Home > Consumer Reviews > Plug 'N' Go Car Kit for Nokia 6210

When this unit works correctly it is almost ideal. Unfortunately the lugs which hold the phone in place are poorly designed and allow the handset to jump free consequently neither charging or being audible when a call comes in. Exceedingly frustrating. I wrote to Pama pointing out this deficiency but did not recieve the courtesy of even an acknowledgement of my communication. A money waster.

I bought this unit because the concept was great and it seemed like it would be infinitely better than previous devices which were clipped to the air vents with fiddly screws. Unfortunately, I find the unit is very poor in practise: I constantly have to press it back in its holder to make contact with the charging circuits and it is touch and go as to whether I will hear an incoming caller, or they will hear me. Most times, I have to remove the phone from the holder which kind of defeats the "hands-free" theory.

When the Plug 'n' Go works, it is great -- the microphone appears to be sensitive enough, and the speaker loud enough, for most situations. However, it just does not work consistently enough to be a satisfactory hands-free solution. I found that when new the unit gripped the phone about 80% of the time, but after a few months of use it grips first time only 10-20% of the time, and the phone is too easily knocked knocked free by even fairly small road impefections.

I fear that this may even be distracting enough to be unsafe.

As stated in other reviews, the connection is hit and miss, and one often has to take the phone out and re-insert. The connection into the lighter socket is so tight that I pulled the entire lighter socket out of the dashboard when trying to remove it.

The speaker distorts at low volumes. The choice is either (a) too low to hear, or (b) loud (but not that loud) and too distorted to hear. It has no value on noisy motorways. The speaker is mounted on the back of the unit, and fires into the telephone, any sound projected from the back of the speaker fires into dashboard - quite how this can be thought of as a good design is beyond me.

Much to my suprise, this works really well. Better than very expensive, garage installed systems for earlier phones. People often don't know you are on a hands free system and reception in your car is crystal clear. With the extra leg provided, you can make sure of a stable position for your handset.
The downside of any such system is you HAVE to charge the battery, loosing the opportunity for complete discharge / recharge cycles.