Parrot Displays the 3400 LS-GPS Bluetooth Car Kit at CES

[Mike Temporale]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.parrot.biz/products/index.php?id=3400' target='_blank'>http://www.parrot.biz/products/index.php?id=3400</a><br /><br /></div><img src="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/images/Temporale-20050106-Parrot3400GPS.jpg" alt="User submitted image" title="User submitted image"/> <br /><br />Parrot has officially launched their 3400 LS-GPS unit in Las Vegas at CES yesterday. The 3400 sports a nice color TFT screen, built-in GPS, and Bluetooth for connecting with Smartphone. Audio directions are played back through your cars speakers and the color screen can also be used for displaying caller ID or phonebook information. The Parrot will automatically connect to your phone once you place it in the cradle and start your cars engine! Very cool. I could toss my Bluetooth ear piece, my Bluetooth GPS, and my awkward cradle too. :D Parrot doesn't list Windows Mobile as a compatible OS, but I've been told that it works with every OS. However, they have yet to finish testing it on Windows Mobile.

[hotdram]

Cool but:
- Do I really want/need the audio over my car stereo (personally no)
- Do I want another screen to look at/do I "need" to see a picture of who is calling? (personally no)
- Do I want to have another unit that big? (again, no)

~Rob

[Darius Wey]

It's nice, but I'm not sure if I could swallow the thought of paying $399 for its privileges. 8O

[Global Mobility!]

I concur with hotdram. The unit is simply too large, and would have been best to be able to integrate with normal car dashes to keep it looking as OEM as possible (their earlier version did a good job of that -- older BMW Mini used something very similar).

If someone is going to use it for navigation, I would suspect that they would be using a Smartphone device rather than a PDA in most cases and having an incoming call showing the name/picture of the caller on two displays in a car is very redundant indeed. An all-in-one Smartphone with integrated GPS will do the trick such as the HP HW Series. A powered car mount with a larger speaker would also be a good investment.

$400? Why not just pay another $200 and get yourself a TomTom GO 700 that includes a nice large display with US/Canada maps, excellent car mounting capabilities, and BT connectivity to your phone? With this scenario, you can simply just keep your phone in your pocket/holster/purse/etc. Bad part is that if you don't take your TT off the mount when you step out of the car, you're asking for someone to break in.

[James Sonne]

That's the largest version Parrot offers. They do offer them with the same functionality but without the display. It comes with the GPS antenna, wired, so you don't need the bluetooth GPS. Bluetooth is to connect to your phone so that it can display your route and to also transfer the sound from a phonecall to the car speakers.

I have this smaller version. It works great, especially since I have a manual transmission.