

I'm looking to be able to use one phone holder to have the phone in position near my right hand while driving, but easily moveable up closer to the dashboard while using it for driving instrctions so I don't have to move my attention too far from the road. Their holder, with an extension or two, should do the trick.

My solution is a bit more pricey than the Google solution, but it may be better in the long run.

Ive only used it less than a day, but heres some more thoughts;

You aren't going to be moving it around from where it's mounted very often as it has a swivel lock (very secure); but not meant to be portable unless you want lots of work each time.

It's a standard dash window mount, so placement is up to you; the speaker for the dock is fairly loud and of decent quality. I haven't had any complaints yet (only spoke to the wife so far) about hearing or being low. My mount is on the left side of my steering wheel, but you do have to run the charger cable across which is kind of sloppy for my setup.

Also if your trying to mount it in a tight spot you may have some issues as the locking mechinism seems to want to swivel the entire mount and not just the upper mounting portion so that made mounting in my cubby a little bit of an issue.

Clipping the phone into the mount also will not allow for any skins; I have the outer layer of mine covered with my Zagg skin and it's a snug fit. The "clip" you have to depress when taking the phone in and out is annoying to use and is the one part that feels kind of cheap and may possible break at some point; especially since I have to press it a little more firm because of the extra snugness with my skin.

Overall, it seems geared more for leaving the phone in for quite some time (ie. I don't think id use it every time i get in the car for a 5 minute trip; but instead for trips 30+)

I was hoping it had an included AUX out in the mount but it doesn't, so that kinda kills my intended setup as I wanted to have my mount permanently connected to my AUX, but don't want to have to plug and unplug the cable when moving my phone... -1 on that.

I don't use any btooth voice devices so don't have a comment on that, although if i had btooth vs the speaker setup; id' probably take the btooth from a pure quality and easy of use perspective. Hope this helps.

 

[inspiron41]

The car dock does activate the bluetooth. I noticed while my nexus was paired to my car dock, it was also paired with my GPS Garmin. And i tested the phone dialing off the Garmin, and it called out on the nexus. So i'm guessing if this works, it'll pair with any bluebooth device.

 

[turbosol16]

I just got mine yesterday:

Speaker: worked pretty good, my wife could hear me and I could hear her very well.

Mount: Solid but a pain to rotate the base around for some reason.

Charger: Faster then using a USB car charger.

I am glad I bought it but I probably could of bought a cheap mount for what I need. It is also really annoying if you mount it horizontally because the home screen is sideways if you back out of car/home and the contacts list is also sideways. Hopefully with the next firmware they will at least address the contacts list.

 

[lawilson2]

My biggest pet peeve is the contact list, calls, AND the apps Home screen being in portrait mode only when the phone is in landscape. They NEED to fix that.

Another issue is that when I need to rotate from landscape to portrait, it was to do a complete revolution before I can get there; I can't just turn it to the left to portrait. Did I get a bad unit or is this how it is? Let me know.

For now I'm just keeping it in portrait since it's the easiest to use.

 

[ianken]

My biggest pet peeve is the contact list, calls, AND the apps Home screen being in portrait mode only when the phone is in landscape. They NEED to fix that.

Another issue is that when I need to rotate from landscape to portrait, it was to do a complete revolution before I can get there; I can't just turn it to the left to portrait. Did I get a bad unit or is this how it is? Let me know.

For now I'm just keeping it in portrait since it's the easiest to use.

The contacts in Cyanogen has a rotate option.

My biggest beef is the lack of audio out from the dock. I was hoping for that. My car lacks A2DP support.

 

[lawilson2]

The contacts in Cyanogen has a rotate option.

My biggest beef is the lack of audio out from the dock. I was hoping for that. My car lacks A2DP support.

Thx for the reply. There are other gripes. The screen dims even though I have it set to not do that, so when my music is on it dims. Also, the arm isn't long enough. And, for $55, this should have been an FM transmitter too. So after playing with it all day today, I decided to keep my vent-hooked phone holder and return this one on Monday with no regrets. I'm sure it meets the needs for some, but just not for me. I MAY use the refund to get an extra battery to always keep in the car to take with me when I leave the car for an extended period of time and don't have my bag with me (which contains my current extra battery). I wish men could wear purses; that would solve SO MANY issues, HAHA!!!

 

[Lars]

Cigarette Lighter Mount With Power Socket For HTC HD2 T8585 (HTC Leo) : neTimes.com

I ordered one of these but haven't gotten it yet. I like the charge functionality at the dock.

 

[ianr]

Does the car dock supply enough power to keep the phone charged when using GPS for long periods? When using GPS with a USB charger I find my battery is still depleting as the power used by the phone is more than the power supplied by the USB charger. I'm not sure if it's possible to supply enough power via USB or whether the additional power ports are needed. My USB chargers supply 1 amp.

 

[ianr]

(duplicate post for some reason)

 

[ethosofmusic]

Another issue is that when I need to rotate from landscape to portrait, it was to do a complete revolution before I can get there; I can't just turn it to the left to portrait. Did I get a bad unit or is this how it is? Let me know.

Same here. I thought I got a bad unit too. Seems like a pretty major design flaw to me!

 

[DellyBelly]

Does the car dock supply enough power to keep the phone charged when using GPS for long periods? When using GPS with a USB charger I find my battery is still depleting as the power used by the phone is more than the power supplied by the USB charger. I'm not sure if it's possible to supply enough power via USB or whether the additional power ports are needed.

Yes, it seems to be a bit stronger charge than the regular USB. I drove from Philly to DC started at around 87% and was 100% a quarter of the way through the trip. That was with GPS on and navigation.

 

[ianr]

Hmm, I've just been playing with charging leads and a battery graphing app, the app tells me if I'm charging off USB or AC, and when plugged into the same USB port, one lead says "USB" the other says "AC" and the charging rates are much faster when the phone thinks it's on AC. Looks like the phone restricts its current draw when it thinks it's on USB so I'll see if the "AC" lead permits the phone to draw enough current to overcome the current draw of the navigation apps, previously I've been using the navigation apps with the lead that the phone thinks is a "USB" lead. Both leads are recharge-only leads, i.e. not sync cables, so must be some difference between the wiring in there somewhere, e.g. data pulled high or low. So chances are my issues with not getting enough charge are down to the lead making the phone restrict current draw.