By November 12, 2006

Review: Brodit car kit for MDA Compact and M3100

Tracy recently got a new car and wanted a car holder for her T-Mobile MDA Compact.

I had a look around on the web and came across the same name over and over: Brodit.

Brodit, a Swedish company, manufacture high quality car holders for mobile devices ranging from mobile phones to MP3 players and satellite navigation units. Where Brodit differ from other manufacturers is that their system employs a two stage design.

 

Brodit car kit

Brodit Car Kit

First you select the mounting platform, ProClip, that is right for your vehicle. There is a ProClip platform for almost every make and model of vehicle and in most cases there are multiple mounting locations. Brodit’s website has an extensive search tool that allows you to locate your car by make, model and year. Both left and right hand drive vehicles are supported.

Once you have chosen your ProClip mount you simply select the correct holder for your device. Again almost every manufacturer is supported from Acer to Zayo. You can also choose Passive Holders, if you just want to mount your device, or an Active Holder if you want to charge the device from the car cigarette lighter socket.

This flexible approach allows for many thousands of combinations. Tracy opted for the centre mount for her car and an Active Holder as she wanted to charge the battery on her MDA while she was driving.

Brodit Centre Mount

The ProClip and MDA holder turned up after just a few days. Tracy just needed me to fit it in her car.

I must admit that I put the job off for a while thinking that it would be difficult to do, however when I got around to fitting it I was really surprised at how easy it was!

Brodit’s ProClip mounts work without having to make holes in the dashboard, there are no screws holding them on. Fitting is so simple a trained monkey could do it! (I’m living proof of this!!)

In the kit you will find a small wedge shaped piece of plastic. This is your ‘Gap Opener’. You insert the gap opener between the dash and the air vent and open up a space large enough to insert one end of the ProClip. Once in place you remove the gap opener.

Gap Opener

You repeat this procedure for the bottom of the ProClip, this time inserting the wedge between the air vent and the radio. Again, once the mount is in place you can remove the gap opener. That two minute procedure takes care of fitting the ProClip!

Gap Opener

All you have to do then is to screw the device holder to the ProClip mounting platform. I found it a lot easier to do this before I fitted the ProClip in place but Brodit suggest that you do this after.

The whole procedure took less than 5 minutes and the results are great. Tracy loves the mount, and the location is perfect, you barely have to take your eyes off the road to look at the phone display. She did say that she struggled to get the phone in the holder to begin with as getting the miniUSB connector to line up with the phone was tricky, but now that she is used to it, it goes in first time, every time.

MDA Holder Holder with MDA in place

After fitting the holder in Tracy’s car I decided to get one for mine. My car already had an old Nokia holder fitted and it still had the metal bracket in place. So I only needed the holder for my SPV M3100, I didn’t need the ProClip.

Fitting the mount in my car was again a piece of cake. I just screwed the holder to the existing metal bracket. Simple.

Hermes Car Holder

Since fitting these holders to my car I have fitted holders to 3 other cars for work colleagues. None have taken longer than 10 minutes to fit. The quality of these kits is such that they fit perfectly first time. Anyone thinking about fitting a car kit should go straight to Brodit, don’t be afraid to fit one of these, it’s simplicity itself and what’s more they fit without damaging your car which means you can remove them without a trace should you need to.

The other advantage of Brodit car kits is the modular design. If you buy a new device you simply need to replace one the holder and fit this to the existing ProClip.

I just can’t fault it! Check out Brodit’s Website or the UK Distributor, Clove, for more information.

Matt

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About the Author:

More than 20 years in the IT industry. Blogging with a passion and thirst for new technology since 2005.
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