The i.Trek Powered Cradle Mount with Powered Speaker

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I recently purchased the i.Trek Powered Cradle Mount with Powered Speaker from Semsons (http://www.semsons.com/ipocrmowiins18.html). It arrived today and I wanted to jot down my first impressions. By the way, My Sprint Mogul is running the leaked 3.16 ROM and radio. So, I use the internal GPS for navigation. I bought the cradle/mount so that I could use my Mogul like a TomTom / Garmin / etc.

I purchased the cradle with the standard mounting kit and the RJ-11 to 4mm DC cable. It also came with a car adapter. The standard mounting kit includes 1 windshield mount (suction cup and flexible arm), 1 adhesive disc, and 1 vent clip adapter.

The windshield mounting arm seems very stiff and stable. I could not get the suction cup to disconnect from the window without flipping the release switch. I have not tried the vent clip, but it seems like it would attach to most vent configurations as the clips can attach to vertical or horizontal vents.

I was disappointed to see that the car adapter is not a mini-usb connection. You have to plug the car adapter into the cradle and dock the Mogul in the cradle to charge it. On that note, there is a switch on the side of the cradle that turns the charger on and off so that if the Mogul is fully charged, you can still use the speaker without sending power to the mogul's charging port.

The speaker on the cradle seems plenty loud. Unfortunately, there isn't a hardware volume adjustment for the built-in speaker. If you are driving a loud vehicle, you may have a little trouble hearing the speaker, but in my Buick sedan, I had no problems.

The dock has an RJ-11 port that you can use the included cable with to charge a GPS adapter. It also has an audio-in connection, however, the cradle does not come with a cable or microphone for audio-in. I believe this is a serious omission on i.Trek's part.

When docked, my Mogul played all of its audio through the cradle's speaker. As I said before, the volume was very adequate. However, I could not give any voice commands to MS Voice Command and callers could not hear me. I turned on Bluetooth and used my Jaw Bone headset and got the same results. Audio would come through the headset momentarily, switch back to the speaker on the cradle, and the caller could not hear me.

For some reason, plugging the Mogul into the cradle disables all microphones. I can only assume this is because the phone expects something to be plugged into the audio-in port on the cradle. This may become a serious problem for me as I take a lot of calls from the car. I have to undock the phone from the cradle to make or take a phone call. This is annoying, to say the least.

If anyone knows of a registry hack that will play audio through the speaker, but keep my Bluetooth headset active, please post it here or PM me. I would be very grateful.

I have taken some pictures of the dock and will post them soon. I hope this helps you make a decision about your purchase.

Sorry about the poor quality pics. I took them with my phone (kind of ironic, eh?).

so it does have an audio out and audio in. hmmm. i think you can get the clip on mic from seido for about 12 bucks. i may have to order this and an adaptor (stupid aftermarket proprietary plug required) for my radio and give it a shot.

all in all an external mic may be easier than using bluetooth and cause less of a problem <shrug>.

good luck and thanks for the pics.

Is that RJ11 to dc to power the cradle from a phone jack so you could use it as a charger in say a hotel room?

Originally Posted by mogul67

Is that RJ11 to dc to power the cradle from a phone jack so you could use it as a charger in say a hotel room?

No, they use the RJ-11 cable to charge a stand-alone GPS receiver. It has nothing to do with a land-line telephone.

This thing is a piece of crap.

It takes two hands to get the phone in or out. The sound from the audio output is horrible.

Save your money.

Originally Posted by rangie

This thing is a piece of crap.

It takes two hands to get the phone in or out. The sound from the audio output is horrible.

Save your money.

Getting the phone into the cradle is definitely a pain in the neck. If you don't get it lined up just right, it won't dock. You would think they could have fit it to the phone a little better.