Music Sync is an app that lets users sync up to 2GB of their music library to a server where the media can be accessed online or downloaded to the ClarionMind's internal memory for playback. Notepad, calculator, and contacts manager applications join the control panel and connection manager round out the available applets.
Performance
Starting again with the navigation mode, the ClarionMind quickly acquires satellite from a cold start (often in less than a minute). However, the unit doesn't exactly offer the most accurate positioning. During highway testing, the 'Mind occasionally would lose track of our position on the main highway and place the vehicle marker on an access road adjacent to the freeway. Eventually it would figure our location out, but the recalculation was frustrating.
Point-of-interest (POI) search was equally frustrating. For example, the ClarionMind has an option to search for POI nearby, but attempting to do so resulted in a frozen unit. On the other hand, if we did the same search, but manually entered the city, the results were snappily returned. We shouldn't have to tell a GPS device where it's located to find a business.
Then there's the issue of a device as expensive and full-featured as the ClarionMind not supporting useful traffic updates out of the box. To enable live traffic, a car cradle must be purchased; however, we were unable to find any information about where to get the car cradle or how much it costs in Clarion's literature.
Outside of the car, the 'Mind's performance was satisfactory, provided that you don't attempt to run too many applications simultaneously. When we forgot that a processor-intensive application was running in the background, the 'Mind's performance and stability dropped dramatically.
Joining a Wi-Fi network is a straightforward affair, but pairing a compatible Bluetooth phone for data essentially turns your handset into a dial-up modem using your carrier's data tethering plan, which can be difficult to configure and may add additional charges to your wireless bill. An additional option would be to bring your own ISP and get an account with a company like NetZero, but then you'll lose your high data speeds. Of course, all of this is hinged upon your phone supporting the Bluetooth dial-up networking protocol in the first place, which some popular phones may not.
Multimedia playback from the internal memory was stable, but digging through large libraries on microSD cards or USB drives occasionally caused the unit to freeze, particularly if there were other unsupported file types on the drive. Some of the more severe crashes rendered even the power button useless, requiring removal of the battery to shutdown the unit.
Battery life for the ClarionMind is rated at about 2 hours. However, using Wi-Fi for Web browsing or engaging in processor-intensive functions (such as multimedia playback) cause the battery life to drop by about half.
In sum
We really wanted to like the ClarionMind. Its extensive list of functions makes it appealing to our inner geek, and resulted in a high features score. However, we had to dock points for the lack of useful traffic reporting out of the box. The simple design, wide variety of inputs, and intuitively designed interfaces (both for handheld and in-car use) earned the UMPC/PND hybrid a high design score, as well.
However, our issues with POI search and stability hurt the 'Mind's performance score. Additionally, the device isn't exactly easy to set up and use for surprisingly little payoff. For example, the process of pairing a Bluetooth phone, paying for a separate account, setting up that dial-up account, and then having to deal with dial-up speeds is a huge set of barriers to even using the feature.
At the end of the day, the biggest stumbling block for the ClarionMind is that most of its functions can be replicated on modern GPS-enabled smartphones. For example, the iPhone 3G S can do everything the 'Mind can do, but also features better battery life, a smaller design, more stable performance, and a built-in Web connection that's faster than dial-up. Similarly, the Palm Pre and various BlackBerry handsets from RIM also outperform the 'Mind. Alternatively, connected GPS devices, such as the TomTom GO 740 Live and the Garmin Nuvi 880, deliver better in-car navigation experiences with less-involved setup.
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Where to buy
ClarionMind NR1UB:
$129.99 - $169.99
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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$129.99 | Yes |
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$169.99 | Yes |
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$149.99 | Yes |
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