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Brodit car mounts for mobile phones review Date 19th June 2004

Kirrio GPS navigation system for Palm OS PDAs

Review by Mike Barrett

 

Brodit car mounts for mobiles phones

As many of you who follow our site will know we have started to review navigation systems on mobile phones. Well that is fine but you need somewhere to put them. As the screen is now an important factor in the navigation setup. My initial car mount was one bought from my local halfords for £7.50. Although it was a generic clamp type mount it didnt last long when my wife, with the sublety of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, ripped the phone from the holder and damaged one of the holder's grips. This meant that I had to look for a better solution.

 

This was hampered somewhat by a number of factors:

  1. I typically have lots of gear in my car and there is competition for space on the dashboard.
  2. I needed the capability to switch phones on a regular basis depending on what I am testing.
  3. I tend to switch between 2 cars.

The image to the right shows a typical set-up in my car: PDAs all over the place and very little space for anything else.

 

So how did I solve this little problem? Read on and find out...

 

The Base Platform

The base platform or foundation of my system is a Dashmount car bracket. Click here for the Dashmount site. This is a small plate that slips under the trim of the centre console and uses the existing screws to secure it firmly.

 

The face of the plate has a number of holes and slots allowing a number of mounts and cradles to be bolted on.

 

The Intermediate Layers

On top of the foundations is a tilt/swivel mechanism. I used the Brodit tilt/swivel mount. This bolted directly onto the dashmount plate. This gives the mount the manouverability required so the mobile phone can be angled in the correct viewing angle.

 

To allow me to switch phones as I need required the use of some form of stable but moveable fittment. Again Brodit came to the rescue with one of their latest products the "Move Mount". Peter of Brodit gave us some samples at CeBIT. They are supplied with a male and 2 female mounting plates.

 

These plates are fitted using double sidded tape. These can be stuck directly to the devices that you want to mount, or in my case I stuck them to the phone cradles.

 

I had no problems sticking the Move Mounts to the Brodit tilt/swivel and the Nokia 6600 cradle. I wanted to attach the other Move Mount to my Sony Ericsson T610 cradle, this was more tricky as there was no flat surface to stick it to. I solved this problem by removing the tape and using a tried and trusted Araldite adhesive to stick the mount and cradle together.

 

That gave me the capability to switch between the Nokia 6600 and the Sony Ericsson T610 within seconds

 

        

The mount in use.

Once again I have created a stable platform for my equipment, the Dashmount is not as solid as using a ProClip, but has the economy of a very small footprint, and although I do get a little vibration it is not noticable in use. I have a spare ProClip for my other car so when I get some more Move Mounts I will create more moveable systems.

 

I really like the Move Mounts and am looking forward to trying them with heavier equipment such as PDAs. This could be the start of a really flexible system for people like me, or people who want to move their equipment between two cars.

 

The Nokia 6600 mount is minimalistic, and the sleeve slightly covers the side buttons, but is far more useable than the previous clamp style mounts I have used. The Nokia has a Loudspeaker function, which when used in the cradle is adequate to be used as a hands free system.

 

When using the cradle with Wayfinder the speaker on the Nokia 6600 the mount does not muffle the directions. The sound produced is still too low to be practical at all speeds, but the mount is crafter in such a manner to retain as much sound and functionality as possible.

 

 

Review equipment supplied by

Buy from Handnav in the UK

 

References

Manufacturers Website www.brodit.se
Pocket GPS Contributor Mike Barrett
Pocket GPS Contributor Website http://www.1st-ventures.com
   

 

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