Parrot Unika integrates your Parrot MKi Car Kit with your Steering Wheel Controls

As standard the MKi car kits include a wireless remote control that will let you answer and end calls, activate voice dialling, control music playback and adjust the volume of calls and music which is great, but finding somewhere to mount the remote in car can be a little bit tricky.

Parrot Remote can be mounted on steering wheel

The MKi Car kits come with a couple of mounting options for the remote control – an adjustable strap that lets you attach it to your steering wheel or an adhesive plate that you can stick to the dash of your car. Both of these mounting options are good, but you can’t beat the stereo controls built into the steering wheel of your car. I’ve had the MKi9000 in my car for about a year now and I still try to adjust the volume with the stereo controls instead of the Parrot Remote.

Since the launch of the MKi series last year, the technical team at Parrot have been working hard to fully integrate the kits into cars and have just released the Unika – an additional control box that allows you to connect the Mki & RKi Car Kits to the stereo controls on your steering wheel, completely eliminating the need to use the remote control.

The Unika can be fitted to most vehicles, and if you’ve already got an MKi car kit fitted you can retro-fit one to your car without too much hassle. If you’re technically minded you should be able to fit it yourself, although you will probably need to remove some parts of your dashboard, I’ve just changed my car and didn’t fancy pulling it apart, so I got AutoTec to fit mine for me. The cost for the Mki9000 car kit, Parrot Adapter Cable, Parrot Unika and fitting worked out at £279. The kit and accessories on their own add up to about £210, so fitting was only about 70 quid which I think is more than reasonable.

Unika is compatible with Vauxhall, BMW, Ford & Honda Steering Wheel controls

Once installed, the Unika will use the the buttons on your steering wheel to control the kit instead of the remote control. The buttons that you use for each function will vary depending on your vehicle, and you don’t need to have any phone buttons on the steering wheel as the Unika will ‘re-map’ the functions of the steering wheel controls when connected to your phone or iPod. When you’re phones’ not connected you’ll be able to use the controls to operate your radio or CD player as normal.

You can check to see if your car is compatible and find out which buttons perform which function in your car on the Parrot Unika Support Site.

At the time of writing this post, these were the prices for the kit and accessories:

• Parrot Unika- £89.99
• Parrot MKi9000 – £89.99
• Parrot MKi9100 – £122.35
• Parrot MKi9200 – £159.95
• Parrot Accessory Harness ~ £30 (varies depending on car)

I’ve had mine in for a couple of days now, and I’m still getting familiar with the controls, so I’ll update this post in a couple of days time to give you an idea on how well it works.

Related posts:

1. Syncing your iPhone contacts to your Car Kit
2. Software Updates – Parrot
3. Top 10 HTC Hero Accessories

Of all of the accessories available, Bluetooth Car Kits are the most logical accessory to make use of solar power – after all, they do spend most of their time either on your dashboard or sun visor.

Clip and Talk Bluetooth Car Kit - Solar Edition

Until recently there were only a couple of Solar Powered Bluetooth car kits available – the LG HFB-500 and the Drive Solar Pro. The latest car kit to join the range is the Clip & Talk Solar Edition. The Clip and Talk range has always been a popular kit that offers great value for money. Mobile Fun recently asked me to write a review for them so I thought I’d put the latest addition to the Clip and Talk family to the test to see how it performs.

Clip & Talk Solar Edition:

The first thing that you notice with the Solar Edition is that it’s tiny – it’s almost half the size of the standard Clip & Talk Car Kit. The front of the kit houses the 2 watt speaker, answer/end button and the volume controls. The back of it is the solar panel for charging the device. On the left side of the kit is the mute button, and on the other side is the micro USB charging port.

Clip & Talk Solar Edition Vs Clip & Talk

Most plug and play car kits are designed to be mounted on your sunvisor, but as the solar edition needs sunlight in order to charge, it comes with a suction holder to mount it to your windscreen. Also included with the kit is a USB Charging cable, Car charger adapter and 2 spare suction pads.

Clip and Talk Solar Edition Box contents

Setting the car kit up was really simple, just slide it into the suction hold and stick it to your windscreen. Job done. I decided to charge mine initially using the USB charger, this took about an hour and a half. Once it was charged, I was ready to go and I probably wouldn’t need the car charger again as the kit charges all the time that it’s in sunlight.

Pairing the Kit:

Before I could start using the kit I had to pair it to my phone. To do this I had to put the kit into pairing mode by turning the kit off and then pressing and holding the answer button for about 10 seconds until the lights flashed red and blue. To pair my phone all I had to do then was perform a quick search for nearby Bluetooth devices. Once I’d selected the Solar Kit I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn’t need to enter a PIN/Passkey as my phone simply asked if I wanted to pair with the Kit. This seems to be phone dependent as some phones I tried this with were still prompted for a PIN/Passkey.

Pairing with your phone is quick and easy

As the kit is a multipoint car kit (read our guide on “What is Multipoint?“) I wanted to test it out with two phones and in order to do this I needed to pair it to another phone. Putting the kit back into pairing mode is pretty simple, I just had to repeat the steps mentioned earlier.

Multipoint:

When a call comes through to either of the handsets, the kit should automatically connect to the phone that’s ringing and route it through the speaker.

When I first tried to make a call to one of the two connected phones (an iPhone and a Nokia 6300), I was surprised to find that the phone I was calling didn’t connect to the kit – a quick flick through the user manual soon offered a way to fix this – by default multipoint support is turned off.

I’m not really sure why Clip & Talk decided to disable it by default, but I needed to turn it on before I could use two phones with the kit. To turn it on just press and hold the + button for about 3 seconds. Once that’s done the Clip and Talk Solar kit automatically connects with the last two phones that it connected to, providing that the phones are in range.

Once I’d enabled Multipoint I found that the kit worked perfectly every time. If you need to use two phones in the car this saves a lot of messing around and once you’ve got used to it you’ll never want to go back to a non multipoint car kit.

Multipoint also worked brilliantly for outgoing calls, it didn’t matter which handset I made a call from, as soon as the kit detected a call was in progess, the audio was routed through the loud speaker.

Audio Quality:

The Clip & Talk Solar edition has a 2 watt speaker, which on paper doesn’t sound very much, but it’s plenty powerful for use in the car. I was able to hear callers with no problem at all while driving around town and on dual carriageways at speeds of up to 50mph. On motorways there is obviously more road and wind noise which makes hearing anything more difficult, having said that I was still able to hear the caller (with volume on full) at 70mph on the M6.

One thing I did notice during my road test was that it didn’t cut out – some Bluetooth devices that I’ve used in the past sometimes cut out for a fraction of a second, usually at a crucial point in a conversation, causing you to miss a punchline, phone number or other important information. I made a number of calls from both the iPhone and the 6300 as well as receiving calls on both, and didn’t experience any drop outs.

Easy to use controls on the Clip & Talk Solar Edition

Ease of Use:

There’s nothing I hate more than a gadget with far more buttons than it needs, so when I saw that there are only 4 buttons on the Clip & Talk Solar Edition I was pleasantly surprised – having said that, most buttons have more than one function, so you’ll probably want to keep the user guide close to hand in case you forget which button does what.

On the front of the kit is the Answer/End button, volume up and volume down. The only other button is the mute button located on the left hand side.

The answer/end key has several functions – it’s used to turn the device on and off, put the kit into pairing mode, activate voice dialling and redial the last number called.

Using the kit to activate last number redial or voice dialling is pretty straight forward – especially if you’re only using one phone with it, but if like me you’re using two handsets there is a little bit more to it.

The kit won’t know which phone you want to make the call from if you just had one button for activating these features, so to make it a little clearer, one press of the answer/end key will activate voice dial and two presses will dial the last number called for the first handset connected to the kit. Similarly one press of the volume up button activates voice dialling and two presses will dial the last number called for the second handset connected. This of course makes it a lot easier to make sure you’re dialling the right number on the right phone – as long as you know which handset connected first. To be honest though, this didn’t cause me any problems as they’re not features that I really use in the car as I’ve never found voice dialling to be that accurate.

Summary:

I’m extremely impressed and a little bit surprised by this kit to be honest. Considering it’s price I wasn’t really expecting great things, but given that it’s multipoint, it doesn’t need charging and it’s compact size I would happily choose this kit over the more expensive Nokia HF-310 and Parrot MiniKit Slim Bluetooth Car Kits.

There are Bluetooth Car Kits (such as the standard Clip & Talk Bluetooth Car Kit) that have a few more features such as Phonebook sync, Text to Speech, caller display and FM transmitters, but you’ll pay around twice as much for them, so if you want a Plug and Play Bluetooth Car Kit that’s simple to use, works with two phones at the same time and doesn’t cost the earth – literally – then you can’t go wrong with the Clip & Talk Bluetooth Car Kit Solar Edition.

My rating: 9/10

Related posts:

1. Choosing the right Bluetooth Headset
2. Samsung SBH-650 Stereo Bluetooth Headset Review
3. Hands on Review of the Jabra SP700 Bluetooth Speakerphone

Pop-Up Message

With so many iPhone accessories available , compatibility issues are bound to crop up from time to time. We carefully check every iPhone accessory that we sell to make sure that they work with the phone, but an warning message that is sometimes displayed on the handset when some accessories are connected can cause some confusion about whether the accessory will work or not.

If you see the warning message “This accessory is not made to work with iPhone” don’t panic. It doesn’t mean that your accessory won’t work, it just means that you might experience some interference if your phone connects to the internet, a call is made or a text message sent.

The reason that you see this message (normally when you connect to Speakers, Car Kits and other music devices) is that by default, the iPhone will enter ‘Accessory Mode’ when connected by the Dock Connector. This would then lock out all controls on the iPhone as it thinks that commands for music playback will come from the connected accessory.

As not all accessories have music controls, this would cause a problem, so to get round this potential problem accessory manufacturers have the option to tell the iPhone not to enter Accessory Mode but instead display the warning message.

If you see this message when you connect your accessory to your iPhone you will be given the choice to switch to ‘Airplane Mode’. When you see the warning message, you’ve got 3 options:

1. Press ‘YES‘ – This will then put the phone into Airplane Mode. This will temporarily disable telephone and internet capabilities while you’re connected to the accessory. As soon as you disconnect your iPhone from the accessory it will leave Airplane Mode and you’ll be able to make and receive calls again.
2. Press ‘NO‘ – You’ll be able to access all functions on your phone and the accessory will work as it’s supposed to. If your phone rings, the music will fade in/out before & after the call. With some accessories you may experience some interference just before you receive a call or text message.
3. Do Nothing – The warning message will disappear after about 30 seconds and your phone will function as if you’d selected ‘NO’

To try and help you get the best accessories for your iPhone Apple introduced a licensing system that makes it easier to see which accessories will work best with the iPhone. To check if an item is licensed by Apple, just look for the ‘Works with iPhone’ Logo.

Certified by Apple

Related posts:

1. Use your iPhone as a Modem
2. Apple iPhone 3G S & iPhone OS 3.0 coming next week
3. The Best Stereo Bluetooth Headsets for iPhone are…

Although Bluetooth is a pretty generic technology, there are a number of different bluetooth profiles and each bluetooth device uses different ones. The two that are needed to synchronise your contacts between your car kit and your phone are either PBAP – Phone Book Access Profile or OPP – Object Push Profile, but in order for it to sync, both the phone and the car kit need to support the same profile.

• OPP – Object Push Profile - This is an older Bluetooth Profile, so should be supported by most phones and car kits that support contact sync. If the car kit supports the OPP profile then it is capable of receiving information that is sent or ‘pushed’ to it. In order to send your contacts to a car kit that uses OPP you will need to initiate the transfer of your contacts from your phone, either one by one or all at once. The only downside to this is that not all phones support sending your entire phonebook in one go.
• PBAP – Phone Book Access Profile - This profile is one of the more recent Bluetooth Profiles, so not all phones or car kits support it. The advantage of the PBAP profile is that you don’t need to send your contacts to the car kit, the car kit will retrieve them from your phone automatically every time you connect.

Bluetooth support is limited on the iPhone and although it’s improving, it still doesn’t support all Bluetooth profiles – in particular the OPP profile. There is no way of sending any information from an iPhone over Bluetooth. This means that if you have a Bluetooth Car Kit that only supports OPP, you’ll only be able to use the car kit for calls, although features such as last number redial should still work fine. The iPhone does support the PBAP profile though – in fact it supports it brilliantly, so if you want to be able to sync your contacts make sure that the car kit you buy supports the PBAP profile, it should be listed in the technical spec of the user manual.

I’ve got the Parrot MKi9000 installed in my car and every time the car is started and my iPhone 3G connects, the kit checks my phone for any changes and and updates itself. Like I said before, the iPhone supports PBAP brilliantly, and when paired with a compatible car kit it gives you control over the information that is synchronised with the kit. You can chose which groups of contacts to sync – if any, as well as recent calls and favourites.

iPhone Car Kit Sync Options - iPhone OS 3.1

From personal experience I’ve found that the best car kits for syncing your contacts are those made by Parrot. As well as supporting the iPhone fully, they also feature Text to Speech technology that announces the callers name when you receive a call and some will allow you to use voice dialling – even on the iPhone. It does this by matching the wave print of what you say against the Text to Speech wave prints for the contacts stored in the car kit. Most voice dialling kits require you to train your voice to them or to record your own voice tags for the contacts, and this normally doesn’t work too well. The current Parrot car kits that do all this are listed below. If you want more information on any of the kits, just click on the image or read my post on Parrot Car Kits.

Parrot MKi9200 Fully Fitted Bluetooth Car Kit

Parrot MKi9100 Fully Fitted Bluetooth Car Kit

Parrot MKi9000 Fully Fitted Bluetooth Car Kit

Parrot MK6000 Fully Fitted Bluetooth Car Kit

Parrot Minikit Slim Portable Bluetooth Car Kit

Parrot Minikit Chic Portable Bluetooth Car Kit

Related posts:

1. How to fully integrate your Parrot car kit into your car
2. Create free iPhone Ringtones using iTunes
3. Use your iPhone as a Modem

iTunes 9
Loads of changes and improvements to iTunes, mostly good, but a couple of things that were better the way they were before. Onto the changes then – first the good ones.

Home Sharing – this for me is the best new feature by a mile. It allows you to share your music with up to 5 other computers on the same network (wired or wireless) by simply dragging and dropping the music from the shared playlist into your own music library. This is great as it means that you only need to buy an album once and you can legally share it with the rest of your household in seconds – in fact iTunes will look for new content on other computers on the network and copy it to the other computers for you automatically. What’s more, if you’re an iPhone user you can share downloaded Apps too – meaning that the £60 price tag for TomTom just got a whole lot more appealing now that you can use it on up to 5 devices.

The new-look iTunes Store

Music Albums & Films on iTunes have been given a refresh too, with a new range of iTunes LP’s and iTunes Extras now being made available to encourage you to buy the whole album rather than just a couple of songs. The idea behind it is that when you buy an album or a movie, you’ll have access to a range of special features similar to those that you’dnormally get when buying a DVD (or an enhanced CD with multimedia content that was popular in the late 90’s early 00’s). It gives you access to song lyrics, cast/artist interviews, extra videos and loads of other content not normally available. For me, this is a bit of a take it or leave it feature – if I’m listening to music, I’m normally working in other applications or surfing the web, so can’t really see as this will appeal to everyone, but if you’re an avid fan of an artist and have to have every bit of information you can then you’ll probably love this.

The iTunes store has been given a complete overhaul and I think it’s now much more user friendly. There’s a full screen option that you can set in preferences and when activated, the sidebar is hidden when you launch the store. Navigating has been made much easier as there is now a bar across the top of the screen with drop down menu’s to the most popular categories of music, film, TV and podcasts etc. To preview a song you no longer need to click through to an album page, instead you can click on a thumbnail of the album to show a summary page that will give you a full track listing, the option to preview or buy songs as well as add them to your wishlist or post them to your Facebook or Twitter page.

Genius playlists were introduced this time last year with iTunes 8.0 and it allowed you to find other music that you’d like based on the contents of your music library. It also allowed you to create a playlist of upto 25 songs on your iPhone or 100 songs in iTunes that go well together. Genius Mixes takes this a step further and creates 12 different mixes of your songs. It’s a bit hard to explain as it doesn’t really sound that different to Genius playlists, but rather than you specifying a track to base the Genius Mix on, it uses data from Apple to group songs together based on the genre and artist. These mixes can then be synced to your iPod or iPhone and unlike playlists, they aren’t limited to a certain number of songs. Genius Mixes will take a bit of getting used to, but once you’ve got the hang of them and as long as you like listening to music in a random order, you’ll find yourself listening to your mixes all the time.

iTunes now creates 12 Genius Mixes based on your favourite music

Overall I think the new iTunes is great, Home Sharing on it’s own makes the upgrade worth having, but I’m not so sure on the most noticeable change – the white background. It makes it feel a bit cheap and empty, having said that, It’s starting to grow on me and isn’t as depressing as the old black/grey one. I know it’s getting a lot of attention in the Apple Forums, so it’ll be interesting to see if Apple make any changes to it in the 9.1 update which almost certainly won’t be far away.

iPhone 3.1
At first glance, not much has changed with iPhone 3.1 – most of the changes seem to be there to incorporate the new features added to iTunes and the two go very much hand in hand. One thing that did jump out at me is that the cost of upgrading the iPod touch has dropped from £5.99 to £2.99 so there’s really no excuse not to do it now – £6 was cheap, £3 is a bargain – especially when you consider how many new features you get with 3.0.

The App Store on the phone now supports the Genius feature from iTunes, so now when you launch the App store you’ll see a ‘Genius’ button on the featured tab of the App store. I use Genius quite a lot in iTunes and on my phone, and given the growing number of apps in the App store, this is definitely a welcome addition as browsing the Apps can be a bit overwhelming.

The only other real change that I’ve spotted on the phone is to do with the Genius Mixes that you can create in iTunes – you’ve got an option to play them on your phone – just launch iPod, press more and you’ll see the option to play them.

Manage the Apps on your phone through iTunes

The final thing worth mentioning is that if your phone or iPod touch is running 3.1 and you’re using iTunes 9, you can now arrange the icons on your homescreen in iTunes and then sync them over to your device. Not a ground breaking addition, but it’s something a lot of people have been asking for.

iPods
As well as the software updates, the whole iPod line up is getting a refresh with the biggest changes coming to the iPod nano.

The new 5th generation iPod nano is the same size as it’s predecessor, but it has a larger 2.2″ screen, a video camera and surprisingly a an FM radio. The camera isn’t capable of capturing still images, but it does record video in the h.264 format at 640 x 480 pixels. The nano now has a microphone and speaker which allows you to add sound to your videos. Any videos you create can be uploaded to youtube or facebook. Is video needed in the nano?  Probably not,  but I’m guessing the makers of the Flip video camera’s aren’t too impressed!

iPod shuffle gets new colours and is available in 2GB or 4GB sizes, with the older 2nd generation shuffle finally being phased out. A stainless steel version is also available exclusively from Apple and iis by far the best looking shuffle I’ve seen. It’s amazing just how much the shuffle has changed since the original white plastic USB one.

New iPod nano and iPod shuffle

The iPod touch gets the same processor speed increase that the iPhone 3G had when it became the 3GS as well as a memory increase from 32GB to 64GB. Rumours of a camera being added turned out to be just that as there were no other changes annouced for the iPod touch.

iPod classic – rumoured to be dropped, but instead sees an increase in capacity. It now has a 160 GB hard drive, up from 120GB on the previous model. Strange choice by Apple, as this time last year they discontinued an 80GB and 160GB model to make way for the 120GB. Why they didn’t just kill the 80GB and leave the 160GB version I don’t know.

Related posts:

1. New iPod Touch on its way?
2. Apple iPhone 3G S & iPhone OS 3.0 coming next week
3. Which iPod have I got?

Android Market

I’ve been playing with the HTC Hero & Android Marketplace for a few days now and have been trying out some of their most popular apps. As my phone is an iPhone, there are a few comparisons to the iPhone in here but these are my favourites Android Apps so far.

Ringdroid
One of the biggest criticisms of the iPhone is the inability to set one of your MP3 files as your ringtone. While there are ways around this (see my post on free ringtones using iTunes) it’s a basic feature that is available on almost every other phone. Android users can set MP3’s as ringtones easily enough, but what if you don’t want the first 30 seconds of a phone? That’s where ringdroid comes in – it allows you to select an MP3 from your phone or memory card and edit it so that your ringtones starts and ends exactly where you want it to. While we’re talking about MP3 files, if you have all your music in iTunes and want to sync it with your Android phone, there are a couple of easy ways to do this – this post explains how: Transfer Music to your Android Phone from iTunes.

Ringdroid for Android

Movies
I’ve been using Movies on my iPhone for about a year now and it’s definitely one of the best movie apps available, so when I saw it available for Android it’s gone straight into my top ten. Movies allows you to search for nearby cinemas using your GPS location, search by film, see upcoming films & trailers and share ratings with your friends on Facebook. It provides contact details for all cinemas, but lacks the ability to book your tickets through the app – hopefully this is on it’s way.

Movies for Android

beebplayer
iPlayer is the most popular on-demand video player in the UK and if you really can’t wait until you get home to catch up on Eastenders you can now get the iPlayer on your Android phone. The BBC website doesn’t provide native support like it does for iPhone so you’ll need to use a third party app and beebplayer is one of the best out there. Beebplayer provides support for two stream qualities – one for Wi-Fi and one for 3G. It can, in theory, play live streams of both TV and radio, as well as the catch-up programmes iPlayer is famous for. It can be a little temperamental and buggy, but this will only improve over time. Beebplayer is only available to download through Android Market on your device, and offically only supported on Vodafone & 3. Other networks should work, but you could experience some problems.

Beebplayer for Android

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. You can also see reviews of the product and set the app to alert you when the price of the item falls below a set limit. This is a great app that is currently only available on Android.

Shopsavvy for Android

Twidroid
Personally, I’m not a huge Twitter fan, but this app comes highly rated by colleagues here at Mobile Fun. The Android Market has more Twitter apps than you can shake a stick at, but Twidroid stood out as one of the best – especially as it’s a free App. As with most Twitter clients you can easily @reply to people and send direct messages. A full set of options is available if you press and hold on a specific message. You can also easily send links from the feed to the phone’s browser, and the software has no trouble dealing with more than one link at a time. If you are a twitter fan you may find that you get addicted to this app.

Twidroid for Android

Layar
Augmented Reality is the supposed to be the next big thing to hit Smartphones although I think we’re some time away from it being life changing, having said that Layar really takes a step in the right direction. If you’ve not come across augmented reality before it’s where the ‘real world’ and internet based information services come together. Your phone uses its GPS and compass to determine where you are and which way you’re facing and then uses the camera to show your surroundings on screen. Augmented reality applications such as Layar then display information on top of what you’re look at – hence the name. These ‘layers’ of information can be turned on or off and there are layers available to show you information such as nearest cashpoints, train stations hotels – even which of your friends are nearby. As you move the camera around this information updates in real time, with Icons on screen indicating where things are. To find out more information about a hotel for example, just press it’s icon and you’ll be presented with information such as address, phone number, website, reviews etc. It’s still in its early stages and coverage is a little limited, but over the next 12 months Augmented reality is set to really take off.

Layar for Android

Meebo IM
Meebo is an Instant messaging application that allows you to communicate with your friends regardless of the messaging program that they’re using. Meebo can connect to AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk/Jabber, MSN, ICQ, Facebook Chat & MySpace IM using just one log in.

Meebo for Android

locale
This is the clever kind of app that I love. It uses your location to adjust settings on your phone. It might seem a little confusing at first, but you can program your phone to perform certain functions when you get to predefined locations. For example – You can set the phone to remind you to charge your battery when you walk through your front door or you can set it to switch to silent mode as soon as you arrive at the cinema. Recent updates to the app allow it to post messages to twitter when you get to work or sms relatives when you’ve arrived home. The list is endless and you can configure it to do exactly what you want.

Locale for Android

shazam
This is one of those apps that really makes you wonder how they do it. Shazam has been around for a few years now, but instead of paying premium rates for dialling 2580 on your mobile, you now have a free of charge app that can tag songs for you. If you’ve not come across Shazam before, it’s a music tagging system. If you hear a song that you like but don’t know what it is, launch the app, press ‘tag now’ and hold the phone towards the speaker. Within seconds you’ll get information on the song, including Name, Artist, Album, Year of release, Amazon MP3 Store link, Artist MySpace Page and YouTube Video Links. It’s amazingly fast and surprisingly accurate.

Shazam for Android

Appmanager
Imagine you’ve spent forever and a day installing the best apps possible on your Android phone. What happens when you switch phones, or your handset breaks and you have to get a replacement? Apple have this covered as your Apps are backed up to iTunes everytime you sync, so how do you deal with this if you’re using an Android phone? Simple – use AppManager. It allows you to back up all your apps to the Micro SD card in your phone. If you need to switch phones, you can simply move the memory card and restore all your apps once you’ve reinstalled Appmanager. Appmanager is a free download from the Android Market on your device.

Appmanager for Android

These are just my top 10, there might be other apps out there that are even better than these and I’ve just not found them yet, so if you’re using an app that you think should be in the top ten leave a link below!

Related posts:

1. Top 10 Apps for Nokia Symbian S60 phones

It’s taken a while, but I’ve managed to track down 10 cases for the HTC Hero, so with more cases available and after hearing feedback on some of the cases I’ve put this list with cases that are made specifically for the HTC Hero. I’ll still keep my eyes open for any other cases that come along, and I’ll update this post as and when they become available so you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed or bookmark this post so that you don’t miss out on any new ones that become available.

HTC Hero

Now before I go on to the cases, there is one thing that I’ve noticed on the Hero that I feel I need to warn you about – particularly if you have a white one. The plastic that the housing is made from seems to discolour quite easily, the dye from clothing or some cases may transfer on to the phone, which will require quite a bit of effort to clean off and it means that if your phone isn’t protected, it might end up looking worn quite quickly on the corners and on the back cover.

Normally, I’d recommend an InvisibleSHIELD full body protector to stop this kind of discolouring of the case, but if you try to remove an InvisibleShield from the phone, it will peel the paint off too, so for that reason avoid InvisibleShield for the HTC Hero.

Noreve Tradition A Leather Case for HTC Hero

Noreve are a designer case that to be honest I’ve never heard of. They produce premium leather cases that give Piel Frama and PDair a run for their money. This case for the Hero fits the phone so well it’s surprising. When I first saw the ‘chin’ on the Hero I didn’t think that this style of case would work, but Noreve have proved me wrong. The case is the same shape as the phone and moulds around it beautifully. The whole case is hand crafted from top quality leather and leaves your camera, charging ports and volume keys accessible. The case has a detachable ratchet clip that locks eery 15 or so degrees on the back that can be removed easily to leave the back of the case perfectly flat.

Noreve Leather Flip Case for HTC Hero

FlexiShield Skin for the HTC Hero

As I’ve already mentioned, the back cover on the HTC Her0 will start to discolour and scratch quickly if it’s not looked after, especially if you’ve got the white one. FlexiShield Skins for the HTC Hero are thicker and tougher than standard Silicone Cases and will certainly give your Hero more bounce if you drop it! It has a non slip feel to it and covers all of the back of the handset, leaving the camera free for you to take your photos. It doesn’t cover the screen though, so you’ll need to invest in a HTC Hero screen protector if you want to look after your screen. FlexiShield Skins are available in Black and Clear.

FlexiShield Skin for the HTC Hero

Leather Flip Case for HTC Hero

One of our most popular types of case for any phone is a Leather Flip case. They allow you to access your phone quickly when you need it, while keeping it safe from knocks and scrapes. The Flip case leaves your screen, keys and trackball fully accessible. There is a removable belt clip on the back and the flip is held in place with a magnetic fastening. The Leather Flip Case for the HTC Hero is available in Black or White.

Leather Flip Case for the HTC Hero

Krusell Orbit Flex for HTC Hero

This isn’t available just yet, but will be here very soon. Unlike the C300, the Orbit Flex is made specifically for the HTC Hero, and will be made to accomodate the ‘chin’ better than any of the universal cases. They are a high quality leather flip case, that has a removeable front cover for better access to the touch screen. Orbit Flex cases uses Krusell’s Multidapt system of interchangeable clips that let you choose the best one for your needs and have storage space for memory cards. Both the headphone port and charging port are accessible while your phone is in the case.

Krusell Orbit Flex Leather Case for the HTC Hero

PDair Book Case for HTC Hero

PDair leather cases are a range of elegant, hand stitched leather cases designed to protect and enhance your HTC Hero. Each case is selected from premium leather cuts and is individually designed to give a perfect fit to your phone. PDair cases is shaped to accommodate the chin of the Hero and is made in such a way as it holds your phone securely without covering any of the screen or keypad. PDair cases are great, but they can be extremely difficult to track down so you might have to hunt around to find somewhere that has stock, and if you find it, order it or you could be in for a long wait.

PDair Leather Book Case - HTC Hero

ToughGuard Shell

ToughGuard Shields are a similar to Crystal Cases, but they are much more robust and less likely to crack just from looking at them. Rather than being made from cheap brittle plastic, they are made from a more flexible, energy absorbing polycarbonate. This means that the case is unlikely to break or shatter if you drop your phone and it will divert impact damage away from your HTC Hero. ToughGuard Shields don’t cover the screen, so we’d recommend using a Screen Protector with it. These cases are a secure fit to your phone and are more suited to people who want to put a case on their phone and leave it on permanently.

ToughGuard Shell For HTC Hero

PDair Pouch Case

Another case from PDair. It’s made in exactly the same way, but is a horizontal carry pouch rather than a case that you can leave on your phone permanently. It has cut outs on the bottom edge to make removing your phone easier. Again it’s a great case, but they can be extremely difficult to track down so you might have to hunt for one.

PDair Leather Pouch Case

HTC Hero PO C300

This is a geniune HTC case designed to work with all of their touchscreen handsets so It’s not the best fit in the world for the Hero, but it does accomodate the chin quite well. It has cut outs for your charger and handsfree/headphones, as well as a hole in the bottom to make it easier to push your phone out. It’s made from a high quality leather with grey stitching and a soft suede lining that helps to keep your screen fingerprint free. On the back, the case has a couple of mounting options. The first is a sprung belt clip that allows you to attach it and remove it from your belt quickly and easily, the other is two stitched belt loops that allow you to keep the case on your belt permanently with no chance of it falling off. The lining of this case did discolour my test handset though, so if you have a white one, you might want to think again.

HTC PO C300 Leather Carry Case for the Hero

Carry Pouch for HTC Hero

This case is similar in design to the HTC PO C300, but is designed specifically for the HTC Hero rather than being a universal case. It has a soft lining that will help keep your screen clean and fingerprint free and a stitched in belt loop to eliminate any chances of it falling off your belt.

HTC Hero Carry Pouch - Black

Silicone Case for HTC Hero

Silicone cases provide simple protection against minor knocks and drops and are a pretty cheap way of keeping your phone looking at it’s best. The Silicone Cases for the HTC Hero are moulded around the ‘chin’ and buttons and have a cut out for the trackball. While they aren’t as hard wearing as a FlexiShield Skin they will do a great job of looking after your phone. Silicone Cases for the HTC Hero are available in Black and Ice.

Silicone Case for HTC Hero - Ice

That’s the best of the HTC Hero Cases that are available at the moment that I’ve found, but if any more crop up I’ll add them to this post. If you’ve seen a specific case that works well with the HTC Hero that I’ve not mentioned, let me know using the comments form below.

Related posts:

1. Top 10 HTC Hero Accessories
2. A guide to FlexiShield Skins
3. My Top 10 Cases for the BlackBerry Curve 8900

There’s no doubt that the Hero is going to be an incredibly popular handset this summer, and if you’ve invested in one, you’re going to want to keep it looking at its best and working to it’s full potential. To do that you’re going to need a few accessories, but with so many accessories for the HTC Hero available, choosing the right ones for your phone can be a bit of a minefield.

To help you decide on the accessories that you need, I’ve compiled a list of my top 10 Accessories for the HTC Hero .

1. HTC Hero C300 Leather Carry Case

The Hero is a smart looking phone that needs a smart looking case. The C300 has been designed to fit most HTC smart phones. It has cut outs for your charger and handsfree/headphones, as well as a hole in the bottom to make it easier to push your phone out. It’s made from a high quality leather with grey stitching and a soft suede lining that helps to keep your screen fingerprint free. The front of the case has been toughened to give your screen extra protection against crush and impact damage. On the back, the case has a couple of mounting options. The first is a sprung belt clip that allows you to attach it and remove it from your belt quickly and easily, the other is two stitched belt loops that allow you to keep the case on your belt permanently with no chance of it falling off.

HTC Hero C300 Case

2. HTC Hero C100 Car Charger

As with all touchscreen smart phones, the Hero is a power hungry device so a car charger is a worthwhile investment. The genuine HTC Hero Car charger will work in both 12v and 24v vehicles (Cars, Lorries and Trucks). It has a Mini USB connection so will work with all Mini USB devices.

HTC C100 Car Charger

3. HTC Hero Screen Protectors

The last thing that you’re going to want to do to the 3.2″ touch screen is scratch it. These screen protectors from HTC are a great way to keep your screen looking like new. I’d normally recommend using an InvisibleSHIELD, but when I tried one, it peeled the paint finish off, so I’d avoid them at all costs and stick with a standard Screen Protector.

4. HTC Hero Sync & Charge Stand

Charge or synchronise your HTC Hero simply by placing it on the HTC CR G300 stand. You can plug the desktop cradle into a home stereo system with a line in or AUX connector via the cradle’s 3.5mm line out connection to enjoy high quality music playback. The only slight downside is that to use this stand with the HTC Hero you will need to buy a HTC Hero cradle insert as it’s not included as standard yet.

HTC Hero Desk Stand

5. HTC Hero s210 Car Upgrade Kit

This great value car pack for the HTC Hero includes an adjustable windscreen holder and genuine HTC C100 car charger. The holder allows you to use the phone in both portrait and landscape modes and the charger will stop charging once the battery is full.

HTC Hero Car Pack

6. HTC Hero Battery Bank

The HTC Battery Bank is essentially a portable external battery for the Hero. It has a 2680 mAh battery that has nearly twice as much power as the standard battery in the Hero. It can be charged using a mains charger or USB cable and once charged you can use this to power your Hero when your battery dies or to increase standby and talk times.

HTC Hero Battery Bank

7. HTC Hero 16GB Memory card

One of the slight downfalls of the HTC Hero is it’s limited amount of storage, so withouth doubt, one of the first purchases you will need to make is a memory card. The Hero supports cards of upto 16GB, but unless you planning on storing all of your music and photo’s on it and 16GB card will be more than sufficient. This 16GB memory card can store upto 14000 high quality photos, 3000 songs and 18 hours of video.

HTC Hero 16GB Memory Card

8. HTC Hero M300 Bluetooth Headset

The HTC M300 is based on the Jabra BT8040 Bluetooth Headset. It’s a small and lightweight headset that isn’t short on features. The simple controls allow you to answer & end calls, reject incoming calls, last number redialing, adjust the volume control and mute calls. One of the best features is that this headset is a multipoint bluetooth headset – this allows you to use the headset with two mobile phones at the same time. Read our post on ‘What is Multipoint’ for more information on Multipoint.

HTC Hero H300 Bluetooth Headset

9. Jabra SP700 Bluetooth Car Kit for HTC Hero

The Jabra SP700 is a Bluetooth Car Kit that simply clips to the sun visor of your car and pairs to your HTC Hero using Bluetooth. The SP700 supports the A2DP profile, which means that you can stream your music to it over Bluetooth and listen to it either using the built in speaker or you can stream the music using it’s built in FM Transmitter to your car stereo. The Jabra SP700 will also play your phone calls through your car stereo speakers for improved clarity. The battery life of the SP700 is fantastic with up to 14 hours talk time and 250 hours stand by.

Jabra SP700 for HTC Hero

10. Parrot MKi9000 for HTC Hero

Parrot have always made fantastic car kits and the Mki range are no exception. There are three options available, the MKi9000, Mki9100 and the Mki9200. The main differences between them being the display screen that comes with them. I’ve chosen the MKi9000 as the best one for the HTC Hero as you don’t need an external screen as well as the 3.2″ screen on the phone. You can play music from your phone through the MKi9000 using Bluetooth. The Mki9000 will synchronise with your phone book, and supports voice dialing. There is also a small remote that you can attach to your dash or steering wheel to control your music. Regular software updates that improve compatibility with the Android OS are available free of charge from the Parrot website.

Parrot MKi900 for HTC Hero

This isn’t the full range of accessories, just a selection of the ones that I think do the best job of enhancing your Hero. If you’ve not seen anything here that takes your fancy, Mobile Fun have a whole load more HTC Hero Accessories for you to choose from.

Related posts:

1. The Best Cases for the HTC Hero
2. The best accessories for the Nokia E52 & E55 are…

Nokia 5800 Battery

Turn your phone off
It may sound silly, but how many times do you turn your 5800 off when you go to bed at night? Chances are you’ve not had many phone calls in the middle of the night, so by turning your phone off when you go to bed, and back on again in the morning, you’re saving 8 hours a day of battery life and could extend your battery life by a few days.

Turn off Bluetooth
Bluetooth only needs to be turned on when you need it – by leaving it turned on all day your 5800 is constantly looking for other Bluetooth devices and draining your battery.

Turn off GPRS, 3G & WiFi
If you never use the internet on your Nokia 5800 you won’t notice any difference by turning GPRS and 3G off – other than having to charge your phone less! If you do use Internet on your phone through either 3G or WiFi, turn them on as and when you need them, other wise they’ll be consuming power searching for networks when there is no need.

Adjust the display
Nokia normally set the screen on the 5800 to its brightest setting to make the display seem clearer. This only drains power, so adjust the settings and dim the screen to a level that you can still see, but is no brighter than it needs to be. Change the screen saver settings too, set it to come on sooner – reducing the time the screen is lit up for.

Leave it alone
We’re all guilty of it, we get bored, nervous, need to look busy, so we pick up our phones and start fiddling with them. We’re not doing anything on them, only draining the battery. Put it down and find something else to play with!

Carry a Spare Battery
If you still aren’t getting the battery life you need from your 5800 after trying all the steps above, then it’s probably time to get yourself a spare battery. Keeping a spare, charged battery with you means you can just swap them over when one runs out. For easy charging, I’d recommend getting a separate desktop battery charger too so that you can charge them both at the same time.

Buy an Extended Battery
If you don’t want the hassle of carrying around a second battery and having to switch between them, then you’ll be better off getting an extended battery for your 5800.  They tend to be slightly bigger than a standard battery, and normally come with a replacement back cover for your phone.  The Nokia 5800 2200mAh extended battery holds more than twice the amount of charge of a standard battery and will give you over 5 days of use before you’ll need to recharge it, but it will make your phone considerably larger.

Portable Power
If you don’t want to add any bulk to your phone or keep switching batteries, then your best bet will be to get yourself a portable charger. Nokia do a few portable chargers/power packs that you can charge up at home/work and then use to charge your 5800 while you’re out and about:

Nokia Extra Power Chargers

Nokia DC-1 Power Pack
The DC-1 will let you charge your phone up to 3 times before it runs out of power.  It has 2 power outlets and can charge 2 phones at the same time. It’s larger than the others, so is best for carrying around in a bag rather than your pocket.

Nokia DC-8 Extra Power
The DC-8 is more portable and runs off standard AA batteries which makes it easy to recharge if you’re out and about – just grab some more batteries and off you go.

Nokia DC-11 Extra Power
The DC-11 is similar to the DC-1, but has a Micro USB and 2mm Nokia charger connections and can charge 2 phones at the same time. It’s the same sort of size as the Nokia 5800, so again, it’s probably better to carry it around in a bag rather than your pocket.

Related posts:

1. iPhone 3G & 3GS Battery Problem Solved
2. Nokia Photo Browser now available for 5800
3. Nokia Speakerphone HF-310 Review

Flexishield Skin vs Silicone Case

Although FlexiShield Skins and Silicone Cases are quite similar, there are a number of differences between them. Firstly, FlexiShield Skins are made from a tough, flexible gel, rather than the softer, more flexible Silicone used in Silcone Cases. Both of these skins are very different to Crystal Cases, which normally break when your phone is dropped FlexiShield Skins and Silicone cases will absorb impact without damaging the case or your phone. It’s worth noting here, that crystal cases are designed to break on impact – it’s not a design fault – after all, what would you prefer to break;  a £5 case or your phone?

Both cases are roughly 1mm thick, but each case will deal with damage differently. Silicone cases will  protect your phone against scratches while your phone is in your pocket, minor liquid spills and small distance drops, where as the FlexiShield Skins are tougher and provide better protection to against impact damage.

HTC Hero in a Silicone Case on the left and a FlexiShield Skin on the right

As you will probably notice from the picture above, Silicone Cases cover more than just the back and sides of the phone – most will normally offer some kind of protection for your phone’s keypad, although they can become loose over time and need replacing where as FlexiShield Skins will only protect the back cover, corners and edges of your phone but have a much tighter fit and won’t loosen over time.

If you want to look after the screen on your phone you’ll need to purchase a screen protector separately as neither Silicone Cases or FlexiShield Skins will cover your screen.

Related posts:

1. The Best Cases for the HTC Hero
2. Top 10 iPhone 3GS Cases
3. My Top 10 Cases for the BlackBerry Curve 8900