Samsung Galaxy Note Vehicle Dock Kit review

We all know quite how big the Samsung Galaxy Note is. A car dock for such a beast is also going to have to be pretty sizeable. When the Vehicle Dock arrived I was shocked, the box was massive, what on earth had I ordered? Luckily upon opening the box I was pleasantly surprised to find the following:

• Windscreen suction mount
• Galaxy Note vehicle dock
• Cigarette lighter micro usb charger
• Instructions in lots of different languages

Design

The design of the mount is pretty basic, the suction mount and the dock are both made from fairly tough plastic, with the dock having a nice grippy coating in the corners. The mount does have a useful dial on the back to adjust the force needed to move the dock around and to adjust the angle of the dock. Another nice touch is the micro usb on the dock, it obviously charges the Galaxy Note but it also help to lock the Note in place as well. It also engages car dock mode which keeps the screen on whilst docked. Having the dock charge your device whilst docked is great. Nothing kills your battery more than a bit of Sat Nav action.

One useful addition to the dock is a audio out port, which allows you to plug a male-male 3.5mm audio cable from the dock straight into you stereo system. So you can have your Sat Nav voice prompts playing over your stereo or you can play your music directly into your cars sound system.

Setup

Setup was quite easy once you had figured out how the parts connected. Once it is all joined together you need to adjust the dial to change the force needed to move the dock around, too loose and it keeps falling down and too tight and you can’t adjust the angle at any point. The Note will NOT fit if you use a case or extended battery, so you are going to have to strip off any cases to fit it in. The power and audio connections are nice and simple being round the back though you will need to connect to these before you attach the whole thing to the windscreen. The suction pad is nice and strong and just did the job no fuss.

Conclusion

I will be mainly using my dock for streaming music. A combination of my Giff Gaff sim, Google Music, TuneIn Radio, my micro sd card and an FM Transmitter will make this possible. The dock will also get used for easily making calls whilst driving and of course a bit of Sat Nav as well.

The good thing about this dock is that the prices have started to drop on official Samsung accesories in light of the upcoming Note 2. I got mine from Amazon here, no doubt if you shop  around you may find it cheaper.

If you have a Note and you are looking for a car dock then this is ideal, it fits perfectly, has extra features like audio out and car dock mode and getting everything in the box together is another plus point. It’s a shame if you use a flip case or something that you can’t use it, car dock have been like this for ages though, I’ve had several over the years that I’ve had to take the case off beforehand. You soon get used to it.