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Quick review: 'Belkin TuneBase FM' charging cradle/transmitter
Have been meaning to post about my experiences with a 'Belkin TuneBase FM' charging cradle/fm transmitter...
Picked this up for use with my iphone from JB-HiFi about 2 weeks ago, price was $132. I've been quietly happy, but it's still far from a perfect solution. (Note that the TuneBase is not 'iphone ready' but rather marketed for ipod use (including the Touch). I don't think that there are ANY ipod fm transmitters available yet that are certified for use with the iphone.)
Positives:
- Very nice and compact. Plugs into my car charger with a firm & adjustable octopus arm to the cradle (ie. no further need to attach a separate cradle or have charging cables snaking across the dash.) The suitability of this will depend on your dash set-up.
- Charges the iphone perfectly. A 30 min trip home from work listening to a podcast/music from the iphone sees it fully charged. Nice.
- The cradle comes with a complete range of size/padding combinations for all the various ipod models - while the iphone isn't directly supported, it only took a few minutes to get the right combination of these for a perfect fit. _Excellent_ and minimalist iphone cradle.
- The FM transmitter works well and provides clear sound to my car stereo. This Belkin unit has both a button that will automatically scan ('ClearScan') to find a free FM frequency - very handy in a large city like Melbourne, as well as buttons that can take the FM transmitter to two preset frequencies. Very nice stuff. Large LCD display of the current frequency makes for a simple & elegant design. Nothing too exciting, but understated and inoffensive.
- You can hard wire to the aux-in of your car stereo if it has this, and avoid using the fm transmitter at all. (avoids some of the negatives below...)
Negatives
- The iphone's mobile transceiver will interfere with the FM transmitter, such that as your car moves between cell phone towers, and the iphone adjusts the gain of it's transceiver, you hear that classical mobile phone interference over your stereo. Note this ONLY happens when you are tuned to the FM transmitter (ie. doesn't occur if you're just listening to a radio station). Thus it is interference with the FM transmitter in the Belkin unit (unsurprising given how close the two are) and not inductive current in the stereo-speakers. This interference isn't too bad for podcasts, but _is_ moderately annoying, especially as the intensity of it changes as the cellphone transmitter power ramps up and down, or the iphone registers it's presence as it moves between cells. (thus makes it hard for your brain to ignore it as you listen to the podcast.) I wouldn't be able to put up with it for music listening. Unfortunately, as it's interference introduced to the FM transmission, increasing the stereo volume will not mask the sound.
- My phone reception/reliability may (??) not be quite as good when it's plugged into the cradle. (ie. takes longer to connect to another phone when placing a call, or fails entirely... but it's not constant). Similarly, a couple of times it seems that when called the phone didn't take the call...? Not sure, but suspect again interference between the iphone and the (very close) FM transmitter. (btw - I'm with Virgin). I cannot say for sure whether this is a real issue or not...
For many people,the two negatives above will be deal breakers. For me, I'm not so concerned as I usually don't mind being without the phone when I'm driving short distances. I'd rather make/take calls when I'm out of the car for personal & safety reasons. Because the cradle isn't iphone certified, the iphone actually gives you a warning when you plug it in, and a 'yes/no' dialogue asking if you want to turn the iphone's cellular radio off (ie. essentially put it in 'airplane mode') - this is now typically what I do if I have no need for being urgently contacted.
Yes, somewhat of a hassle. But, it took me a bit to realise that there's a _very nice_ user experience built into this by Apple: when you finish your journey and pull the phone out of the cradle, your iphone will immediately turn all the radio transmitters back on and register you with your mobile carrier. Not a biggy, but a nice feature that ensures you are only 'off' while in your car. (In fact, turning the ignition off kills the power to the cradle, which the iphone also takes as a signal to turn the cell radio back on.)
The bottom line is that the TuneBase is an adequate interim option for using your iphone in the car with little fuss, but clearly there's a lot of room for improvement. A hardwired system that also doubled as a handsfree system would be best - not sure if there's much out there yet...
(I suspect that the FM transmitter-phone interference will never be easily solved and most car stereo set-ups will move to a wired interface - makes a lot more sense, even if an expensive hassle.)
Hope this helps people. Thoughts from others?
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