Kensington LiquidAUX Car Kit with Remote for Apple&#174 iPhone and iPod&#174 - Black

Impressive Product for an iPod Charger

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Kensington LiquidAUX Car Kit with Remote for Apple&#174 iPhone and iPod&#174 - Black

This has got to be the fanciest iPod car charging device I've ever seen. I call it an iPod charger simply because, to use your iPod with an aux input, you simply need a male-to-male 1/8" audio cable, not some fancy adapter like this one. That said, a cable alone won't keep your iPod charged up while you're driving (and if you're like me, you spend more time in the car than you realize), but this device will. Furthermore, this product actually has a remote that attaches to your car steering wheel. This was the main attraction for me, because I hate having to fumble for my iPod when I'm navigating through traffic. The remote uses a button cell battery (it's included) and allows you to start and stop playback, and to go forward and back in your playlist. That's pretty simple functionality, but it's very handy to have it at your fingertips and it works well. Sound quality is probably as good as it could be, considering it's an auxiliary input.

Since it plugs into your auxiliary input on your

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6 review(s) | 0 comment(s) |

8 price(s) | 89 days ago at

Easy to Use & Adds Safety Flexible and Customizable Design. Better Than I Expected!

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Kensington LiquidAUX Car Kit with Remote for Apple&#174 iPhone and iPod&#174 - Black

I have fallen in love with the Kensington LiquidAUX. It is ingeniously designed and is an inexpensive option for safely using your iPod while in the car. If you want the aesthetically most pleasing solution to integrate your iPod and iPod controls into your car stereo, this is not it. This device is specifically designed for the individual, like myself, who had their iPod sitting on the seat next to them or on the dashboard, connected to their stereo via an auxiliary input or cassette adapter. So contrary to some reviews, an aux-in on your car stereo is not mandatory for use, making this device usable in older cars with a tape deck and newer cars with the aux-in port.

In my mind, the primary benefits of using the liquidAUX instead of simply manually controlling your iPod while in the car are two-fold: 1) Safety, 2) Ease of use.

Safety: I consider myself a pretty competent multi-tasking driver, but even still anything that keeps my hands on the steering wheel and my eyes on the road has

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to keep me safer. My wife has pointed out that I swerve a little less and keep a more consistent speed - signs of not being distracted - since using this device.

Ease of use: The liquidAUX wireless remote that is mounted on the steering wheel has four buttons: Play, back, forward, and shuffle. The first three are obvious and any remote would be lacking without it; but the fourth, shuffle, is my favorite. In the car, I love to use shuffle to listen to random songs from either my entire collection or one of my playlists. Often I find myself reminded of an album that I love or haven't heard in a while. I wish I could take shuffle off and finish the album. To do that on the iPod, I would have to go into the settings menu, then take shuffle off (at least five seconds with my eyes on the iPod and not on the road). That's what the shuffle button does with one click. If you get to an album you want to keep listening to, hit that button, and you will continue on that album or artist. Then when you're sick of it and want the shuffling to continue, hit the button again, and off you continue on random again. All of this without even touching your iPod. So the LiquidAUX provides safety and convenience. Of course, you are still able to control your iPod the "old-fashioned way" while connected to the LiquidAUX...just make sure you do it at a red light ;-).

The box comes with a charger device that connects from the cigarette lighter (DC Power) to your compatible iPod (basically everything but a shuffle) or iPhone. There is a small wireless remote control (battery included) that mounts to your steering wheel for easy ability to control your iPod without being distracted from driving. Finally, the charger device has a 3.5mm output to connect to your cars auxiliary in (an extension is included in case your aux-in is further than a few inches from your cigarette lighter.

My car does not have an aux-in so I was concerned that I would not be able to use this device. But the headphone jack on the iPod still outputs audio even while under the control of the LiquidAUX, so I am able to connect to my stereo using a cassette tape adapter. This does make for quite a few wires, however: 1) From charger to iPod, 2) charger to aux-in port, 3) iPod to cassette-adapter (only if you don't have aux-in on stereo). This would be my number one foreseeable complaint. But these are also features that make the LiquidAUX not confined to a single car. Take it with you in a rental car on vacation, use it in a friend's car on a road trip, or swap it between your vehicles. I could not be happier with the LiquidAUX; it is engineered excellently to do that for which it was designed.

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6 review(s) | 0 comment(s) |

8 price(s) | 104 days ago at

Our household "power user" loved it except for one caveat...

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Kensington LiquidAUX Car Kit with Remote for Apple&#174 iPhone and iPod&#174 - Black

My 22 year old son is the iPod/iPhone guru in the house, and he's had some experience with adapter units for his in-car stereo. So I figured, who better to put this through the paces but for him? Overall, he loved the Kensington LiquidAUX Auxiliary Car Kit as he has both an iPod and iPhone. The setup was out of the box simple... I watched as he had it hooked in and functioning in virtually no time. Volume and sound quality was fine, and the extension cord was long enough for him to place his iPhone anywhere he wanted to. What really appealed to him was that he can use this as an iPhone charger. So on those long road trips, he no longer has to worry about whether he packed the charging cable any more. He really likes that...

The only drawback was the steering wheel remote. Conceptually, great idea. He loved being able to control the stereo without taking his eyes off the road. Unfortunately, it's also illegal to have a device like that attached to the steering wheel. In addition,

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6 review(s) | 0 comment(s) |

8 price(s) | 105 days ago at

Kensington LiquidAUX Car Kit with Remote for Apple&#174 iPhone and iPod&#174 - Black

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