Many states have laws about using your cell phone while driving. Even where the law permits it, using your phone while driving can be dangerous. I have to admit, I talk on the phone while driving a lot. Although I can still drive safely, it’s inconvenient and ties up my free hand. Nokia sent me something that makes it all easier.
About the HF-510
The Nokia Speakerphone HF-510 is a hands free kit for your car that connects via Blue Tooth to your phone. Simple enough, but what makes this different from other hands free kits out there? I’ve seen a ton of them and decent kits start around $50 last time I checked and the HF-510 comes in a little over that mark. The first difference this device has over others is easily noticed the first time you look at it. The large, easily mountable speaker allows for nice clear audio and can be pretty loud if you want, too. Because I didn’t want to mount the speaker for my review, I found myself throwing it in the cup holder in my car. The speaker size is just about a perfect fit for the cup holder, so if you want to share it between cars, you could try that.
The next stand-out feature I found on this device was the OLED display for caller ID. The whole point of a hands free kit is to not be messing with your phone while driving, so it’s nice to have the incoming caller’s number displayed. This is a great feature and shows up nicely. I hate getting stuck on the phone in my car with someone I don’t want to talk to or someone trying to sell me something. If you don’t mount the speaker or use the included visor clip, though, this feature is not as easy to notice without taking your eyes way off the road. So if you need the caller ID, mount the speaker or use the visor clip.
Other Features, Likes, Dislikes
Additionally, the Nokia HF-510 has a ring around the outside that is used to control the volume and sift through the phone book. While it’s kind of cool and probably works fine if you mount it very stable, it otherwise makes the phone book navigation and volume control harder to accomplish with one hand. While I didn’t really use it long enough to notice any battery issues, it boasts up to 30 hours of operation time and 180 hours of stand by time on the included battery. That’s pretty decent, but they provide a car charger for those really long trips.
Conclusions
This hands free kit just worked well. I might have liked it a little smaller for my visor, but it has a nice design and was generally easy to operate. Call quality was as good as being on my phone, itself and it paired up really really easily. For the extra extra mile the HF-510 goes, I expected a slightly higher price than what I’ve seen and that doesn’t hurt one bit. The Nokia HF-510 looks and works great at a good price, leaving little to ask for.
One of the cutest little gadgets I’ve gotten in my mailbox is the Speakal iBoo, a little speaker, shaped like a ghost and available in red, white or blue. The one they sent out was blue and has become device number two that my wife claimed as her own on sight.
What’s in the box?
It can be frustrating to find the right speaker system to match not only your needs, but also the connection requirements of the device providing the music. It’s worse when you upgrade from one iPod to the next just to find that the new one doesn’t fit in the speaker system you already own. A lot of systems that are geared towards iPods take this into consideration and so does the iBoo. It comes with a bunch of adapters to make any iPod fit. One difference here is that they provide a prying wedge to remove the attached iPod adapter and replace it with another one. It also comes with a kind of cap for when you don’t want any adapter.
Also in the box is an audio cable, the power adapter, user manual, and a small remote control. The remote is a nice addition. Although not necessary, the remote could be handy when you place the iBoo on a shelf or otherwise not easily within reach. The remote also has more functions on it than the iBoo, itself, so it’s good to have even when the iBoo is right next to you.
Appearances aren’t everything, but…
Honestly, of the three colors they offer, blue would be my preference, but I also think any decent sound system should come in sleek black, silver or titanium. That’s just my opinion, and apparently, blue isn’t all that bad, either. Michelle took her new iBoo in to the office to replace her existing stereo speakers and it was, as I’m told, the talk of the office, briefly. Everyone loved it. It is pretty cute, and the design is sleek enough, even in blue. The most thoughtful aspect of the design is that it doesn’t really have any protruding buttons or controls. The play/pause and volume controls are easy to find if you’re looking and not too easy to see if you’re not looking. They’re part of the iBoo’s surface, so you just have to touch the right area on iBoo to control the audio in various ways. It’s not like some small controls sticking out of iBoo would make much of a difference, but it’s the little details that count, sometimes.
How is it as a sound system?
Something that I always fear with devices that are made to fit a theme like this is that they focus too much on making it look cute and not enough on making it sound good. Luckily, that’s not so here. Speakal offers up a system that looks cute and sounds good too. I already mentioned that it takes all the iPods as input but I also mentioned an included audio cable. That cable is for the auxiliary input so you can hook up a game system, stereo, television, etc. Where it failed was with my iPhone. When I plugged the iPhone in, it displayed a message on the screen indicating that the device wasn’t made to work with an iPhone. It’s not the first device that has been rejected by my iPhone and I’m sure it won’t be the last, but it’s worth noting. Michelle pointed out that you can’t grab it by the top (because of the touch sensitive controls) to turn it off, although that seems like a minor inconvenience.
Conclusions
iBoo is supposed to be cute, but I want one in black or titanium and I want it to work with my iPhone, but did prove itself as device that can easily please an office crowd and it sounds good. For the money (about $80), it’s a great way to free your music from your standard ear buds or replace larger speakers for more desk space. They also have iPanda and iPig, but I’m holding out for iNinja.
A company called Ten One Design makes the smallest iPhone accessory I’ve gotten my hands on. It doesn’t even use any power or really plug into anything, which is why it’s also probably the least expensive iPhone accessory I own. I’m talking about the SoundClip, a “Passive Sound Enhancer” for the iPhone 3G.
An innovative idea
For those unaware, the iPhone 3G has three things on the bottom edge. On the right is the microphone, in the middle is the docking/power connection, and on the left is a speaker for external audio. One of the problems/tricks that I noticed some time ago with my iPhone 3G was that if I put my thumb over the speaker, I can pretty much completely mute out any audio. It’s a handy trick when I just want to cut the audio for a second, but it’s a little annoying when I’m playing a game or watching a video. I think that’s what sets this product apart for me. Instead of just another product that had been done before, Ten One innovated with something new (as far as I am aware, anyway) and something useful and did it without putting a big dent in my wallet. At only about $8, I was eager to see if it worked as well as I had hoped.
Not exciting so much, but it works well
Sometimes I get too excited about a product and this may have been one of those times. When I was told one was being sent out, I got excited about an iPhone product that could be really useful for under ten bucks. I’ve opened it up and put it to use and I’m not that excited, but I think that’s more the nature of the product than it’s living up to expectations. I guess I had the idea that I’d hear a big boost in volume, but that wasn’t the case. What I did experience is that the audio was, indeed, more focused in my direction as advertised, and the audio was noticeably louder as a result. It also did a great job of making sure my listening was not interrupted by a rogue thumb. I tried it with a video, a game, and a phone call with pretty much the same results for each. The SoundClip proved most useful during the game because I’m holding the iPhone and paying attention to the game and not my hand position. It also has a little groove to attach it to your charging cable so it won’t get lost while you’re charging it.
What’s missing?
For such a simple design, it covers most of the bases, but there’s one feature that I think would make it much better even if it bumped the price up just a little. I imagined this thing being attached to my phone all the time and I just don’t think I’d do it, but I wouldn’t want to carry it in my pocket and it’s just a bit bulky for my wallet. The solution, I think, would be to have some kind of easy-release key chain attachment so I could keep it on (and release it from) my key chain as needed.
I’d also love to see a version with the little deflection chamber for both the speaker as well as the microphone. I don’t know if it would be any benefit at all, but if it helped to focus the microphone only on my voice, helping drown out background noise, it would be a pleasant bonus and might make me more prone to keeping it attached all the time.
Should you buy one?
If you’re wondering if it’s something you should buy, you should ask yourself if you’ve been frustrated by low audio or, more importantly, accidentally covering the speaker. If so, go for it. If not, you could buy it anyway (it’s cheap enough), but you probably won’t appreciate it much.
