Magellan Premium Car Kit for iPhone and iPod touch
January 21st, 2010 by Green-Eco-Path-Finder
Product Description
Magellan Premium Car Kit for iPhoneAmazon.com Product Description
The Magellan Premium Car Kit transforms your iPhone into a complete in-car solution for GPS navigation. Simply place your iPhone in the cradle and connect the power. There’s no need to remove your protective case–the cradle adjusts to your needs. Transform your iPhone into a complete in-car solution for GPS navigation. Click to enlarge. … More >>$129.99 Magellan Premium Car Kit for iPhone and iPod touch
It’s advertised as a “Complete GPS Solution”, but doesn’t include the 70 dollar navigation software! The iphone is tricky to get in and out so it doesn’t act as a convenient car dock.
Much better off buying a GPS for the $200 dollars this costs in total.
Magellan should be ashamed of themselves.
Rating: 1 / 5
I bought this $130 “complete navigation solution” as it it billed to use with an iPhone or iPod, only to learn that it requires the $60 Magellan application sold separately. What a huge disappointment! If I wanted to spend $190 on a navigation system, I would have bought one complete … rather than a “solution” which doesn’t work without an additional purchase.
This is on-top of a near 2-month delay to receive this product. I ordered the product in November with promised delivery in December. December came and went, and Xmas was missed … presumably by the manufacturer. I received a delay notice from Amazon & cancelled the order. Then it shipped anyway. Another disappointment.
Don’t jump on this one … I fully expect the price to come down … lots. No way it this worth $130 FOR A CRADLE. In fact, you will be able to find mine for sale on *bay.
Rating: 2 / 5
The suction cup doesn’t hold the device to my car. I tried repeatedly to attach it and it fell off after two minutes. I followed all instructions, cleaned all surfaces properly but it still fell off. It’s about as frustrating as it could be. What was Magellan thinking? Didn’t they test these things?
Rating: 1 / 5
I love my new Magellan car kit for iphone.At first I was not sure about getting it for my iphone, but after viewing some demo videos online I realized it was a must have for me. Went to magellan to order it and was recommended to autonavdirect and got it from them very quickly. If you have an iphone with the roadmate app, get the car kit and you will not be disappointed. Great design and really enhances my iphone.
Rating: 5 / 5
I have been looking for a ‘complete’ mounting solution for my iPhone for some time. It was important for me that it provide a secure place to keep the phone, provide amplification for hands free calls, charge the phone, not require me to remove my case every time I mounted it, and allow a direct connection to my car stereo. I kept an eye on the TomTom reviews and found that functionally it sounded ok , but reviews were turning up design flaws where the cradle would rotate or otherwise move due to the motion of the car. When the Magellan kit was announced I decided it was time to give one of these things a try.
It appeared by the ads that it had everything that I needed and that they had worked to ensure that mounting stability would not be an issue. When I received the kit I was excited to dive right into it. I took my time unboxing the unit and was initially impressed with the build quality and the physical design. I followed the (very limited) instructions that came with unit and there were no real surprises in getting the phone fitted and the unit mounted in the car. The phone fits perfectly while still in the case and the rig seem sturdy when taking the phone in and out.
Now it was time for a couple of usability tests. I paired the phone with the kit using the BlueTooth feature and made a quick test call. Note that the phone is not currently physically attached to the kit at this point. As I had hoped , the call was routed via BlueTooth to the kit. This is a bonus in case you forget to mount your phone when you get in the car and get a call as you are going down the road. The quality of the sound was typical of a small portable BlueTooth hands free kit. I had to turn the volume up on both the phone and the Magellan to get everything to a usable level.
I then mounted the phone into the Magellan cradle, set my stereo to its auxiliary input and started up iTunes. To my surprise when I queued up the first song, the music was coming through the Magellan’s speaker before I ever turned up the volume of the car stereo. Based on the volume settings I had set for the call earlier, the music coming out of the Magellan was quite loud and I felt that if I did not turn it down I might damage the small speaker. I then turned up the volume of the car stereo and that sounded great.
I quickly tested my nav app (GPS Drive from Motion X) and I was getting both the music and voice prompts through the car’s speakers with the application muting the music during prompts just as expected. The sound was still simultaneously coming from the Magellan, but due to the volume reduction from earlier it was not annoying.
I went for the trifecta and made another test call and this is where the problem became quite apparent. As expected the unit muted the music and the call was routed via BlueTooth to the Magellan unit again. The problem is that, because I reduced the volume as to not blow the speaker during music playback, the volume was much too low to be usable. I had to scoot up in my seat and fiddle for the volume control on the Magellan unit and turn it back up again. As soon as the call ended and the music started back up, it again was entirely too loud for the built in speaker.
I think that Magellan should have caught these two major problems. The first is that the volume for calls and for music being played through the speaker should be ‘normalized’ so that they will be a bit closer. The second is that the kit should not stream non-call audio through the built in speaker when the auxiliary out is being used or provide a toggle switch to allows the user to decide. Both of these these issues cause the user to have to reach up and change the volume as different audio sources (phone, ipod, nav) are being streamed and that is just dangerous at any speed.
So net net …. Great unit for physical design, build quality, and feature set. One serious usability issue that should have been found by Magellan and resolved before they released the product.
PS – if you would like the instructions that should have been provided with the product go here : [...]
Tags:iPhone,iPod,Magellan,Premium,touch
Tags: 
It’s advertised as a “Complete GPS Solution”, but doesn’t include the 70 dollar navigation software! The iphone is tricky to get in and out so it doesn’t act as a convenient car dock.
Much better off buying a GPS for the $200 dollars this costs in total.
Magellan should be ashamed of themselves.
Rating: 1 / 5
I bought this $130 “complete navigation solution” as it it billed to use with an iPhone or iPod, only to learn that it requires the $60 Magellan application sold separately. What a huge disappointment! If I wanted to spend $190 on a navigation system, I would have bought one complete … rather than a “solution” which doesn’t work without an additional purchase.
This is on-top of a near 2-month delay to receive this product. I ordered the product in November with promised delivery in December. December came and went, and Xmas was missed … presumably by the manufacturer. I received a delay notice from Amazon & cancelled the order. Then it shipped anyway. Another disappointment.
Don’t jump on this one … I fully expect the price to come down … lots. No way it this worth $130 FOR A CRADLE. In fact, you will be able to find mine for sale on *bay.
Rating: 2 / 5
The suction cup doesn’t hold the device to my car. I tried repeatedly to attach it and it fell off after two minutes. I followed all instructions, cleaned all surfaces properly but it still fell off. It’s about as frustrating as it could be. What was Magellan thinking? Didn’t they test these things?
Rating: 1 / 5
I love my new Magellan car kit for iphone.At first I was not sure about getting it for my iphone, but after viewing some demo videos online I realized it was a must have for me. Went to magellan to order it and was recommended to autonavdirect and got it from them very quickly. If you have an iphone with the roadmate app, get the car kit and you will not be disappointed. Great design and really enhances my iphone.
Rating: 5 / 5
I have been looking for a ‘complete’ mounting solution for my iPhone for some time. It was important for me that it provide a secure place to keep the phone, provide amplification for hands free calls, charge the phone, not require me to remove my case every time I mounted it, and allow a direct connection to my car stereo. I kept an eye on the TomTom reviews and found that functionally it sounded ok , but reviews were turning up design flaws where the cradle would rotate or otherwise move due to the motion of the car. When the Magellan kit was announced I decided it was time to give one of these things a try.
It appeared by the ads that it had everything that I needed and that they had worked to ensure that mounting stability would not be an issue. When I received the kit I was excited to dive right into it. I took my time unboxing the unit and was initially impressed with the build quality and the physical design. I followed the (very limited) instructions that came with unit and there were no real surprises in getting the phone fitted and the unit mounted in the car. The phone fits perfectly while still in the case and the rig seem sturdy when taking the phone in and out.
Now it was time for a couple of usability tests. I paired the phone with the kit using the BlueTooth feature and made a quick test call. Note that the phone is not currently physically attached to the kit at this point. As I had hoped , the call was routed via BlueTooth to the kit. This is a bonus in case you forget to mount your phone when you get in the car and get a call as you are going down the road. The quality of the sound was typical of a small portable BlueTooth hands free kit. I had to turn the volume up on both the phone and the Magellan to get everything to a usable level.
I then mounted the phone into the Magellan cradle, set my stereo to its auxiliary input and started up iTunes. To my surprise when I queued up the first song, the music was coming through the Magellan’s speaker before I ever turned up the volume of the car stereo. Based on the volume settings I had set for the call earlier, the music coming out of the Magellan was quite loud and I felt that if I did not turn it down I might damage the small speaker. I then turned up the volume of the car stereo and that sounded great.
I quickly tested my nav app (GPS Drive from Motion X) and I was getting both the music and voice prompts through the car’s speakers with the application muting the music during prompts just as expected. The sound was still simultaneously coming from the Magellan, but due to the volume reduction from earlier it was not annoying.
I went for the trifecta and made another test call and this is where the problem became quite apparent. As expected the unit muted the music and the call was routed via BlueTooth to the Magellan unit again. The problem is that, because I reduced the volume as to not blow the speaker during music playback, the volume was much too low to be usable. I had to scoot up in my seat and fiddle for the volume control on the Magellan unit and turn it back up again. As soon as the call ended and the music started back up, it again was entirely too loud for the built in speaker.
I think that Magellan should have caught these two major problems. The first is that the volume for calls and for music being played through the speaker should be ‘normalized’ so that they will be a bit closer. The second is that the kit should not stream non-call audio through the built in speaker when the auxiliary out is being used or provide a toggle switch to allows the user to decide. Both of these these issues cause the user to have to reach up and change the volume as different audio sources (phone, ipod, nav) are being streamed and that is just dangerous at any speed.
So net net …. Great unit for physical design, build quality, and feature set. One serious usability issue that should have been found by Magellan and resolved before they released the product.
PS – if you would like the instructions that should have been provided with the product go here : [...]
Rating: 3 / 5