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| Date Reviewed: 06/23/2007 |
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Strengths: Very good voice clairity both sending and receiving, long battery life and great portability. Comes with both AC and DC chargers.
Weaknesses: Portable hands free units are still in their adolescence. There is plenty of room for improvement by manufacturers.
Summary: I’m not very good at talking on the phone and driving at the same time so for the safety of others around me I purchased this to keep me in my lane. Since I spend a lot of time behind the windshield and need to manage my team, I have found this to be a dependable device to pair with my Treo 700w (Verizon).
The voice clarity is very good and I’ve had little complaints about how I sound to others. As long as the windows are closed, everyone who I converse with say that I’m coming in loud and clear but they can tell that I’m on a speaker phone. Highway speeds are only a problem if the road surface becomes rough in my company issued Ford 500. In reading previous reviews, I would gather that road noise could be a problem depending on the type of car you use, the road surface you’re on, and the type of tires on the car.
I also like the portability to take along at a sales meeting. It’s come in handy more than once when conducting sales transactions with our main office when the customer didn’t have a speakerphone enabled landline in their office or meeting room.
The initial set up was a bit tedious but not impossible and I found that their website provided better guidance over the supplied owner’s manual.
I purchased the Parrot over competitor models based on reviews from this site and what my colleagues own. Overall, I’m quite satisfied with the Parrot MINIKIT and would highly recommend it to others.
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| Date Reviewed: 08/10/2007 |
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Strengths: Ease of use, clarity speaking and hearing, interactivity with LG phones features
Weaknesses: none
Summary: After having using bluetooth ear devices and corded hands free devices with little successes, either people couldn't hear me well, or I couldn't hear them, or the items didn't work all the time, I found this device on line, called the 800 number and got good advice from the sales rep.
It works very well. People can hear me and I can hear them with no problems. It interacts well with my LG phone which has voice command. Perhaps best was their customer service line, who saved me the trouble of uploading my contacts to the device, saying the voice coommand would work directly, which it did. Documentation didn't say to, or indicate how to turn on device, so pairing it didn't work at first, which is why I called customer service. Felt like a moron, but CSR was great, and really knew all the products.
100% of People (5/5) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 09/23/2007 |
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Strengths: Portable, Very clear sound, both send and receive, voice tags work much better than my Motorola E815 phone.
Weaknesses: No indication of when the thing is connected to your phone.
Summary: I've been using the Minikit for about two weeks and it is exactly what I wanted when I ordered it...clear, small,simple, and a good value. It was tricky to set up because my phone will not "send" a contact via bluetooth. I found, however that I could use My Palm TX to send the contacts and it was very easy. The setup takes a little getting used to but you only have to do it once. I would recommend this to anyone who wants a low priced unit with good sound and ease of use. The only caution I would have is to ensure that you have a way to send contacts either from your phone or from a PDA. The unit would be useless to me without the voice tags.
100% of People (4/4) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 01/28/2007 |
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Strengths: -small & lightweight
-great battery life
-great audio quality & volume under most conditions
-easy pairing with BT enabled phone
Weaknesses: -control dial/button a little flimsy, comes off easily if not careful
-audio quality suffers when driving at highway speeds (engine & road noises)
-configuring voice recognition is a task
Summary: I decided on the Parrot Minikit as I wanted a non-hardwired handsfree for my car, and I'm not a fan of wearing Bluetooth headsets. Sound quality and battery like were influencing factors for me.
The Minikit arrived well packaged, with all required parts (car & home charger, visor clip, and well written instructions. It is quite compact (easily portable)and has a nice simple design to it.
After initially charging the battery, which was fast, the Minikit had no trouble pairing with my Motorola E815 BT phone. Setting up the most basic voice commands for the Minikit's built-in voice recognition went smoothly, and it was up an running in no time. The device has a female voice built in, and users can select from several languages.
In the car, at normal city driving speeds with windows closed, I found the Minikit's volume to be loud and clear, with no cutting out or clipping during a conversation. The parties on the other end claim that they can tell it must be a handsfree speakerphone device, as they pick up some of the background noises. However, they don't complain of any echo or clipping, and conversations are easy to carry out.
However, at higher highway speeds, sound quality decreases. You can turn up the Minikit's volume on your end, but the audio on the other end of the call becomes muffled, under the road, wind & engine noises. Still comprehensible as per the other parties, but more noisy.
This becomes problematic (at higher speeds) if using your phone's voice recognition - because of the increased noise, the phone has trouble understanding the voice commands. To remedy this, the Minikit has its own built in voice recognition. But, in order to setup this feature, you must transfer the contacts from you phone, using the Object Push Bluetooth profile, then you must record the voicetag to assocaiate it with that number. Since my phone does not have this transfer feature enabled with my cell provider, I cannot transfer my phone's phone book to the Minikit. This is a bit of a disappointment.
The other minor nuisance is the power saving mode of the Minikit. If it doesn't detect a Bluetooth connection after a little while, it shuts itself down. The Minikit should be pairing with your phone as soon as you get into the car (which it does most of the time), but lets say you take your phone with you when running some errands - if you take too long, you'll find that the Minikit has turned itself when you return to the car, and must be manually powered on once again. Parrot should address this, and hopefully with a revised firmware the user can decide on how much time goes by before the Minikit shuts off when no link is detected. Battery life is exceptional - 2 weeks since my last charge with 'normal' usage, and still going strong. The fact that they supply 2 chargers is a plus.
Other than that, the control button is a little on the flimsy side, twice already it has popped right off when putting it in my pocket to bring it in for the night. Not a major problem for me, but it might be if if came off and it was then lost.
All in all, if you want to get away from the bug looking BT headsets sticking out of your ear, or an aftermarket hardwired hands-free unit, the Minikit by Parrot should definitely be on your short list, despite some if its quirks.
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| Date Reviewed: 01/11/2007 |
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Strengths: Relaibility and predictability.
Weaknesses: None
Summary: The Parrot MINIKIT pairs with my LG Chocolate cell phone with 100 percent reliability. Its standby battery life is so long that I forgot it periodically needs to be recharged and was mildly surprised when it advised me to do so. The quality of sound is great and its volume more than adequately produces understandable conversation above the somewhat loud cabin noise my auto has. The voice-dialing feature does not work with my phone model, but I knew this in advance and can still use the voice-dialing feature that is built into the phone. I would like to see an upgrade to the MINIKIT’s software that would allow the phone’s MP-3 player to broadcast music through the MINIKIT when it’s on standby sitting on my office desk. Bottom Line ~ The MINIKIT is the best product available in it’s class and I highly recommend that others purchase it.
86% of People (6/7) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 07/25/2007 |
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 Parrot portable Bluetooth MINIKIT Strengths: NA
Weaknesses: NA
Summary: It works, but it have a lot of echo and if you are hearing challenged, don't bother getting this, I have sold it and getting in ear BT headset solution.
50% of People (1/2) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 01/30/2007 |
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Some features are way behind than that of Easydrive
Strengths: Portable, good voice quality, can be used elsewhere other than the car.
Weaknesses: Voice tags lacking, shuts down when looses connection
Summary: 2007-01-30 15:27:50 Parrot designers tell that the automatically shutting down of Minikit when it doesn't see any device connected for some time has been implemented to save the battery energy. However, it is really disgusting to be obliged to remember to turn the device on each time you come back to the car; it should rather be a question of the user to choose between a shorter or a longer stand-by time. I bought a total of 5 units as a present for my wife and a couple of friends. They all complained about this matter. I had to exchange the Easydrive kit in my car with my wife's minikit because she complained so much.
On the other hand, this unit lacks the voice tags to hang on and off. Therefore, you have to press the button if you want to use the voiceprint call function of the device or to answer or reject a call. That means you have to take your eyes away from the road and one hand away from the steering wheel to start a voiceprint call or accept a call. I am a surgeon and want to use the complete hands-free voice commands while I am at the operation wearing sterile gloves. It is a disgrace for Parrot engineers to fall way behind the features of the nearly three years old Easydrive kit.
33% of People (4/12) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 02/09/2008 |
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Strengths: Easy setup and works as advertised
Weaknesses: No LCD display, not cheap
Summary: I was looking at different types of hands free devices and finally decided on a portable one instead of built-in device because I want to carry it with me when going on a trip. This parrot got good reviews so I gave it a shot. Setup was easy. After charging I was able to get it to work with my Samsung upstage in a few minutes, and I'm happy with the sound quality. Now it's a lot safer for me to talk while driving, consider I drive a stick! It's a worthy investment.
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| Date Reviewed: 08/26/2008 |
- NoSubstitute
- Member Since:
Jul 2008
View Member's:
Reviews
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 Big Bird Strengths: Gets good reviews
Weaknesses: Humongous
Summary: We ordered a couple of these things, thinking they would be about the size of a Genie garage door opener and would attach unobtrusively to the driver's sun visor. Wrong. The Minikit is anything but mini; it's huge.
We sent them back unopened and bought a pair of Jawbones instead. A bit inconvenient to have to put them on and take them off, but they work great.
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| Date Reviewed: 08/18/2008 |
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bluetooth speaker phone OK
Strengths: Alternative to a ear piece device
Voice tag recognition--states who is calling
Weaknesses: Inconsistent volume, Volume between ringer, and voice different, phone volume sometimes poor.
Call waiting creates problems with connection
Summary: I thought this would be a good solution since I didn't want to wear a earpiece. I find that it is OK for talking every now and then or emergencies, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone who talks a lot. There seems to be a lot of quirks between the volume of the phone and the device. An example is the dial tone is low but the ringer is super high. There is a volume for the minikit dial tone and voice, but the ringer is controlled by your phone volume. I haven't had any complaints of people being able to hear me. If you have a vehicle that has a loud road environment I'd pass on this product.
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| Date Reviewed: 07/28/2008 |
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Strengths: I don't have to wear anything in my ear. Clear sound
Weaknesses: shuts itself down after you are away for a while forcing you to turn on the unit every time you get in the car.
Summary: This is a nice unit and I am very happy I bought it. I wish it had an "always on" feature so that I would not have to turn it on every time I get in the car.
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| Date Reviewed: 06/26/2008 |
- oc_03
- Member Since:
Jun 2008
View Member's:
Reviews
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Strengths: Easy to hear and easy to use. Long lasting battery.
Weaknesses: None.
Summary: Works great. I purchased two - one for me and one for my husband. He had been using a company one for about a month and we decided we wanted to get one before the new law went into place on July 1.
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