Alternatives to the TomTom iPhone Car Kit

Andy Simpson

With pricing now confirmed for the TomTom iPhone Car Kit at £99.99 without the Sat Nav Application, it makes the whole package a little expensive at just under £160 – especially when you consider that you can buy a fully functional stand alone TomTom GPS unit for less than £120.

Now, don’t get me wrong, TomTom do make great Sat Nav systems, but I’m really not convinced that their iPhone offering is really worth the £160 that they’re asking for it. The car cradle is a clever bit of kit, but there are other devices out there that will do the same thing. The main features of the TomTom Car Cradle are:

  • Charges your iPhone
  • Ability to play your music through your car stereo
  • Built in speaker for handsfree calling
  • GPS Enhancer
  • Volume controls

I’ve spent a bit of time this week searching out the best alternatives to the pricey TomTom set up and here’s what I found:

Option 1 – Jabra SP700

It’s not all in one like the TomTom, but this set up is less than half the price! CoPilot Live is a great alternative to TomTom. The software has been around for years on Windows Mobile devices and is the pre-installed mapping application on most T-Mobile and O2 smartphones. Feature wise it does everything that TomTom does, but for a lot less money. It’s currently rated as a 4 star app on the iTunes App store, compared to 3 stars for the TomTom app.  The Sat Nav starter pack for iPhone includes a compact, rotating windscreen holder for your iPhone and a car charger. If you’ve already tried using GPS on the iPhone in your car, you’ll know necessary a  car charger is. Having the screen on permanently and locking on to a GPS signal drains the battery quite quickly. The Jabra SP700 is much more than just a standard Bluetooth speaker phone. It has a built in FM transmitter that can stream music, calls and directions from your iPhone through to your car stereo using Bluetooth.

copilot-starter-sp700

Use the Sat Nav Starter Pack and Jabra SP700 to get the most out of CoPilot Live

Option 2 – Venturi Mini

Navigon was the first Sat Nav app for the iPhone, and its relatively low price made it incredibly popular. On iTunes it’s currently rated as a 3 and a half star app, so better than TomTom, but not quite as high as CoPilot Live. The iPhone Car Pack includes a robust, adjustable holder that can hold your iPhone in almost any position as well as a car charger to keep your phone fully charged. The Venturi Mini is a Bluetooth car kit that is designed to fit in your cigarette lighter permanently. To charge your iPhone, you just need to connect your existing iPhone USB cable to the USB port on the side of the Venturi. The Venturi works in a similar way to the Jabra SP700.  It connects to your phone using Bluetooth and will then stream your music, calls and sat nav directions through to your car stereo using its built in FM transmitter. If your car stereo has a line in/aux in connection, you can connect the Venturi to it using a 3.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable (the same as the TomTom Cradle).

carpack-venturi-navigon

Venturi Mini & iPhone Car Pack

Option 3 – Parrot MKi9000 Fully Fitted Kit

This set up isn’t so much about saving money compared to the TomTom kit, more a case of showing you how much more you could get for the same sort of price. Without doubt, you’ll always get better audio quality using a fully fitted car kit than you would with a portable one. The Parrot MKi range of car kits have been designed with iPods and iPhones in mind and they work almost seamlessly. The MKi9000 kit is fitted behind your dashboard and is completely out of sight.  There is a multi connector cable that has a USB port, 3.5mm headphone jack and an Apple Dock connector. This cable connects your iPhone to the car kit and will route call audio, music and directions through your car stereo at the same time as charging it. The Brodit holder that I’ve suggested here has a dock connector on the bottom too, so you can connect this cable to it, then whenever you slide your phone into the holder it will connect to the car kit without having to mess around with cables. If you’d rather not use cables, then you can use the kit over a bluetooth connection and get the same functionality from it. A small remote can be attached to your dashboard or steering wheel and can be used to answer/end calls as well as play/ pause music and activate voice dialling (Voice dialling is feature of the MKi9000 and will work with all models of iPhone). The prices shown here don’t include installation and vehicles without an ISO stereo may need additional cables.

copilot-brodit-mki9000

Co-Pilot works well with the Parrot Mki9000

All three of these solutions work great with the iPhone and any of the available Sat Nav applications available for the iPhone, including the TomTom App.  You’ll find more information on each of the Sat Nav Apps on the App Store within iTunes or on your iPhone. To give you a clear idea on the differences between the TomTom Kit and the other options mentioned here, I’ve put a chart together to show the main differences.

Features Venturi Mini Parrot MKi
Charges iPhone
Plays Music through Stereo
Hands Free Calling
GPS Enhancer
Volume Controls
Holds phone in Landscape
Music Controls
External Microphone
Optional

All Prices correct as of 30/09/09 and are subject to change.

8 thoughts on “Alternatives to the TomTom iPhone Car Kit”

  1. Pingback: tomtom iPhone cradle or alternative? - Mobile Fun Forums

  2. I’ve been using my iPhone 3G with Co-Pilot live since it launched, and to be honest have found it fine for turn by turn with the built in gps. Never been misguided or missed a turn from it.

  3. These all seem fine but what the Iphone really needs is a stand alone bluetooth GPS antenna to improve the single as the one in the Iphone is just not up to the job and as you said the TomTom solution is just not cost effective.

    Without a seperate GPS device the Iphone is actually useless as a turn by turn navigation system.

  4. Pingback: TomTom – Mounting confusion? « CoPilot Live UK Blog

  5. This review is great.
    I personally can’t wait to buy the Tomtom’s car kit because one reason that hasn’t been mentioned here. For iphones 2G and ipods that doesnt have GPs included, the tomtom car kit is pretty much the only option at the moment.
    Cheers,
    Oscar

  6. First class review….Offering services like this is why I keep returning, oh, and your mailing list, which forced me to buy a Beyza case today, did I save 10% or spend 90%, not quite sure lol

  7. Thanks for that Frank, our products team are trying to source this now and we’ll have it available shortly.

    Andy

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