I've been worried about all those adverts recently about being four times more likely to crash if you drive whilst using a mobile phone.
In a fit of lip service my employer - agents of whom ring me on the road constantly - gave me a wee lead with earphones - alas, too short to reach anywhere useful a phone might rest. So for a while I used a bluetooth earpiece, but the darned thing really hurts my ear. And I really resent driving for miles with it in - only for no one to ring me.
So last week I splashed out - in one of those impulse techbuys we don't tell our wives about - I bought a Belkin Tunebase.
Well the big news is that it works. It lets me play audio from my iPhone and also deals with incoming calls through the car stereo. Although frankly, I wish Audi and Volkswagen had bothered to make an audio jack input for their new cars as standard in 2007 and 2008 - but then I'm harking back to my post about car manufacturers a couple of posts ago. And I still haven't worked out if it routes calls through to me even if I'm just listening to the radio or a cd. I suspect not though.
Still, for days I've been hammering about the six counties listening to some music but mostly talking books and podcasts. And sometimes thinking about the job. The quality is - meh, it's okay. Not stunning. Just okay. And you do have to retune a lot. But no big deal really.
So what's the bad news? Well - Belkin say it holds any shape or model of iPod or iPhone and it does. But it copes badly with the weight of an iPhone, meaning it constantly flops about the place, getting in the way of my gear lever. The flexible arm simple isn't strong enough, although I imagine it laughs in the face of an iPod Nano and spits on the hard drive heaviness of an iPod Classic. The iPhone however, is its nemesis.
It's hopelessly inelegant, and listen up Belkin, for modern gadget technology, that's a really big no-no. And it didn't cost thruppence either (writes a grandson of Ballymena)
Only driving a wee car - in fact each of the last four cars I've driven has been smaller than the last - I find that the cigarette lighter socket tends to be tucked in somewhere these kind of devices won't physically fit in the cars.
ReplyDeleteWonder which manufacturer will be the first to supply two lighter power sockets: one up high, and one down low? I know - you've told me the answer in another post - probably the same one that fits DAB receivers in their cars as standard!
I've also noticed that the Tunebase sounds far better on the radio in a 3 yr old Audi A4 than a 2 yr old VW POlo - clearly proving the Polo's radio is - well, a bit deaf, really.
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