Mac|Life Kensington RSS Feed

Kensington Hands-Free Visor Car Kit for iPhone and Bluetooth Phones

Zack Stern — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:34:00 -0500

Your iPhone already has a speakerphone mode, letting you drive and talk (or wait, on hold) without lifting a finger. Realistically, however, we try to avoid using the phone’s speaker mode because call recipients are treated to the classic “I’m calling you from a speakerphone” audio quality—not to mention the fact that it’s not totally legal in many places, since the iPhone’s touchscreen doesn’t work for no-look dialing. Kensington’s add-on Hands-Free Visor Car Kit for iPhone includes several great one-touch dialing features, and its audio quality roughly matches that of the iPhone handset.

Several large front buttons make the Kensington device look like a sleek garage opener; it’s even designed to hang from your sun visor. At about the same footprint and twice the girth of an iPhone, we could easily leave it clipped to our visor after parking or carry it inside.

In our fantasies, Kensington's Car Kit makes speakerphone calls and opens your garage door too.

Up to three Bluetooth phones can work with the Car Kit, making it an uncommon, multiuser Bluetooth device. It takes a minute to first pair the phones—say yours and a spouse’s—then the device automatically connects when a paired phone is in range. If it doesn’t make the connection, a button toggles between registered phones in sequence.

The device remembers three speed-dial preferences for each handset too. After you place a call, you’ll hold one of those buttons a moment to record the number within the Car Kit. You don’t even need to touch your iPhone to call that person back; just hit one of those big buttons. We easily made calls without fumbling with our iPhone’s touchscreen—although you can still dial out that way, if you prefer.

The Car Kit’s battery power will outlast your iPhone’s. We talked for hours without bottoming out. Kensington says the Car Kit will run for ten hours of talk-time in one go. But that rating hardly matters, since the kit includes an extra battery and USB and 9-volt chargers. The device can’t draw power directly from your car’s 9-volt charger, but you should always have a fresh battery to swap in.

We placed many calls to unsuspecting mobile and landline contacts, only later revealing our Folger’s Choice–style quality survey. Most people thought the speakerphone connection sounded about as good as—or better than—our typical iPhone calls. However, a few friends couldn’t understand us well until we switched back to the iPhone mid-call. (We called them back with the same results.) Without exception, we heard everyone clearly from the speakerphone. After listening to our call recordings, we thought the Car Kit microphone sounded perfectly intelligible, although the iPhone handset created slightly deeper and fuller sound in a direct comparison.

Kensington SlimBlade Presenter Mouse

Stephan Somogyi — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 03:13:00 -0600

It clicks! It scrolls! It rocks your Keynote.

Trackpads are all well and good, but sometimes when you’re working from a laptop, only a real mouse will do. And if you frequently use PowerPoint or Keynote, a presentation remote quickly evolves from luxury to necessity. Kensington’s SlimBlade Presenter Mouse is a well-conceived multitasker that delivers the features of both in one compact device.

The unit is a compact Bluetooth device that doesn’t need a separate USB dongle, thanks to your Mac’s onboard Bluetooth radio. Pairing was straightforward—although Mac OS X’s Bluetooth Setup Assistant got confused initially, because the SlimBlade looks like both mouse and a keyboard to your Mac.

The SlimBlade Presenter doesn’t have a dedicated on/off switch, instead, Kensington touts the device’s advanced power-saving technology that automatically wakes and sleeps the mouse. We found this to be a mixed blessing—the mouse tended to power itself on inside a laptop bag while we worked on our MacBook Pro. While it’s possible to switch it on and off with a long press of the SlimBlade’s mode key, the power can also be inadvertently activated inside a bag or suitcase.

As a presentation remote, the SlimBlade Presenter performed well, though we occasionally wished it also included a laser pointer. Switching between mouse and presenter modes is a simple matter of pressing the mode button twice, and the mouse’s arrow LEDs flash to acknowledge the change. Slides advance and reverse as one would expect, and pressing the scrollwheel blanks out the screen.

Kensington Battery Pack and Charger for iPhone and iPod

Jason Whong — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 03:35:00 -0500

Portable power, in regular
Click image to enbiggen

We’ve all been there: You’re away from home, your iPhone is dead, and you really need to call someone. Or maybe you just hopped on the bus, and the only empty seat is next to that lady who talks to everyone—and your iPod just ran out of juice. Kensington’s battery packs can come to your rescue, recharging a dead iPhone or iPod without the need for a really, really long extension cord.

The larger version comes with an AC adapter and a USB cable, so it can be charged from a wall outlet or from a powered USB port. An array of five blue LEDs progressively lights up to indicate that the battery is charging, and a test button lights the array to indicate the charge percentage. Connecting it to an iPhone was cumbersome in a tight space, however, because the connector cable is more than 3 feet long. Fully charged, the larger battery pack will keep the tunes flowing for up to 100 hours—or ten hours of iPhone talk time.

...and Mini-Me.

The Mini holds about a third of the charge of the larger version and comes with a retractable USB cable for charging. It’s missing a test button for gauging remaining power when it’s not connected to your iPod and doesn’t include an AC adapter. Limitations aside, the Mini battery pack fits elegantly onto the end of an iPod or iPhone, eliminating the need for a separate, unwieldy cable. Ultimately, this made the Mini a much more pleasant traveling companion than its larger sibling.

Both units charged our iPods and iPhone as we expected. The larger battery pack weighs in at just under 4 ounces, and the Mini version tips the scales at 1.6 ounces, making either convenient for your carry-on bag or backpack.