Suggestion on Best 3G car charger .

Griffin PowerJolt.

Best car charge I have ever owned and it is carried/stocked in the Apple Stores.

$19.95

This is a great question, because it's hard to evaluate without trying.

For the record, I have a Griffin TuneFlex that I got for my iPod video; I had a new car with an AUX jack, and I was tired of FM interference when I ran windshield wipers. It worked great.

When I got my iPhone 3G, I slid it into the charger and got the "not compatible" dialog. But it turns out that it actually works; charges, and plays well. At least, with one exception. The thing supports itself and the device just by the "power outlet" insert, which is rather "low budget". I never had a problem with the iPod, possibly because I kept the gooseneck bent low by the shift console, out of the way. For the iPhone, I want it higher where I can see, for call information, GPS maps, etc.; and several times I've had the end of the power assembly simply fall apart under the stress and stop charging.

Between that and the annoying dialog, I'm looking for a better option. I have an unpowered cradle, attached by windshield sucker disk, that I used for my Treo, and I actually wouldn't mind using that for the iPhone if I had something that was just a charger cord and AUX input cord. Griffin actually makes such a thing, called an AutoPilot (not the iTrip, but the AUX version). Except that their FAQ suggests that it's going to do the annoying dialog box thing, also.

So what do people use that they like? What other options have people tried and not liked?

I would also love to know the best one out there, even better, one with an FM tuner. As you might imagine, I was not to happy to find that my old car charger that has been used for every iPod and iPhone I have ever had does not work with the 3G version. An Apple made one with a USB port would be nice, and if the Turn by Turn navigation happens, a Windshield Mount/Dock would be even better.

I am really disappointed with you how few car chargers are out on the market place for the Iphone 3G. I tried the Griffen SE charger and it is nice except one major negitive. The Cable for the charger is very short. I can barely reach it to my ear to talk on while it is plugged in. I have to do "the lean" in order to reach it to my ear. Oh and that is if you have it on your right side... now throw in the fact you need to shift and switch your left ear... forget it. Impossible and dangerous. Needless to say the two Griffe SE charger I purchased were returned to the Apple store. The disappointing thing is that 1) Apple does not make their own charger and 2) Griffen is the only name brand out there and 3) all the other are cheap China versions.


I am not thrilled about having to use the straight cable option that Griffen has out but that may be the direction I lean. If anyone has found any other options please post.

Getrusty wrote:
I am really disappointed with you how few car chargers are out on the market place for the Iphone 3G. I tried the Griffen SE charger and it is nice except one major negitive. The Cable for the charger is very short. I can barely reach it to my ear to talk on while it is plugged in. I have to do "the lean" in order to reach it to my ear. Oh and that is if you have it on your right side... now throw in the fact you need to shift and switch your left ear... forget it. Impossible and dangerous.

Of course, this isn't a forum for lecturing on safety, but I really don't think you're trying to use this kit the way it's intended to be used.

Technically, even holding a phone to your ear while driving is dangerous. Get yourself a bluetooth headset, or even use the included Apple wired headset. I love my Jawbone -- it's loud and clear, comfortable, and inconspicuous. The Apple bluetooth looks nice enough, too, though I haven't tried it.

A car charger should allow the iPhone to be placed in a comfortable position where you can see the screen without focusing your attention away from the road. If the phone rings while you're driving, your peripheral vision can register the caller, if you care, and you can use the button on your headset to accept or reject the call by touch. If you have to make a call while driving you can double-touch the hard button on the phone by touch to bring up your favorites (if you haven't remapped it to iPod control), touch the one you want, and then get full attention back to driving in a second. (Even this is sufficiently dangerous that real road safety experts would quite reasonably advise against it; but an experienced and alert driver can probably manage to spare that much attention in many non-critical driving conditions.)

If you're really going to insist on moving the phone to your ear (any phone at all), it shouldn't be tethered at all; because as you've noted, that's awkward and dangerous. Get a cradle charger; lift the phone to answer, and place it back in the charger when you hang up. If you're talking long enough to run down the battery, you're not having the sort of conversation you should have while driving anyway. 😉

Agreed. I got one at Staples and it works great!

An update and review...

After searching quite a bit, on and off, at the Apple store (web) I discovered the Kensington LiquidAUX Deluxe. It has a cradle on a flexible stalk attached to the "power outlet" plug, which is perhaps its only real weakness as there's some small inevitable "play" in the plug's fit. Not much, however, and the LiquidAUX stalk is much stiffer than the TuneFlex -- the phone has never moved on its own under acceleration or braking, so I don't need to constantly re-adjust it.

As the name implies, it has a cable (nylon sheathed) to plug into a car stereo AUX input jack. If you need an FM broadcast adapter for your car, this isn't it.

The cradle has adjustable arms to grasp narrower iPods, and the iPod socket actually slides back and forth in a track to accommodate models where the socket isn't in the middle. (It moves fairly easily, and can sometimes get knocked a little to one side when you pull out your iPhone; a very minor annoyance, but I wish that the "action" on the slider was a bit stiffer so this wouldn't happen as much.)

The LiquidAUX Deluxe also has a small remote control designed to be velcro-ed around the steering wheel rim. It has play/pause, forward, back, and "shuffle" buttons. I've noticed that the remote doesn't do anything at all unless iPod is running on the iPhone. That is, after a restart or sync, when everything is idle, the play button won't do anything. I have to manually bring up the iPod program and press "play". After this, however, iPod always has some component running in the background, apparently, and the remote will (usually) continue the playlist even after I've pulled the iPhone out of the cradle, carried it around "doing various things", and finally return to the car to stick it back in the cradle. Mostly, it's nice while driving and watching the GPS to be able to skip or replay a song without looking down to either switch out of the Map application or do the "iPod double click" to bring up the control dialog; and for that it seems to be quite reliable.

Kensington also has a "LiquidAUX" -- apparently the only difference for the Deluxe version is the cradle. The non-Deluxe has the charger cord, AUX cord, and remote. The whole thing is a bit pricy at $99.99, and I wish the Deluxe was at the price point of the non-Deluxe ($79.99), which is already more (really, sigh, quite a bit more) than I really wanted to pay. On the other hand, the warning dialogs and the waving stalk on the TuneFlex were slowly driving me crazy and this was the first really viable contender... I just "had to".

LiquidAUX Deluxe charges the 3G without any "incompatibility" dialog box. The remote is sometimes useful, and at least it's out of the way. The flexible stalk raises the iPhone to a level where it's easy to see the GPS (or an incoming call) without losing sight of the road -- although I wish it were a little longer. (I think it's stiff enough that another inch or two probably wouldn't subject it to the TuneFlex's "waving in the wind" troubles.)

I've been using it for several weeks now, and I have to say that despite the minor quirks regarding the remote control (more likely to be due to the iPhone software behavior than the remote) and the "slightly lower than ideal" position in the car, I'm quite happy with this device. Ultimately, I think it was worthwhile, even though there's room for improvement.

For a car charger/FM transmitter, I suggest the Griffin iTrip AutoPilot. Don't confuse it with the Griffin AutoPilot (no "iTrip") which uses auxiliary for sound. It charges the iPhone and gives decent sound with little to no interference (for me at least. Your mileage may vary).

For just a plain car charger, before I got the iTrip AutoPilot I used a 5 buck cigarette lighter adapter with a USB port along with the USB cable that came with the iPhone. I had an extra cable from an old iPod so I just left it in the car.

Using a CAR CHARGER is BAD for your phones battery life. A car charger should only be used in Emergency situations to charge it. I didn't know this either until I was told this by an Apple Employee. I did research on it, and found it to be true. There are many topics on it on the web. They say it shortens the life of the battery a lot. Read up on it.

NUTTBALL763 wrote:
Using a CAR CHARGER is BAD for your phones battery life. A car charger should only be used in Emergency situations to charge it. I didn't know this either until I was told this by an Apple Employee. I did research on it, and found it to be true. There are many topics on it on the web. They say it shortens the life of the battery a lot. Read up on it.

Could you post links where you did your research?

Agree. Powerjolt. $20 at apple store. I got the one with the usb cable and ipod/iphone cable for charging.

Trifster

This is one article.

http://chris.pirillo.com/2008/07/22/are-mobile-car-chargers-good-for-phone-batte ries/

I bought an iGo charger since I can change the tip to reuse with my Jawbone, Blackberry and iPhone/iTouch/iPod Classic.

Did you read the comments below the article? There are several people including electrical engineers who disagree with this report stating "Mr. Levo’s advice about not purchasing “cheap” chargers is sound, but his opinion about vehicle chargers is not." Make your own mind up, but I will continue to use my car charger on a daily basis, as others have for many years without any noticeable effects.

I agree as well. Definitely the PowerJolt by Griffin. I got mine at Target for $19.99 after looking at Best Buy and only finding ones for $35 and up. The PowerJolt is small and more than adequate. I kind of wish its USB connector wasn't unpluggable but I guess you could use other USB-Phone connectors with it if you wanted to.