Parrot Minikit Smart user reviews

Pros Expendable Mic, Voice Dialer, Syncs Phone book automatically, charges your device with easy, good volume, solid design

Cons Bulky, not very portable, if you charge your connected device with it you must charge the whole device or the battery life won't last long, lot of cords

Summary Right out of the box the first thing you will notice is the weight. Unless you're a pro body builder, this device will feel quite heavy, especially for it's size. This may be a good thing because regarding newer electronics built after the mid 2000s, weight usually means quality, usually. After the weight, the next thing you will notice is the question mark above your head inquisitively asking, where do I start? I pride myself on being a kind of techy, but this is one of the first devices where I went for the user guide before I turned it on. After a few pages of easy reading, my confidence was restored. I plugged the device in to my car charger and then turned the device on, it immediatly began searching for my phone and I easily synced it with my WM 6.1, don't laugh, I've been waiting for WM 7 on Sprint which is finally dropping on March 20th.

After I paired the devices, the Parrot asked to sync with my contacts. After my phone book was synced I was able to immediately place a call using my voice. The voice dialer was very easy to use and accurate. The call quality was great even though I did not have the mic extended from the device. The speaker on it was loud and clear. The device is solid and compact that feels like a quality build. The only think cheap feeling on it was the talk and end button which felt very plasticy.

As far as the bad, the Parrot is bulky and requires a lot of cords. It comes with one long cord for powering the actual device with is of ample, if not excessive length, perfect though if you wanted to run it under your dashboard to your power outlet. Next it comes with 3 attachment cords, one for an iphone/ipod, one mini usb for most gps units and Blackberrys and one universal mini usb that works for most newer phones especially Sprints. Each cord is about 3 inches long. The combination of all of these cords and the Parrot's size is what makes it not very portable, not like other visor mounted Bluetooth speakers, but it's almost unfair to even compare the Parrot to those, it's apples and oranges.

Once you take the few minutes and mount the Parrot in a hardly conspicuous place on your window or dashboard if you dare, you will next have to run the charging cable to a d/c outlet, which if you're like me, a cordaphobic, trying to conceal the cord is difficult. After all this set-up work is done, maybe 10 minutes later, the Parrot gently but securely holds the phone in it's cradle.

Software interaction. Once the phone is connected, charging and everything is synced and paired, the use of it is quite simple and easy to use. I pressed the talk button and said "call allen", and the Parrot responded, "calling allen". The conversation quality was good to great. Using this product I have never had anyone ask so far "am I on speaker phone?" or "are you driving?". The speaker is loud and clear. What is nice too is that the speaker volume is kept at the same volume of your last conversation, unlike other Bluetooth speaker phones I've tested where not having this feature can be quite annoying.

I have to apologize but I was not able to use my turn by turn directions on my gps enable phone yet so I am sorry to disappoint those who are thinking of purchasing this just for that purpose, nor have I tested out the Parrot's ability to play those turn by turn directions through your car's radio or stream your phone's music through the car's radio also. I will test those features in the near future and will post an update soon. Until then, I hope this review helps in making a decision to spend $100+ on this device. In my opinion, if you drive a lot, and use your gps feature on your phone a lot, which drains battery quicker than anything else, the Parrot Minikit Smart is a perfect option for the discerning buyer.