HTC One Car Kit Dock Review

If you were able to pre-order the HTC One through the T-Mobile website early enough, an HTC car kit was shipped along with the phone. At no additional cost, this was an amazing offer. However, this offer was only available until the supplies lasted and I was fortunate enough to receive one.

Price: you can find the HTC One Car Kit on Amazon for less than $70.

Design

The car kit is mostly in the color black and is made out of plastic, except for the swivel neck which is made out of metal.  The swivel neck rotates so it can hold your phone in a vertical or horizontal position and can also tilt at a maximum angle of 45 degrees.

To place your HTC One into the cradle, all you need to do is to slide it in bottom side first.  The first thing you will notice is that the car kit only covers half of the phone.  Since it does not have clips, your phone can easily slide out of the dock, which can be cause for concern.  To prevent this, you need to utilize the provided micro-USB cable.  The car dock has a cutout for the cable and you have to push it in until you hear a clicking sound.  Your phone can then be held in place via its micro-USB port.  The USB cable is separate from the car charger so you have the option of charging or not charging your phone.

Please note that the car holder will fit your phone perfectly.  However, this also means that you will not be able to use it if you have a phone cover.  You will have to take your phone cover off before using it which could be a frustrating experience for some people.

The HTC Car Kit includes:

• Car Kit
• USB Cable
• Car Charger

Installation

Mounting the car holder is a very simple task.  You have the option of doing it on either the car windshield or dashboard.  If you are going to mount it on the windshield, all you need to do is peel off the protective plastic sheet from the suction pad and then find your preferred location.  When found, you have to turn and tighten the base wheel clockwise to make sure that the base is secured.

Mounting the car holder on the dashboard is very similar except for one small difference.  Instead of attaching the suction pad directly onto the dashboard, you need to attach it to the provided dashboard disc.  The disc has two sides: an adhesive side and a smooth, glossy side.  The adhesive side goes on the dashboard while the  glossy side is used for the car holder.  After placing the car holder on top of the dashboard disc, you need to turn and tighten the base wheel clockwise to make sure that the base is secured.

Use

When your HTC one is placed in the car kit, it automatically changes to Car Mode.  In car mode, your home page changes and you are given a few new options.  The default applications including Navigation, Dialer, Music, Speak, People, Internet Radio, Settings, and Exit.  You can customize the page by adding or deleting the apps on the page.  You also have the option of changing the order of the apps.

Navigation: Pressing the navigation button opens up several options including Google Maps Navigation, Previous, Appointments, Gas Station, Restaurant, By Photo, Parking, Cafes, Bars, ATM, Convenience Store, Pharmacy, Shopping, and Emergency.  If you are going to a specific address, you will need to open the Google Maps Navigation. You can input the address in one of two ways: speak destination or type destination.  The speak destination is not going to be as 100% effective as manually typing an address but it seems to work well with the few addresses I tested.

Dialer: When using the dialer function, you can make calls by typing the number on the right hand side or you by tapping on a recent call on the left hand side.

Music: The music function can be filtered by artists, albums, songs, playlists, genres, podcasts, or folders.  When playing a song, the song is displayed on the top right of the home screen.

Speak: Speak automatically opens Google Speak.  With this function, you can either speak a contact’s name or speak the name of a song you want to play.  I really wanted to like this app but I had a frustrating time using it.  More often than not, when saying a contact’s name or the name of a song, the app would either say not found or it would give me the wrong information.  I often found myself speaking directly into the the phone, which is an issue if you are driving a vehicle.

Conclusion

The HTC One Car Kit is a great accessory for HTC One owners and it is very easy to use.  Not only can it hold and charge your phone, but I love how Car Mode turns your phone into an awesome GPS.  I also like the fact that you can customize the apps and shape it to meet your needs.  Most of the apps works really well with the exception of the Speak app.  One thing that concerns me is how loose the phone feels when the phone is placed in the cradle.  The car kit will also not accommodate phone covers so that is something to think about before purchasing this unit.  However, despite those observations, I would still highly recommend this HTC One accessory.