Magellan Premium Car Kit for iPhone and iPod touch

by Magellan

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5 x 8 x 5 inches ; 2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B002WN30IM
• Item model number: AP0300SGXXX
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #3,156 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

  #97 in

  Electronics > Car Electronics > Vehicle GPS > Portable Vehicle GPS

• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 18, 2009

Product Description

Amazon.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.

Secure, adjustable vehicle mounting.

Works with any navigation or location-based app.

Magellan Premium Car Kit for iPhone / iPod Touch

Requires purchase of a navigation app. Sold separately.

The Premium Car Kit lets you use great navigation apps like the Magellan RoadMate App for iPhone and iPod touch (2nd generation) and instantly enhances your navigation experience.

This powerful, built-in receiver boosts GPS reception, ensuring accurate directions. Simply place your iPhone or iPod touch into the cradle and connect the power. The cradle even works with most turn- by-turn routing applications available today, including the Magellan RoadMate App for iPhone (sold separately).

The Premium Car Kit connects via Bluetooth (iPhone only) to deliver a superior hands-free calling experience. The powerful, amplified speaker delivers crystal clear calls and turn-by-turn directions. No need to even remove your protective cover--the cradle adjusts to accommodate most cases or skins.

Navigate in confidence with the Magellan Premium Car Kit!

Features

• Built-in GPS receiver enhances performance
  A powerful, sensitive built-in GPS receiver provides faster and more accurate location information to your iPhone or iPod touch
  
  
• Turns your iPod touch into a GPS navigator
  The built-in GPS receiver adds GPS capability to your iPod touch (2nd generation)
  
  
• Fits hard shell cases or silicon skins
  Accommodates most cases or skins for maximum flexibility when inserting into the cradle
  
  
• Works with most navigation or location-based apps
  While optimized for the Magellan RoadMate app for iPhone, the cradle is compatible with most GPS navigation apps
  
  
• In-car charging
  The cradle automatically powers and charges when connected. No need to worry about running out of battery.
  
  
• Noise-canceling, hands-free speakerphone
  Full duplex speakerphone for crystal clear calls
  
  
• Powerful, amplified speaker
  Use the volume control for loud and clear voice guidance
  
  
• Secure, adjustable vehicle mounting
  Quickly secure the cradle to your windshield or dashboard and easily adjust for portrait or landscape viewing
  
  
• Audio line out for music playback on your car stereo
  Listen to your favorite tunes through your car's audio system

Car Kit Compatibility

• iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4
• iPod touch 2G, 3G
• Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later and purchase of navigation app (sold separately).

What's in the Box
Premium GPS Car Kit, Vehicle Mount, Adhesive Disc, Vehicle Power Adapter, Getting Started Guide

Product Description

The Magellan AP0300SGXXX Premium Car Kit With GPS effortlessly turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a GPS navigator! Attach the Magellan iPhone Premium Car Kit with GPS to your windshield and instantly, you can navigate using the various GPS functions of your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good build quality, stupid AUX port design, January 24, 2010

By	iPhone user (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Magellan Premium Car Kit for iPhone and iPod touch (Electronics)

Well I have been using this for a bit over a week now and here are my impressions:

Pros:
-Excellent build quality; very solid and holds my iPhone (in a Speck PixelSkin case) very sturdily.
-Good mounting of iPhone with swivelling dock connector and flexible/adjustable top clip.
-Fits iPhone perfectly with my Speck PixelSkin case. But be warned - it was adjusted to its highest point, so it wont fit a case larger than the PixelSkin.
-GPS fix more accurate than iPhone's internal GPS. This resulted in less jerky movements and less jumping around during GPS application usage.

Cons:
-GPS signal dropped out far more often than my standalone TomTom PND. This is unacceptable in a product meant to improve GPS reception that actually uses the same GPS chip as the TomTom PND I am comparing it with.
-With kit mounted on windscreen the iPhone overheated and stopped working (displayed a temperature warning message and forced itself into sleep mode) once. Mind you this was after three hours of driving, directly towards the Australian summer sun on a 35C/95F day. This is not a shortcoming of this Magellan kit, but rather an issue with mounting iPhones in car windscreens in general.
-When switching the car ignition from 'accessories' to 'run' and then to 'on', the Magellan kit naturally loses power momentarily. However when it powers back on, it often would not sync with the iPhone's Bluetooth as the power cycle was too fast. I would need to manually power cycle the Magellan kit (ie. remove power plug, then reconnect) allowing enough time for the iPhone to lose Bluetooth sync before re-establishing the power.

MAJOR MAJOR CON:
-When you plug a 3.5mm audio cable into the AUX connector on the Magellan kit (for attaching to a car stereo, or external powered speakers, etc.), the music and application sounds CONTINUE COMING OUT OF THE BUILT-IN SPEAKER!!! This is a ridiculous design, as it means to listen to music through your car stereo without the crappy built-in speaker ruining the music for you, you need to turn down the volume on the Magellan Kit (as this only controls the volume of the built-in speaker). But then if you receive a call, the call audio (via Bluetooth) cannot be heard (as you have turned the volume down on the built-in speaker, which is where the call audio is sent), so you have to manually turn the volume up on the Magellan kit again (using a fiddly little dial that is difficult and dangerous to find while trying to concentrate on driving). You have to do this EVERY TIME a call arrives... STUPID!

Why oh why was the kit designed like this? We will never know. However Magellan have responded to my question about it and have indicated that they will release some sort of firmware/software/application fix for this speaker problem in the near future.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Charging issue and horrible GPS reception, April 18, 2010

By	Striders (California) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Magellan Premium Car Kit for iPhone and iPod touch (Electronics)

I am one of the early adopter, having bought this kit early when it was first available. I travel by car quite a lot as part of my job and I had the chance to test this kit extensively.

As the title stated, here are the major problems:

1). CHARGING
When I plug my iPhone 3GS, about 3 out of 5 I'll get a message on the iPhone saying that "This accessory is not for iPhone". I have tried every possible way to ensure that I am plugging the iPhone properly, which it does because the shape of the kit prevent the iPhone to be plugged in other ways, yet I still get that dreaded message and the iPhone DOES NOT CHARGE. it seems that the connector is not designed well and it does not recognize the iPhone most of the time.

UPDATE: Here's another thing I found about the charging issue: the car kit is SUPPOSED to CHARGE your iPhone while you are using the naVigation apps (TomTom, Navigon, Magellan Roadmate) at close to high brightness (due to sunlight). But when you do this, the car kit WILL NOT CHARGE your iPhone. I have tested this with 2 iPhone 3GS and none of them charge when I use any GPS application. Since the Iphone is running continuously, this car kit adapter cannot keep up with the power need.

2). GPS
The GPS inside the kit, when it work, it worked great. But most of the time, it DOES NOT WORK. Many times, my Magellan GPS or Navigon app will suddenly lose signal. I thought it was the application itself, but when I mounted my iPhone to a normal car kit with no GPS, I never lose GPS signal unless I am inside a tunnel or under heavy foliage cover

I tried my best to test this car kit, even beyond the 30 days return policy. Alas, this kit just perform badly.

Do not buy this kit!

31 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful GPS enhanced mounting solution for iPhone and iPod owners, January 13, 2010

By	James Keh "GPS4ME" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Magellan Premium Car Kit for iPhone and iPod touch (Electronics)

I received my Magellan premium car kit finally. I have already downloaded the Magellan GPS app from the iTune store and I'm very excited about how wonderful this car kit functions.
Not sure about some of the other reviewers but this Magellan car kit makes my iPhone so much better with much louder audio volume, I had to turn the volume down on the car kit because it was too loud.
The Bluetooth paired up quickly and the GPS reception is so much better when the iPhone is connected to the Magellan car kit.
This is the perfect solution since my family owns 5 iPhones, mostly 3Gs and not everyone own a GPS, with this Magellan car kit, we can share the car kit between our iPhones when someone needs to take a trip.
We all use protective cases and it's great that it is not necessary to remove our phones from the protective cases when we mount the iPhone to the car kit. This is a huge plus and a great design from Magellan.
I feel some reviewers may look into the mirror instead of blaming Magellan if they don't understand this car kit was probably designed for convenience more than cost savings. When they paid the $129 for the hardware, they should not expect the software to be included with the hardware.
The option is they can buy the Motion X software for $2.99 and use this car kit with a 3rd party navigation software and still enjoy the better GPS reception and BT features along with excellent audio volume output.
There will be some reviewers that may be disappointed but I would guess more will be delighted to find such options for their iPhones as the Magellan premium car kit.
I'm tired of carrying a cell phone and a GPS, and with this Magellan car kit, it made my life much more enjoyable.
Thank you Magellan for introducing us to this wonderful GPS solution for our iPhones.