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MOBILE EXTRAS
INTRO
This month’s featured accessories include two
car kits, a personal hands free-kit plus a way to eliminate telephone bugs! No,
not that sort…
MINI PORTABLE HANDS FREE KIT
Most simple hands-free car kits tend to be a
bit of a compromise. The tiny built-in speakers are either not loud enough, or
too shrill. Sometimes the microphones are not sensitive enough, so you have to
shout, or they’re too sensitive, so they pick up unwanted background noise. We
would like to be able to tell you the Mini Portable Hands Free Kit bucks the
trend, but we can’t, though it does have fewer vices than most of its
contemporaries. It’s quite a good deal too; the outfit includes an unusually
versatile car mount, and all for the very reasonable price of just £40.
The speaker and amplifier are built into a
small oval-shaped box with a fused cigarette lighter plug sticking out of one
end. It’s mounted on a pivot, so the curly speaker grille can be angled to face
the driver. Our sample was configured for an Ericsson 338, so it had no volume
control, on some other models there's a thumbwheel set into the side of the
unit. Emerging from the other end of the box there’s a curly lead, attached to
the phone adaptor plug or socket. Immediately in front of the adaptor there’s
the microphone. There’s only one control, a button on the face of the module
switches between hands-free and hand-portable use, so you can pick up the handset
to have a private conversation. The button also doubles up as the status and
charge indicator; a LED inside the button glows red during charging, steady
green when full charge has been reached, and flashing red and green when it’s
used in hand-portable mode.
The handset mounting kit is a most unusual
design. It comprises a metal bracket and a bag of clips that attach to the
phone back or battery pack. The bracket has a slot at one end for the clip. It
can be used in a variety of ways, fixed to the dashboard using screws or
self-adhesive pads, or it can be bent and twisted, in order to attach it to the
car’s ventilator slots.
Sound quality is tinny, but moderately loud.
It might struggle to be heard in really noisy vehicles but it should be
sufficient for most family saloons. A similar sort of balance appears to have
been reached with the microphone, though a lot will depend on where the handset
is mounted. If it’s too far from the driver, road and background noises fight
an unequal battle with the user’s voice and it becomes necessary to shout.
What really stands out is the value for
money, performance is a little above average for this type of product and it is
very easy to use. Well worth considering.
THE FACTS
Typical Price £40
Features built-in
speaker and microphone, mode convert button, charge LED, in-car holder kit
included
To fit most makes and models
Contact Ball
Ltd., telephone 0181-574 0003
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 90%
KONDOR PORTABLE HANDS-FREE KIT
Last year we reported that unlike our
continental cousins, the British seem to be reluctant to use personal
hands-free kits with their mobile phones. In France and Germany it’s not at all
unusual to see people walking down the street, quietly talking into a discreet
microphone. We Brits like to hold our mobile phones high and talk loudly and
animatedly.
Maybe that has begun to change, just recently
we have noticed one or two people apparently talking to themselves in the
street. True, they might have been mad, or foreigners, or both, but we suspect
that personal hands-free kits could catch on yet. This one from Kondor is well
worth a look. It overcomes one of the biggest problems with this kind of thing,
and that’s battery drain. Our review sample, designed to fit Nokia 2110’s and
clones, has it’s own battery. Th outfit includes a tiny 12-volt pen-cell
similar to the type used in key-ring car immobilisers.
The outfit is made up of three components.
The adaptor plug, which fits into the phone’s accessory socket, is attached by
a short cable to an American style phone plug. This slots into a socket on the
underside of the main module, a curvy little box that clips on the user’s belt
or waistband. The module, which contains the battery and adaptor circuitry, has
an on/off switch, an LED indicator and two more sockets. One is for an optional
car cord adaptor/charger; the other is for the combined earphone and microphone
lead. This is a conventional design with an in-ear phone, below which is
suspended a tiny microphone and lapel clip. The mic is around 15 cm downstream
of the earphone, which puts just below the chins of most wearers.
It’s easy to set-up and use, Nokia phones
automatically switch to hands-free operation as soon as it is plugged in. The
short lead separating the control unit and the phone means the two need to be
close together and worn on a belt. It’s probably not a good idea to carry the
phone and adaptor module loose in a pocket as it’s quite likely one of the
connections will work loose. The only other problem with this arrangement is
that the phone has to be worn on the belt as well, but not all belt or
carry-cases have a slot on the underside for an accessory connector.
Audio quality on the earphone is
satisfactory, loud enough to be heard in a street or pub. The microphone could
do with being a little closer to the user’s mouth, though it’s not difficult to
adjust the distance, using the lapel clip.
Personal hands free kits make a lot of sense.
This one is a tad more cumbersome because of the separate control module,
however, if you can live with that it’s worth the effort, though don’t be
surprised if passer’s by give you some odd looks…
THE FACTS
Typical Price £30
Features personal
hands free kit, battery powered (included with outfit) to increase phone
battery life, combined earpiece and microphone
To fit most popular makes and models
Contact Kondor
Ltd., (01202) 481133
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 88%
CELL-KIT HANDS FREE CAR KIT WITH ANTENNA
You would have thought that after seeing so
many weird and wonderful cellphone accessories we would have become accustomed
to wacky designs and instructions written in Pidgin English? Not a bit of it,
we can still be caught out! Take this car-kit marketed by Cell Kit for example,
there’s no way even an averagely intelligent person could figure out how to
install the thing, using the instructions supplied. That’s a shame, because the
kit is simple enough for DIY installation, the standard of construction is fine,
and it is very good value for money.
It’s based around a small black box control
unit and amplifier, which also houses the loudspeaker. It doesn’t have a socket
for an external speaker, which is odd as provision for one certainly exists
though the socket hole has been blanked off with a sticker. Power for the unit
comes from a cigarette lighter plug, which helps reduce installation time
considerably. The phone sits in a sturdy-looking cradle, connected to the
control unit by a curly lead, terminated with a US telephone plug. An external
microphone is supplied, it’s attached to a sun-visor clip and a generous length
of cable, and this also plugs into the main unit. Lastly there’s a glass-mount
antenna kit, fortunately the instructions for this are a little more revealing.
The biggest problem with the instructions –
or rather the lack of them – concerns the mounting hardware for the control
box. It took us quite a while to work it out. On the base of the box is what
appears to be a mounting bracket, but there’s no mention of how to fit it in
the instructions. It was only by sheer luck that we discovered that it had to
be pushed and turned, in order to release it. Finding a suitable spot for it is
difficult, it has to be mounted fairly close to the driver, because of the
built-in speaker, and there’s an indicator LED on one end – these show power on
and charge – so there’s only so many ways it can be fitted.
The mounting bracket for the phone holder is also
detachable. It’s a bit basic and there’s no adjustment whatsoever, which could
make it difficult to find a suitable location in some vehicles. There should be
no problems fitting the antenna, though some care has to be taken when routing
the aerial cable. Once you’ve figured it out it goes together fairly easily but
the manufacturers or importer really should do something about those
instructions.
You probably won’t be surprised to hear that
the weak link is the loudspeaker, it’s not very big or loud and inevitably it will
be mounted low down on the dashboard or centre console, which only adds to the
problem. An external speaker would be the solution, without it you have to
consider very carefully where the unit is to be located. Actual audio quality is quite good, there’s
just enough treble, without it sounding raucous but volume is on the low side,
so think twice if you drive anything noisier than a typical family saloon.
Received audio quality is very clear, thanks to the external microphone.
A bit of a mixed bag… Poor instructions,
inflexible fittings and connections mar what should have been a simple home-fit
car kit. It works reasonably well, but a simple thing like an external speaker
socket would transform it into something well worth having. As it stands we can
only recommend it to competent DIYers with quiet cars.
THE FACTS
Typical Price £60
Features complete
hands-free car kit with antenna
To fit most popular makes and models
Contact Cell-Kit,
telephone 01323-731100
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 78%
SEL SAFE TELEPHONE SANITIZER
You know what it’s like. You do someone a
favour by lending them your mobile phone then they go and cough and sneeze all
over it. In the process ten zillion germs find a nice new warm hidey-hole in
the microphone and crevices on your phone. They bide their time, breeding and
mutating until the next time your mouth comes close…
Those bugs would think twice about infecting
a phone cleaned with Sel Safe; the smell literally takes your breath away. Come
to think of it you probably won’t get too many people wanting to borrow your
phone, once they get a whiff of it. It could even help cut down your mobile
bills! Unlike most other telephone sanitization products, which usually smell
quite pleasant, this one has the air of a heavy-duty disinfectant, a subtle
blend of public lavatory and doctor’s waiting room. Still, it smells like it
does the job, and does it well, we suspect. Heed the warnings on the can, spray
it onto a cloth and wipe the phone, and not straight onto your instrument. We
didn’t read the instructions and our Nokia 2110 still reeks after two weeks!
THE FACTS
Typical Price £3.90
Features flammable
Isopropanol 1219, very smelly
To fit all makes and models
Contact your
local janitorial supplier or Selden Research (01298) 26226
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 88%
CELLPHONEY OF THE MONTH
NOKIA CALCULATOR
Here’s a novel twist on the phoney-cloners,
who put everything from cigarette lighters to electronic games inside
cell-phone shaped cases. Nokia have got in on the act with this bright yellow cellphone
calculator, shaped like a 2110. It has no special features, but the antenna is
a pencil. They’re promotional items and as far as we’re aware not produced for
sale, but you might be able to sweet-talk your local dealer into getting hold of
one for you.
THE FACTS
Typical Price promotional
freebie
Features add,
subtract, multiply, divide and percentage
To fit your coat pocket
Contact your
nearest Nokia dealer…
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 80%
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Ó R. Maybury 1998 1504
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