Parrot Bluetooth Minikit: Your Phone, Handsfree and Wireless
Pretty much every decent phone these days offers Bluetooth. We won’t explain it in great detail, but suffice it to say that a good Bluetooth device can be worth it’s weight in gold. In many states, such as California, drivers are now required to stay off of the cellphone while driving- making a hands free set a legal requirement.
Parrot’s Bluetooth Minikit Chic goes one or two steps further. Not only can it pair up with multiple devices (a great and seldom-offered feature), it offers voice dialing that actually works. When you first setup and synch the device, it downloads your contacts, and then recognizes them when you say them in the future. In our tests, it took very little for the phone to recognize even some difficult names. The unit also offers volume and sound quality that belies it’s fairly small size and lack of obvious speaker, and a nice (if slightly girly) design.
We wish it had other covers/custimzation options, and the battery life definitely could be better. But it can charge directly from your car’s 12V plug, and is light and easy to move around but still easy to clip to a visor or lay on a desk. Sound cancellation is also built-in, and pretty good if not as sophisticated as some others (or necessary, since you likely won’t be walking around).
Now, we can leave our iPhones plugged in to an outlet or the computer while using the Minikit to talk from the other room (or while still in bed). The Parrot Minikit is one item that you may not realize you want until you use it for a while- and then it becomes nearly indispensable.
