Getting the right Parrot Car Kit

If you frequently use your phone in the car, for music or calls, a Car Kit is an accessory worth investing in. A car kit will probably be the most expensive accessory purchase you can make for your phone, so it’s worth spending some time looking at what’s available, reading reviews and making sure that the kit you’re about to buy does everything you need it to and most importantly that it’s likely to work with your future phones too.

If you’re looking to buy a car kit, then a Parrot Car Kit is the way to go. Over the last few years, Parrot have grown from a relatively unheard of company to one that produces excellent car kits that even the big names in mobiles, such as Nokia, can’t compete with.

Parrot Car Kits come in two options, fitted and portable. Fitted car kits are hard wired into your car (normally through the stereo) and portable car kits clip on to your sun visor and rely on an internal battery for power.

This post will run through each of the current Parrot Car Kits and highlight some of their Pro’s and Con’s to help you decide on which Parrot Car Kit you should go for.

Portable Parrot Car Kits

Parrot MINIKIT SLIM Bluetooth Car Kit

If you don’t want to go to the expense of having a fully fitted kit, then the Parrot MiniKit slim is a great choice – regardless of whether you have a smart phone or a standard feature phone.  The Parrot MiniKit Slim has all the basic features of the fitted kits, but without support for streaming music. It will automatically synchronise with your phone book, allowing you to dial a contact just by saying their name. You don’t have to mess around recording voice tags as the Text to Speech software will automatically match your voice print to a name in your phone book.

The kit is designed to be mounted on your sun visor and controls are kept to a minimum – two dedicated buttons to answer/end calls and a dial to increase the volume and navigate the system menus.

Battery life on the MiniKit Slim is excellent, offering up to 20 days of standby time and 15 hours of talk time.

Parrot MINIKIT SLIM Bluetooth Car Kit

Parrot MINIKIT Smart

The MiniKit Smart is the latest plug and play Parrot Car Kit. It’s been designed purely for larger smartphones, so standard sized handsets won’t really work all that well with it. Instead of clipping to your sunvisor, the MiniKit slim uses a suction pad to fix to your windscreen and combines a holder and handsfree kit. It’s receiving mixed reviews as it’s designed to hold your phone in landscape mode – perfect for sat nav, but not all smart phones can be used in landscape mode for calling and accessing the phonebook (mainly iPhones).

Parrot MINIKIT Smart

Feature wise it has everything that the MiniKit Slim has, as well as support for music streaming – although the mono speaker won’t really do your songs justice. Controls are just as simple as they are on the MiniKit Slim, but if you’re using it in portrait mode they can be a bit fiddly. The MiniKit Smart uses advanced noise reduction and a reasonably powerful (for a car kit) 2w speaker to make sure instructions are heard, but if I’m being totally honest, for the price, you’d be better off either paying the extra £10 for the Parrot MKi9000 or choosing the Jabra Cruiser and a dedicated Car Holder.

Installed Parrot Car Kits

Parrot CK3100 Advanced Bluetooth Car Kit

The Parrot CK3100 has been around for a long time now, but it’s still a firm favourite, particularly among fleet managers. In terms of features it’s pretty simple – handsfree calling with voice dial and phone book synchronisation. It has a clear LCD display that shows you the name/number of callers and allows you to scroll through your address book without having to touch your phone. Installation is pretty straight forward as the CK3100 connects using the standard ISO connections on the back of your car radio – although not all cars use ISO, so make sure you check before you buy as you may well need some additional cables.

As with all of the Parrot Car Kits, the CK3100 doesn’t use an external speaker in the passenger footwell, instead, all audio is routed through your car stereo speakers. This gives you much more control over volume levels and callers are much clearer and easier to understand.

Parrot CK3100 Advanced Bluetooth Car Kit

Parrot MKi9000 Bluetooth Car Kit

The MKi range of car kits are all based around the same basic model – the MKi9000, the only difference is the screen that ships with the kit. In the case of the MKi9000 there is no screen, but that doesn’t hamper it’s performance, especially if you’re using it with a large screen smartphone. In fact, the MKi9000 is our top selling Parrot Car Kit.

The main difference between the MKi range of kits and the CK3100 are their music capabilities. In addition to being able to handle calls, the MKi kits do a brilliant job of streaming music from your phone, MP3 player or USB flash drive through your existing Car Stereo. Controlling the Car Kit is done through a small remote that can either stick to your dashboard or attach to your steering wheel.

Each MKi kit has a connectivity cable that has a 3.5mm line in, USB port and Apple Dock connector. This allows you to connect pretty much any audio source to the kit and enjoy the sound through your car stereo. If you connect an iPod or iPhone using the Dock connector you can also use the remote to control your music playback. Every Parrot Car Kit is easily updated. Frequent software updates are available free of charge from the Parrot website and will often improve compatibility/usability.

The Parrot MKi9000 has phonebook synchronisation and advanced speech recognition built in. This allows the MKi9000 to automatically retrieve all your contacts from your phone and transfer them to it’s own internal memory. Pressing the Answer key on the remote will activate the voice dialling and you just say the name of who you want to call. No messing around recording voice tags, just say thej name and it’ll dial the number.

Parrot MKi9000 Bluetooth Car Kit

If you do have an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4, you have two options when it comes to voice dialling. You can either use the voice features of the MKi9000, or you can use the Voice Control features built into the iPhone by disabling phonebook synchronisation in the Bluetooth settings on your iPhone. I’ve chosen to use the Voice Control features on the phone purely because it allows voice control of the iPod app as well as calling. Instead of fiddling with the remote, I can just hit the answer button and say “play” and it will start playing music back – either over a bluetooth connection or through the Dock Connector. Voice Control on iPhone even allows you to tell the phone to play a particular album, playlist or artist, so if you have an iPhone and decide on a Parrot MKi Car Kit, I’d strongly recommend turning off phonebook sync.

Parrot MKi9100 Bluetooth Car Kit

There are very few differences between the MKi9000 and the MKi9100, other than the display screen. If you use a standard feature phone like the Nokia 6700 or choose not to have a car holder then this will be a much better choice. The high contrast LCD screen will show you the name and number of the caller, allows you to see the contacts in your phone book as well as see the settings for the car kit – you can still access all these on the MKi9000, but with out the screen all your options are read out to you.

Parrot MKi9100 Bluetooth Car Kit

If the idea of a screen sitting on your dashboard makes you nervous, don’t worry, it’s detachable and can be taken with you when you leave the car. In terms of features and usability, it’s very similar to the CK3100, but with music support. The MKi9100 is still worth choosing even if you don’t plan on using it for music. The £25 difference in price is minimal when you take into account the extra features that you get – easy software updates, removable screen and better phonebook sync & voice dialling.

Parrot MKi9200 Bluetooth Car Kit

The MKi9200 is significantly different to the MKi9100 and MKi9000. Most obvious is of course the screen. It comes with a 2.4 inch colour screen that will not only show names and numbers of callers, but also their photo and during music playback, album art is displayed (if present on your phone). The screen also has an SD card reader built into it. This means that instead of storing your music on your phone or USB stick, you can put all your music on an SD card (max 32GB) and have it in the car permanently.

Parrot MKi9200 Bluetooth Car Kit

Controlling the car kit is done using the same remote that comes with the other two kits, but with the bigger display, navigating the menu’s is a little bit quicker and easier. If you have use your smart phone or an iPod as your music source in the car then you may not need the extra features that you get with the MKi9200 as the MKi9000 will be more than adequate.

Parrot Unika Steering Wheel Interface for MKi Car Kits

The Unika isn’t a car kit, but a rather clever accessory that works with the MKi range of car kits to fully integrate it into your car. It allows your existing steering wheel stereo controls to operate the car kit and completely eliminates the need for the remote control. Installation is a little fiddlier, so we’d recommend having it fitted by a professional installer. You don’t need to have dedicated telephone controls on your steering wheel, as the Unika will use a combination of key presses to activate the kit. In a Ford Focus for example, pressing ‘Rewind’ then ‘Forward’ will start music playback, pressing the SRC button will answer calls and confirm menu choices and a double press of the SRC button will activate voice dialling.

To check compatibility with your car, head over to the Parrot Unika Support Pages and enter details of your Car and Parrot Car Kit.

Parrot Unika Steering Wheel Interface

Parrot Head Units

Head Unit Car Kits haven’t ever proven to be all that popular, even though the idea behind them makes perfect sense. Installation is so much easier than fitting a regular kit, not only because of the reduced wiring, but the fact that you don’t have to find space behind your dashboard to hide the control box. Parrot currently only have the RKi8400 available, and the newly announced Parrot Asteroid should be available very soon.

Parrot RKi8400 Bluetooth Car Kit

It was launched at the same time as the MKi range of kits, but the RKi8400 isn’t proving as popular as Parrot would have hoped – although that’s probably due to most cars now having a non standard sized radio in them, rather than poor performance. The RKi8400 is essentially the same as the Parrot MKi9200, as it has the same 2.4inch colour screen, multiple ways to connect your iPod, MP3 player or USB stick and an SD Card Reader. The front of the stereo pops off, not only for security reasons, but also to expose a storage area where you can leave your iPod or MP3 player connected.

Parrot RKi8400 Bluetooth Car Kit

As with the MKi Kits the RKi8400 will synchronise with your phone to give you access to your phone book and voice dialling, as well as having a full keypad on the head unit itself. The replacement for the RKI8400 has just been announced, but no launch date has been given yet. The basic idea is the same, but the Parrot Asteroid will be running the Android operating system in an attempt to make media management even easier. We’ll post more details on the Asteroid as we get them.

If you’ve got any questions about any of the kits mentioned here, feel free to ask them in the comments below. Mobile Fun offer the full range and you can get more details on any of them on the Parrot Car Kits pages.

Review: Nokia BH-505 Bluetooth Headphones

Like a lot of you, I’ve been waiting quite a while to get my hands on a set of the Nokia BH-505 Bluetooth Headphones, Nokia’s latest Stereo Bluetooth Headset.

Now that I’ve finally managed to grab hold of a pair, I thought I’d put them through their paces. Are the Nokia BH-505′s any good? Read on to find out.

In the Box

One of the first things you notice after you’ve struggled to remove them from the packaging, is that they’re actually quite small and extremely thin. The way they’re packaged makes it look like you don’t get much with them, but to be fair you only need a charger and spare ear gels, so that’s exactly what you get.

Box Contents:

• Nokia BH-505 Bluetooth Headphones
• Nokia AC-3X Mains Charger
• 5 spare pairs of differently sized ear gels.

Features

Nokia have never really done much with stereo bluetooth accessories. They’ve released a few bluetooth headphones and bluetooth speakers over the years, but they’ve never been anything special compared to those offered by Motorola, Jabra and Sony Ericsson. The Nokia BH-505 look as though that’s set to change. They look fantastic and they’re easy to use. Feature-wise, the  BH-505′s have limited multipoint support, track controls, volume controls and NFC (Near Field Communication) for easy pairing.

Multipoint is becoming more and more of a standard feature on bluetooth headphones, so it’s a little surprising to see that Nokia haven’t fully supported it on the BH-505. You can use them with two devices at the same time, but only one device can connect for calls and one for music. Your phone is the obvious choice for calls, but for music, you can connect it to your iPod touch, PC or Mac, PS3 or another phone – although the second phone will be for music only, you won’t be able to answer calls from it

I don’t think this will be too much of an issue though. Nokia are clearly aiming this headset at social/sports users rather than business users that are likely to carry two phones around with them.

Design

The Nokia BH-505 looks to me like a slimmer, cleaner looking version of the Motorola S9 HD. They use a similar headband style that wraps around the back of your head.

The Motorola S9 HD’s are fairly bulky and the controls are quite fiddly to use as they are small and touch sensitive. The Nokia BH-505 has 2 simple buttons that add to the visual appeal of the headset and make using it a pleasure.

The headset is designed to be water/sweatproof so all sensitive parts of the headset are hidden away. The power button, LED lights and charging port are all discretely positioned and unless you know where to look for them you won’t find them.

The only thing that I found annoying was the plastic cover over the charging socket. It only peels back a few millimetres which makes it a little fiddly to get the standard 2.5mm charging pin into. The BH-505 has an IP rating of IP54 for splash and sweat resistance and is the only stereo bluetooth headset that I’ve seen to have an IP rating.

Controls & Set Up

Some people get scared away from Bluetooth Headphones, thinking that they’re difficult to use or set up. While this may have been true for early models, it certainly isn’t the case for the Nokia BH-505. Pairing is painless, the first time the headset is turned on it puts itself into pairing mode, all you do is search for bluetooth devices and enter the passkey 0000, if asked.

When tested with iPhone 4, the phone provided the passkey without asking me for it, completing the whole process in around 20 seconds.  If your phone supports NFC (highly unlikely at the moment, but all Nokia smartphones will by next year) pairing is as simple as activating NFC on your phone and tapping the phone against the headband on the headset.

As mentioned, the controls are kept to a minimum on the BH-505. The on/off button is located on the inside of the headband, answer/end is on the right earpiece and play/pause is on the left earpiece.

If you forget which way round they are, each button has a raised symbol on them so you can feel which is which.

The answer/end button activates voice dialling and last number redial and if you’re an iPhone user you’ll be pleased to know that pressing and holding the answer key will also activate voice control on iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4.

The only other controls on the headset are 2 small sliders – one on each ear. These sliders push up to increase the volume or fast forward, and push down to decrease the volume or skip back a track. They do the job they’re supposed to, but are a little on the small side and it’s easy for your fingers to slip off them.

Audio Quality

Nokia accessories have always been pretty good when it comes to audio quality. The BH-505′s won’t blow you away with crystal clear sound, but for listening to MP3′s off your phone and taking phone calls they are more than adequate. Avid music fans are probably better off sticking with wired headphones, but for casual users that enjoy listening to their music on the bus on the way to work or while you’re down working out at the gym, you’ll find the audio quality is excellent.

Unlike some bluetooth headphones, the BH-505′s have volume control built in. This means that when you turn the volume up, it’s the headphones doing the work and not the phone. This may not seem like a big deal, but it’s the only way to change the volume level if you’re listening to your music from an iPhone or iPod touch as the bluetooth restrictions on these devices prevents volume control from working.

Why Choose

The Nokia BH-505 is a great headset for anyone who takes part in physical activities or that just enjoys listening to music without the hassle of wires. It’s not overly expensive and the sound quality is impressive for something so slim. It’s easy to use and set up and will work brilliantly with just about every bluetooth enabled phone out there – even the iPhone.

Also Consider

If the Nokia BH-505 aren’t quite what you’re looking for you might want to take a look at these other Bluetooth Headphones.

• Motorola S9-HD Stereo Bluetooth Headphones
• Sony Ericsson MW600 Stereo Bluetooth Headset
• Jabra Halo Bluetooth Headphones

My Rating

A Dock for your Desire…

The Desire is a great smartphone, but it needs great content on it in order for you to really enjoy it and get the most out of it. You can transfer all your photo’s, music and video’s to it using the cable that it came with the phone, but let’s face it, a USB cable doesn’t do much to show off your fancy new phone.

If you want everyone in the office to see your new toy as they walk past, or just be able to disconnect your phone quickly and easily without fiddling around with cables, you’re going to need a Desire Dock or Desire Desktop chargers.

There are a few available, so I thought I’d take a look at some of our most popular ones to see how they compare.

1. HTC Desire Desktop Charging Cradle

This is a quick and easy way to charge your phone while keeping it up to date with your latest music downloads, TV Shows and Photo’s. It connects to a spare USB port on your PC or laptop and can be used with a USB Mains adapter to turn it into a stand alone charging dock. It has a blue LED indicator that lights up when your phone is charging.

HTC Desire Desktop Charging Cradle

2. HTC Desire Dual Desktop Charging Cradle

This is essentially the same as the dock shown above, but with the addition of a built in battery charger. This makes it the perfect choice for anyone who has a spare battery for their Desire as it means you can charge both batteries at the same time, instead of having to charge one, remove it from the phone, replace it with the dead one and then start the charge cycle all over again.

HTC Desire Dual Desktop Charging Cradle

3. Deluxe HTC Desire Desktop Charging Cradle

The Deluxe Charging Cradle is the most popular style of cradle . It looks excellent and has a hi-gloss finish. Behind the phone is a lift up cover that houses an additional battery charger so that you can charge a spare battery at the same time.

Deluxe HTC Desire Desktop Charging Cradle

4. Smart Stand – HTC Desire

While the Smart Stand won’t charge or sync your Desire, it’s still a great way to watch videos or flick through your photo’s while you’re at your desk and is the only custom stand for the HTC Desire that will hold your phone in landscape mode. If you want to sync content to your phone, you’ll need to use a Micro USB cable. The Smart Stand has a sprung clip at the top that holds your phone securely in place and a weighted base that stops it from falling over.

Smart Stand - HTC Desire

5. Desk Genie Non-Slip Charging Desk Stand

The Desk Genie is a great all round Desk Stand, but has received a mixed response in the office when it comes to the Desire. The coating on the Desire doesn’t stick all that well to the Desk Genie, so unless you’ve got a case or cover fitted to your  Desire, you might struggle to keep it in place. On the bright side though,  the Desk Genie includes a charging cable for your phone and also doubles up as a memory card reader.

Desk Genie Non-Slip Charging Desk Stand

There are a number of other HTC Desire Desktop chargers available, but these are the the most popular ones at the moment. Head over to the main site to check out the full range of HTC Desire Docks.

More Desire Docks are due in the coming weeks and I’ll update this post as and when they become available.

Hands on with the HD2 Extended Battery & Stand

The HTC HD2 is an incredibly popular phone, and even though it’s been on sale for a while now, a lot of the genuine HTC accessories for it are only just making their way onto the shelves. Last month we saw the release of the long awaited HTC HD2 Car Upgrade Pack, and this month we’ve finally managed to get our hands on the HTC HD2 Extended battery.

HTC HD2 Extended Battery

If you’ve pre-ordered one from us, then it’s good news, yours is on it’s way and should be with you in the next day or two. If you haven’t, you’ll need to be quick as these are selling fast. I managed to get my hands on one very briefly in order to write this hands on review, but it wasn’t long before that was being reclaimed by the warehouse team!

Features

There’s not a lot you can say about a battery so I’m not going to. It’s a higher capacity battery – 2300mAh compared to 1230mAh in the standard battery, which should in theory almost double the battery life of your phone. It’s almost three times fatter than the standard one though which is why you get a replacement back cover included with the battery.

Extended battery gives your HD2 more power

The back cover is what makes this bundle so interesting. Instead of just making it a bigger cover, HTC have built in to the back cover a fold away kickstand.

Design

The back cover is styled exactly the same as the standard one. It’s the same finish, with the exception of the kickstand which is has a brushed metal finish. The kickstand folds away flat into the back of the cover and is spring loaded to prevent it from coming out when it’s not needed.

Kickstand folds away when not needed

The kickstand is perfect for watching videos or flicking through your photos in landscape mode. HTC do state that you can use the stand in portrait mode too, but I found it to be a little unstable and at the wrong angle for comfortable viewing – having said that, I can’t really see anyone settling down to watch a movie in portrait mode, so can’t see this being a problem.

Metal Kickstand is perfect for viewing videos

What some people might have a problem with, is the increased size of the phone with the back cover fitted. It adds 7mm to the depth of the handset, taking it from a slim and sexy 11mm thin to a rather bulky 18mm thick. It’s worth pointing out that all of this extra depth is because of the battery and not the kickstand – the kickstand sits lower down the back of the phone, just above the sim card.

Side profile of the HTC HD2 with extended battery fitted

To give you a better idea on the differences between the two, here’s a quick size, weight and power comparison between the two.

In the Box

No real surprises here, the box contains just the battery and back cover.

Why Buy

If you know you’re going to be away from a power supply for a couple or three days and need to use your phone, or spend a lot of time on trains/planes watching films, then the extra battery power is worth the increase in size. If you want to use this as your everyday battery, you may find it a little on the bulky side, and may prefer to use an external battery pack instead.

Genuine HTC HD2 Extended Battery

We like: Kickstand is great for movies, extra power is welcome on long flights or train journeys
We don’t like: Increased size renders most cases and car holders useless as they won’t accommodate the thick battery

My Rating: 7/10

10 of the best Apps for the HTC Desire

Following on from my post on the Top HTC Desire Cases, I thought I’d take a look at some of the other ‘must have’ items for the HTC Desire – the Apps.

It’s been just over 7 months since I posted my last top ten of Apps for Android and though it was time to take another look at what’s out there.

Android Market is available on the HTC Desire

I’ve been playing with the HTC Desire & Android Marketplace for a few days now and have been trying out some of their most popular apps. I’m still using my iPhone 3G so again you’ll see some comparisons between the two, but having spent some time with the Desire I’m extremely tempted to switch!

Shopsavvy

ShopSavvy was featured heavily in T-Mobile’s first TV ad (the one where they all start dancing in the train station). It allows you to scan in the barcode of a product using your phone’s camera and it will then compare prices locally and online so that you can check to make sure you’re getting the best deal.

Read more »

Review: HTC HD2 Car Upgrade Kit CU-S400

The HD2 Car Upgrade Kit has got to be one of the most eagerly awaited accessories of 2010 so far and I managed to get my hands on one when they arrived into stock this morning. I had to be quick though as they sold out in record time. So, is it worth the hype? Read on to find out.

HTC HD2 Car Upgrade Kit CU-S400

A HD2 Car Holder is a must have item – especially if you use your HD2 for Sat Nav. I’ve already covered some of the best ways to use the HD2 in your car in my post on Using your HTC HD2 in the car, but considering how long these took to arrive I couldn’t resist trying one out.

Features

There aren’t really that many features that you can build in to a car holder, but HTC have managed to squeeze in a couple of nice touches. The first is that the holder incorporates a detachable charging cable. This isn’t anything new, as there are a number of holders for phones that accomodate charging cables, but what’s special with this one is that you plug the charger into the base of the holder, rather than the phone. The charge is then carried through to a charging port built into the base of the cradle.

Charging is built into the holder

This is a welcome addition as it means you can rotate the holder without worrying about whether there’s enough spare cable to turn the phone fully or it constantly falling out of your phone.

Another unique feature of the Cu-S400 is that when you dock your phone in the cradle it automatically switches the phone to the Navipanel – a shortcut screen that’s designed to give you quick access to all the apps you’re likely to need when driving, and hiding those that you won’t, or that could be a distraction – My only slight issue here is that Navipanel is only in landscape mode, so you can’t use the phone in portrait mode unless you exit the Navipanel App.

Holder is designed for landscape use

Design

As with others that I’ve tested, there’s not that much to say about the CU-S400, after all a car holder is a car holder, but this is one of the most stylish I’ve seen. Unlike others, there is no bulky flexible arm or loose plastic cradle, It’s solid, sturdy and relatively easy to attach to your windscreen as it has a twist-to-lock base. The metal arm of the CU S400 adds a bit of style to an accessory that is traditionally pretty dull.

Metal arm enhances appearance

Removing your phone looks like it would be quite tricky, but it’s not – just pull the phone forwards and it will come out of the holder. You don’t need to worry about damaging the charging connector on as it’s on a flexible base that moves with the phone. The charger that’s included is the standard HTC CC C200 Car Charger, and is in two parts, a USB charger and Micro USB charging cable. Oddly, the cable has it’s own suction holder attached to it and I’ve not managed to figure out what it’s for.

In The Box

No surprises here really, included with the Car Upgrade Kit is the CU-S400 Holder, CC C200 Car Charger and a self adhesive disk for those of you who want to attach it to your dashboard rather than your windscreen.

Why Buy

The CU-S400 is by far the smartest looking car holder available for the HTC HD2, It’s a compact design that holds the oversized HD2 well and the fact that you don’t have to fiddle around connecting the charger every time you dock your phone makes it even better.

We Like: Perfect fit to the phone and it looks great

We Don’t like: Hefty price tag may put people off

My Rating: 8/10

A guide to choosing the best Screen Protector

Screen protectors are fast becoming one of the most popular accessories for mobile phones – mainly because of the number of handsets with large, high quality displays. A screen protector will stop your screen from getting scratched or damaged and will help keep your handset looking like new.

There are a number of different options available to protect your screen, from a simple MFX screen protector, to privacy screen protectors right through to the top quality Martin Fields Screen Protectors. On paper they all seem to do the same job, but there are subtle differences between them so I’ve put this post together to highlight the key differences between them and make choosing the best screen protector for your phone simple and straight forward.

For this test, I’ve used the same image displayed on an iPhone with the screen brightness set to maximum I’ve then applied a screen protector to half of the screen and taken a photo. The photos have not been edited in anyway other than cropping and no filters have been applied – what you see below is as close to the real thing as possible. You might notice a few air bubbles in the photos, these will normally disappear after a day or two so don’t pay too much attention to these. The first image here shows how the picture is displayed on the phone with no screen protector fitted.

Test Image with no Screen Protector

Martin Fields Screen Protector:

Martin Fields Screen Protectors are without doubt the best quality screen protector you can get. They’re crystal clear and will make your phone look like new. They don’t reduce the clarity of your screen and colours look exactly the way they’re supposed to. If your screen protector gets dirty, they can be removed easily from the phone, cleaned and refitted.

Martin Fields are exceptionally clear

MFX Screen Protector:

The MFX screen protectors are available for most phones currently on the market and are quick and easy to fit. As you can see from the image below, there is little to no distortion of the images and colours appear as they should. MFX Screen Protectors will work with both touch screen handsets and standard phones and are precision cut to size. If you’ve got a lot of devices that you want to protect, a 12 in 1 Universal Screen Protector Pack is also available. This includes 12 screen protectors of varying sizes that can be cut to fit devices such as cameras, sat nav units, phones & games consoles.

MFX Screen Protector

MFX Mirrored Screen Protector:

Mirrored Screen protectors have two purposes, first and foremost they protect your screen from getting scratched and secondly they can turn your phone into a mirror. Just like the MFX ones, these are precision cut to the size of your phone and are extremely easy to fit. When your phone is in use and the screen is lit up you can see the phone normally. When it’s not in use the reflective coating on the screen protector turns your screen into a mirror.

Makes the screen of your phone reflective

The only slight downside is that they do alter the colours on your phone’s screen slightly. You can still see clearly enough for calling, texting and emailing, but they can make looking at photos and videos more difficult and as a result, these type of screen protectors are probably suited to non touchscreen handsets or those of you that use your phone more for texting and calling. They do attract finger prints quite easily too, so a Mobile Phone cleaning cloth is a must have item if you use a mirrored screen protector.

MFX Mirrored Screen Protector

MFX Privacy Screen Protector:

The last ones in the MFX family are the Privacy screen protectors. These are a great way of making sure that no one else is looking at what’s on your phone or reading your emails over your shoulder. They’re quite a bit thicker than a standard screen protector and provide extra protection against knocks and scrapes, but more importantly are made so that you can only see through them from certain angles.

Try to view the phone from the side and you won't see anything

Once fitted to your phone you’ll only be able to see the screen of your phone when you’re looking straight at it. If you try and see the screen from the side you’ll just see a black plastic sheet. Although they have a dark tint to them, you shouldn’t have any problems looking at photos or playing videos on your phone. If you find that it darkens the screen too much, just increase the brightness settings on your phone. The Privacy Screen Protectors are precision cut to size and available for most of the latest handsets, as they’re a bit thicker removing air bubbles.

MFX Privacy Screen Protector

The Privacy Screen protectors will work fine with Resistive touch screen handsets, but aren’t currently available for capacative touch screens such as the iPhone, HTC Hero or LG Arena.

InvisibleShield Screen Protector:

The last of the screen protectors then is the InvisibleSHIELD. Technically, this isn’t a screen protector as InvisibleSHIELDs normally cover your whole phone, not just the screen. They’re also made completely differently to the rest – rather than being a solid plastic sheet that sits on your screen, these are made from a soft flexible plastic film that sticks to your handset using a liquid spray adhesive. You spray the invisibleshield with the liquid and then place it on your phone. It dries in seconds and when you remove it from your phone it leaves no residue behind. Of all of the screen protectors here, these are probably the most secure fit to your phone and there is no chance of you catching a corner and it coming off. The downside though is that they do require a little more time and patience to fit, but the end result is well worth it.

InvisibleSHIELD Screen Protection

On my test, the screen image didn’t come out too great, but I’ve had one on my phone for over 12 months and honestly can say that the screen is clear and images aren’t distorted, although they do tend to attract smudges and require wiping clean now and again.

Summary:

If you’re looking purely to protect your screen, then you won’t go wrong with either a Martin Fields Screen Protector or an InvisibleSHIELD. There’s not much between them, although the faster fitting time will probably make the Martin Fields a better option. Of all of them, I’ve scored the Mirrored one the lowest, but that’s mainly down to how much it changes colours on the screen. In terms of fitting and protection it scores the same as the other MFX Screen Protectors.

My Ratings:

Martin Fields – 10/10
MFX Screen Protector – 9/10
InvisibleShield - 9/10
MFX Privacy – 8/10
MFX Mirrored – 7/10

Nokia Speakerphone HF-310 Review

Nokia have always produced fantastic fitted car kits but their plug & play car kits have been good, but not really anything to shout about. The Nokia HF-310 and Nokia HF-510 have just been announced as replacements for the HF-200 and HF-300, but are they any better? What have they got that makes them different to the ones they’re replacing? I wasn’t too sure either, as at first glance a bluetooth car kit is just a bluetooth car kit, right?

I grabbed a Nokia HF-310 and tried it out to see how the new Nokia car kit shapes up.

In the Box

With most ‘plug and play’ Bluetooth car kits, you normally get the loud speaker, visor clip and a charger of some description, you get the same with the Nokia HF-310, but you also get a couple of extra items – a windscreen suction holder and a suction pad that you can use anywhere in the car. The HF-310 uses the same Nokia DC-4 that most of the current Nokia handsets use, so you won’t need to buy a seperate charger for your phone.

Nokia HF-310 Box Contents

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Hands on with the Jabra Halo Bluetooth Headphones

Stereo Bluetooth Headsets come in all shapes and sizes, from the incredibly tiny Sony Ericsson IS-800 to the rather large Nokia BH-604 – and most of them still involve cables, which to some extent takes away the point of having a Stereo Bluetooth headset in the first place.

Jabra have always made great Bluetooth headsets, but until recently their only Stereo Bluetooth Headset was the Jabra BT3030 – a great handsfree/headphone solution that hangs around your neck and allows you to connect any standard 3.5mm headphones to it. The ‘Dogtag’ style control unit gives you full control over your music playback and volume, but it’s unique styling might not appeal to everyone.

Earlier this month, Jabra released the Halo – a pair of stylish compact bluetooth headphones that are completely free of wires and have dual microphones to reduce background noise during calls. The Jabra Halo supports streaming music in stereo, playback controls (A2DP & AVRCP) and volume control. All sounds great on paper, so I decided to get a pair out and try them.

Jabra Halo

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A Guide to Nokia Car Kits

If you were to think of a fully fitted car kit, chances are two brands will spring to mind – Nokia or Parrot. Both of these companies make some great kits, Parrot have their awesome MKi range that you can connect your phone and music player to and Nokia have just recently updated their car kit line up to add more focus on music & mapping integration and to make installation quicker and easier.

I think I’m right in saying that the most popular Nokia Car Kit ever was the CARK-91 – the one that had a cradle for the old Nokia 6110/ 6210/ 6310. Since Bluetooth arrived on the scene a few years ago, car kits have moved away from having bulky cradles that are screwed to your dashboard, to more discreet remote controls that blend into your dashboard and don’t draw attention.

The Classic Nokia Carkit & Nokia 6210

When it comes to car kits, the question I’m asked the most is “Can I just change the cradle?” The answer unfortunately is no. If you’ve already got an older Nokia Car Kit installed in your car and are looking to upgrade it to work with current Nokia handsets, unless your car kit is a bluetooth one, it’s not upgradable and you’ll need to replace the whole kit. Even the microphone.

While this might sound like it’s going to be expensive, fitted car kit prices have come down in price considerably over the past few years, so replacing your kit might not cost as much as you’d think – not only that, but Nokia have changed the way that the kits connect to your vehicle, so depending on the car and stereo that you’ve got, you might be able to install it yourself. Now before you get too excited, Installing a car kit yourself isn’t that easy – even with the newer ISO Car Kits. You will still need to remove some fascia panels from your car or dashboard, remove the stereo and possible connect wires to the car power supply. I tried to install my own, got 90% of the way there and had to give in and call the professionals, so if you want an easy life (and a car that still starts) get it installed professionally. Shop around for installation though, realistically you shouldn’t need to pay much more than 50 for a standard installation and you’ll probably find that small, independent companies will be able to fit it to the same standard, but for half the price. I had my Parrot MKi9000 installed by www.myvehicle.co.uk at their workshop for about 45.

On to the Car Kits then. Nokia now offer 3 car kits, the Nokia CK-100, CK-300 and CK-600. Each one offers different levels of integration with your phone, and as the model names suggest, the higher the number the more features you get. All three have now dropped the external speaker and will now route all calls and music through your Car Stereo as standard.

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