» Kensington LiquidAUX Auxiliary Car Kit with Remote for iPod; iPhone 1G, 3G

Kensington LiquidAUX Auxiliary Car Kit with Remote for iPod; iPhone 1G, 3G Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Very nice if you pair it with a noise filter--otherwise don't bother
Comment: Of course the ability to charge and listen to your iPod or iPhone is a great idea. One big reason I wanted this particular product was to eliminate excess wires. I got it for Christmas, and once I got it in the car, I immediately had problems with the high-pitched whirring noise that accompanies the engine. From reading the other posts, this is a problem in MANY other cars. I don't know if that's this product's fault, or my VW beetle's fault. Anyway, I bought a PAC SNI-1/3.5 Noise Filter from Crutchfield, and it completely took care of the problem. Unfortunately, there's now an excess of wires, but it sounds great.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: I don't know what to say... I hate it, but think it is great
Comment: The biggest this thing has going for it is that it is the only thing like it. I have searched and searched and nothing comes close to this. If anyone has something like it I would love to know.

The LiquidAUX works great with iPods. It only uses one connection on the bottom of the iPod. This give several benefits. One, less cords and hassle; no longer do you need a cord for the power and one for the headphone jack. Second, the sound quality of the dock connector is measurably better than the headphone jack. Seriously, if you are listening to music on a stereo system through the headphone jack...it's just brain damage. Through the dock connector is near CD quality, there are scientific reviews that prove this point as well.

The Bad.

I own an iPhone 3G. This barely works with it. Half the time there is a message on the screen that says it is not compatible with iPhone. It still functions, but I can only get the remote to work about 10% of the time. It so rarely works that I just put it in the glovebox.

Even with that, I still think it is worth the cash to get the great sound quality and charger.

The Bad.

This thing will fall apart much sooner than you hoped. It is barely put together. The charger portion falls out of the cigarette lighter all the time. The dock portion broke in half after a month. You can put it back together easy enough, though. After a while of this it got so loose that it started to work intermittently. It will charge for 2 seconds and stop for three. You won't notice it when not listening to music, but after a week your battery is toast.

So, you're thinking I got a bad one. Well as I said before, I love it; so much so that after the first fell apart I bought another. That's 2 in less than 6 months.

All the same troubles with the second. I will most likely be on my third before the end of the month.

Come on Griffin, get on your version for iPhone!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Doesn't work with all iPods
Comment: I was originally told that this worked with my 3rd generation iPod but that was wrong. The first unit I received had a defective remote but the second unit seems to work fine (with my iPhone 3G).

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Customer Rating:
Summary: good but comparability issue with iPhone 3G
Comment: I love it when it works. I bought a ground loop isolated with it and the sound quality is perfect.

the only problem is that I get the error that this accesory is not compatible with the iPhone sometimes.

if I get this message, the remote will not function, so you have to unplug it and plug it back untill this message doesn't pop up.
if the remote doesnt bother you that much for this reason then you will love it w

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A little confusing at first, but it works well
Comment: A new era of manual concepts: a series of sketches you are supposed to find completely helpful... NOT. It took some guessing and tinkering to figure out the battery insertion process. And, why is it that iPhone 3G compliant products (as claimed) cause the iPhone to say "this is not compatible with the iPhone" when you plug it in? Hmmm...

After some tinkering, I got it working. At first, the remote control did not work, so I tried putting the battery in the other way. No dice. When I reversed it again, it was working.

It seems to work fine, although you are warned by the iPhone that the phone signal will interfere with the audio. During my tests, I did not notice this problem, but then I did not receive or make a phone call.

The buttons attach securely to the steering wheel, and if you position it appropriately, is fairly handy to access. What I could not seem to get to work in a sensible manner is the shuffle button. I could get it into shuffle (you have to stop playing, and return the iPhone to the album list - at least that is how I got it to work), but I could not get it out of shuffle mode (without unplugging from power and the iPhone, and then replugging). Probably something simple - I just gave up trying to figure it out. This gets back to the non-manual described above. No real information about how the product is supposed to work, but pages of useless warranty info.

Anyway, if you play around, you will probably figure out how shuffle is supposed to work. For me, it was enough to get shuffle going, and then use the play/stop, next and previous buttons to control the music.

Conclusion: lousy manual, but simple enough so you can get it to work with a little effort. Once you have made it through that, it just works.

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