I am planning to purchase today a SC430. I had a GS300 with a Lexus phone. I realize that is no longer available. Where do people mount there phone for this car. I really hate to mount it on the dash, but that is what is recommended.

Thanks

 

Mine (SonyEricsson T68i) is mounted onto a clip on my belt (or sits in the drink holder while charging), with a bluetooth wireless earpiece in my ear. Push one button on the earpiece to answer or call, using voice commands to dial. Works great, even with the top down!

 

I didn't know anybody mounted a phone in a car anymore.

I have a little charger that plugs into the lighter plug in the secret storage area under the arm rest (don't tell anyone), and it has a little speaker built into it also. I don't have anything as cool as a wireless earphone -- I have to use a wire if I want that.

Usually I just hold the phone to my ear in the usual way, but these little accessories give me the flexibility to charge it in the car, use the car's battery instead of the phone, and go "hands free" if I need to. The phone goes into my pocket when I'm not driving.

What would be the advantage of screwing the phone to the dashboard?

 

Stevelaw, that's the setup I want in my cars - one phone with Bluetooth setups in each car. Who makes your Bluetooth kit? Can you leave the phone inside the center storage area and still get perfect reception with the ear piece? Curious bluetoothers want to know...

 

I'm using the Ericsson HBH 30 Bluetooth Earpiece. Reception works great - even when the phone is closed in the center console. The product docs say reception is good for up to 30 feet, but I have never really pushed it further than 10 to 12 feet. Voice dialing can be a little inconsistent, but I think it is more a function of wind noise versus bluetooth problems. Receiving calls is simple, just press a small button on the side of the earpiece. The earpiece also has separate volume controls - never really need to touch the phone.

Sound quality also is very good. In fact, people on the other end of the calls have said it sounds much better that the wired earpiece that came with the phone.

Only real down side is that it is a little pricey. MSRP is $199 - more than what I paid for the phone itself!!!! I ordered it out of a place in NY (mobilecity.com), who agreed to match a $139 "buy it now" price I found on EBay. Overall I have been very pleased with the earbud.

At the risk of revealing how much of a gadget freak I really am, I also have a Palm Tungsten T that communicates with the phone via bluetooth. I can pull up any contact in my Palm, hit two taps on the screen, and the phone autodials the number (the wireless headset automatically picks up once the call connects). I really never need to touch the phone while in the car. Obviously, I do not recommend trying to look up addresses on a Palm while zipping down the interstate, but it is really easy to tell .. oops, I mean ask...my wife to look up "John Smith" and tap dial. The number gets dialed and I never take my eyes off the road. Otherwise I just do a quick look-up while stopped at red lights, etc.

 

Thanks stevelaw!

I also will incorporate a bluetooth PDA. Apple's got something slick up their sleave phone-PDA-MP3-bluetooth-wise, could be interesting. In the meantime, I'm looking for the bluetooth car kit which provides a mike and speaker along with stereo mute - was hoping you were using one in addition to your earpiece. But they should be arriving soon.

Thanks for letting us know how good bluetooth is for you - it's going to be one of those technologies which we won't know how we got along without it for so long.

 

Yes, I didn't think anyone mounted those old wire rigged car phones anymore

 

Mines in my pocket....dammmmmnit...my friends must be given out pics of my old car again.

 

I agree with Tim and Lex. I have a teeny/tiny Nokia 8390 GSM phone. It came with a teeny/tiny ear bud that sounds great.

The phone fits in my teeny/tiny pockets and the teeny/tiny ear bud fits in the not so teeny/tiny console.

No fuss, no muss, no messy wires, no unnecessary costly installations.

Also, if you're a gadget freak like me, you always have to have the latest state of the art cell phone. I change mine so often that I'm afraid to get a permanent kit in my car.

 

There's also a number of Bluetooth Car Kits. I was looking into the three that they have for sale at http://www.expansys.com/ The kit from Parrot looks nice because it can store 500 voice tags. My ideal would be for it to use the microphone that's built into the SC430 (above the mirror), but am not sure if this can be done, or where/how to install it.

 

Microphone above the mirror? Are the SC's bugged?

 

Shhhhhh.

 

Yes, there's a microphone above the rear-view mirror, next to the buttons to turn on the map lights. All of the SC430's are supposedly "pre-wired" for the Lexus Mobile Phone, but accoring to Lexus Customer Care, they're having problems with the software for the phone so it is not yet available. I was wondering if there is some way to use the existing "pre-wiring"/microphone with a car kit of another brand of phone, but have no idea where to look for such wiring.

 

Im sure its possible. I know many cars have pre-existing wiring for alarms in them and you can simply buy clips to put in them. The biggest problem would be finding out where the wire leads to and possibly getting to...once you did that you could maybe, possibly snip the wire and attach the aftermarket one.Im wondering if I am making any sense at all though. See if you can get the wiring diagrams from somewhere.

 

There is a little panel inside the cubby bin behind the armest. If you pull the panel (its a friction clip fit) you can see two white wiring harness connectors with nothing connected. I presume, since they are so close to the armrest (where I think the phone mount would be) these go with the phone system.
Now if we could figure out what the pinouts are...