Home > Consumer Reviews > Plug 'N' Go Car Kit for Nokia 3310

The concept of this item is wonderful but when it came to putting it in my car, well, that's another story! Due to where my cigarette lighter socket is positioned, when I put the phone in initially, I couldn't drive properly without the gearstick hitting it every time I changed gear. Then I decided to use the extension arm as this would place the phone higher up thus no more gearstick problems. Wrong!!!!! The extension did not fit into the socket 'securely' and every time I turned a corner, the whole of the extension arm AND the phone would turn 180 degrees making it impossible to use the phone. Not to mention it being extremely off-putting whilst driving. I promptly returned this item and am glad to say that Amazon did give me a full refund on this product. As I said, great idea - pity it didn't work. Buy with caution!

Yes, this is a smart looking piece of kit. It is a shame that the microphone is of poor quality/design. This unfortunately means that the caller on the other end has to strain to hear you on hands-free, defeating the purpose as you have to shout or pick the phone up to be heard. If this could be rectified, then it would well be worth the money.

I bought the car kit because I wanted hands free on a car which I will only be using for 3 months and hence did not want the expense of fitting a full car kit.

The installation of the unit was simple and comprised setting up the angle of the cigar lighter connector relative to the phone holder such that it was possible to plug the unit into the socket with the phone in a usable position.

My first impression after installation was that the unit did not seem terribly secure, the weight of the phone and the unit being borne by the connector into the cigar socket, however it did not move at all for the few weeks I had the unit fitted in the car.

The first problem I noted was that whenever I plugged the phone into the unit I would get an error message on the phone saying that the phone was not charging. This was rectified by unplugging the phone and then wriggling the phone in the housing before connecting again. Sometimes it took two or three attempts to get it to work.

The unit operated for about two weeks in my car although it was clear that with the phone quite low down in the car the signal received by the phone was very poor and it was often impossible to make a call. The quality of the audio through the speaker was not of the best being quite tinny but you get what you pay for.

What finally put me off was that after about two weeks of operation the audio started to become very distorted to the point where conversation became impossible and the unit became unusable except as a rather tempermental battery charger.

I have now reverted to a standard car battery charger and earpiece/microphone set up which fulfills all of my needs for the time being. I just need to be careful with the phone under heavy braking as it sometimes has the tendancy to launch itself off the passenger seat and into the footwell, but you can't have everything

Great concept that fails to pull off the whole solution - but hey, for this money you can't really expect to whisper sweet nothings to your loved one as you charge down the motorway pursued by a pack of banshees.

For driving around in slow town traffic it's great, but unless you drive a Bentley or a hearse don't expect to have an intelligible conversation at anything over 50MPH, with the window down that drops as low 10MPH. Though I don't think I've ever seen a hearse driving with its window down and I've never had an intelligible conversation in a Bentley.

Even so, at reasonable to higher speeds it still charges the phone and you know where to find it when your loved one rings you to shout sweet nothings in your ear. And let's not forget its main purpose in life: it stops the phone slipping off your seat and into that Bermuda Triangle beneath the front passenger seat. All in all, an okay buy but it wasn't as good as I expected.

That said I'd rather have it that not have it.

This is one of the cheapest options on the market for making a Nokia 3310 legal for post-1st Dec. UK regs. The sound quality is fine (a tip is to turn down the volume on the phone but keep the volume on the unit up high) and you can easily position the phone wherever you want it because the cradle rotates in any direction you could imagine. I couldn't recommend this unit more.