Bluetooth Car PC

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Well, you could always use your bluetooth phone in your bag/jacket pocket/rucksack/glovebox like I do when I use my Nokia HDW2 BT headset.

I'm looking at the BT phone approach though too. Using my 3650. A Sitecome BT 500 Dongle from Maplin, my touchscreen car pc if I ever get the screen working again, and this

I'm not really fond of the idea of those things that stick in your ear. You have to walk / drive around looking a d*****ad :P. I'm tempted by the idea of setting up voice dialling, have the phone stuck somewhere on the dash etc. and sound coming through the speakers. Probably a waste of time for the amount of time I'm in the car and want to use the phone at the same time.

I'd probably have something running linux if I set it up, with a little backlit dot matrix screen and hard switches rather than a touchscreen system if I were to run MP3s too, but I'm not entirely sure if I could run sound through my Head unit, IIRC it has phone mute but no AUX inputs. I reckon noise cancelling would be the big pain in the arse with setting up a handsfree phone system.

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WHhat headunit mate? I'll try to find out.

Pioneer DEH 3330R. I think it's a grey import. Could always do the FM modulator thing if I'm really stuck...

Modulator= Nasty, tried it myself (although some are better than others, and it isn't always the expensive spendy ones that are best).

A lot of the US guys are ditching the headunit altogether, and adding amps for 4 way, and 5.1 sound. Using the touchscreen as a 1.5/2 din front end and going direct from the Motherboard line out(s) to the amps line inputs.

Makes for a very decent system if you build an amp rack style layout in the boot.

Hands-Free kit costs about £10. You simply need a speaker and mic for your phone - they're powered from the faglighter socket.

I'm rather dubious about how well they work in a Ka that's doing 60 in third gear. The microphone is far too far away from my face :).

Thats why I got the HDW2 ear piece. Saabs damned noisy but in a fun way.

Why would you be using the phone when pushing it? Surely you'd be concentrating on the road.

Nah, they work fine - a friend of mine has one. Used in conjunction with the voice-dialing on his phone, it's a fine (if unwieldy) solution.

But surely the best solution is to simply not use your phone in the car ?

Most likely. I've rarely been in the car and thought "Must ring so and so", and I don't get so many calls that coincide with me driving that cancelling them is a problem. If I were driving up and down the motorway all day or something it'd be handy, but most of my car journeys which aren't for fun last about 15 minutes.

Just because I'm doing 60 in third doesn't mean I'm pushing it, it just means I'm accelerating hard. I detest fuel economy ;).

Yep, same here :)