Help Car Dock Questions

[kramerica]

Hoping someone has purchased the car dock and can answer a few questions?

1. Is it even remotely stable/sturdy?
2. How is the "connection"? (easy to get in/out)
3. Does the home page switch to landscape (providing dock is horizontally mounted)? (I know Launcher Pro will, but will LG UI?)
4. If it does, does the LG UI phone/contacts/etc switch to landscape while in dock mode and/or car dock (again, providing dock is horizontally mounted)?

The reason I ask is that it was a major pet peeve of mine with the TB. The phone would switch on occassion, but contacts would not. Thanks in advance!

 

[njKeever]

1. Remotely, yes. There is no way it would ever drop your phone, but it definitely vibrates unlike my Moto Droid mount that is rock solid. Definitely annoying, but still usable.
2. Snap it in, push the tab and pull it out, super easy. Even for me to take it out of my case, put in in the mount, open the usb door, and plug in the cable takes less than 10 seconds.
3. I installed a home switcher app just for you to find out (LauncherPro ftw). The LG home screen did not switch to landscape for me.
4. Neither did the stock phone/contacts (Dialer One ftw). Strangly enough, once I placed a call, it did go to landscape. The stock messaging app also works in landscape (but still, Handcent ftw).

I used ShootMe to take some screenshots but it looks like it only saved the red layer for some reason.

 

[S.meezy]

I used ShootMe to take some screenshots but it looks like it only saved the red layer for some reason.

1. Drocap. 2. Settings > swap endian. 3. Profit.

 

[sghere]

1. Remotely, yes. There is no way it would ever drop your phone, but it definitely vibrates unlike my Moto Droid mount that is rock solid. Definitely annoying, but still usable.
2. Snap it in, push the tab and pull it out, super easy. Even for me to take it out of my case, put in in the mount, open the usb door, and plug in the cable takes less than 10 seconds.
3. I installed a home switcher app just for you to find out (LauncherPro ftw). The LG home screen did not switch to landscape for me.
4. Neither did the stock phone/contacts (Dialer One ftw). Strangly enough, once I placed a call, it did go to landscape. The stock messaging app also works in landscape (but still, Handcent ftw).

I used ShootMe to take some screenshots but it looks like it only saved the red layer for some reason.

I'm using the car mount as well, and it vibrates like crazy unless you're driving on glass or have a $200K car. lol

Within LauncherPro, there's a setting Behavior Settings - Enable Auto Rotation that fixed the rotation problem for me when in the dock.

My BIGGEST complaint (now on day 5) is that damned auto brightness setting. My screen will go from dim to bright to dim to bright just sitting at my desk. I had to turn it off and set the brightness to 50% (which was brighter than in auto modes brightest setting) so it wouldn't change every 10 seconds. I'm sure my battery will suffer a bit, but it just drove me crazy.

BING? I still can't get over that being on the phone. It's a freakin GOOGLE phone, you know...Android? WTF were they thinking?

Otherwise it's a great phone, awesome display and fast.

S

 

[njKeever]

1. Drocap. 2. Settings > swap endian. 3. Profit.

Thanks, that worked. I used Drocap on my Droid, but when I searched for it this time I didn't add the "2" so it didn't show up. I really wish either Shootme had a fix for the color thing, or Drocap added a light sensor trigger, that would be perfect!

Oh yeah, and if Drocap didn't insist on putting it's icon in the notification bar, and randomly capturing "drocap2 has been granted Superuser permission"

 

[kramerica]

3. I installed a home switcher app just for you to find out (LauncherPro ftw). The LG home screen did not switch to landscape for me.

THAT is reviewing at it's best!

Thank you for the overall review! I greatly appreciate it and that phone/contact thing is a real bummer and I don't understand why that gets overlooked. Was the same thing on the TB. Anyway, again, thanks so much for taking the time and the pictures!

 

[njKeever]

You're welcome, glad I could help! I forgot to mention that the default car home app doesn't seem to let you change shortcuts from the the LG/Bing apps, and it seems that the Market won't let me download the Google car home. I just froze it so I keep my same homescreen in the dock.

 

[kramerica]

You're welcome, glad I could help! I forgot to mention that the default car home app doesn't seem to let you change shortcuts from the the LG/Bing apps, and it seems that the Market won't let me download the Google car home. I just froze it so I keep my same homescreen in the dock.

That also is good to know. Unfortunately I had assumed. Whoops.

Here is a google car home apk link (Updated):

https://sites.google.com/site/droidlife54/home/com.google.android.carhome-1.apk?attredirects=0&d=1

 

[njKeever]

It looks like that link is just to a review of the app that links to the market. And on the market it shows "This item is not compatible with your device."

 

[kramerica]

It looks like that link is just to a review of the app that links to the market. And on the market it shows "This item is not compatible with your device."

Oh crap. I must have accidentally not copied the 2nd link I had and pasted the wrong one. Sorry about that. Will get you the apk you can download to your sd card and install from there.

UPDATED the link above. The link is direct to the application.

 

[djembeman]

Oh crap. I must have accidentally not copied the 2nd link I had and pasted the wrong one. Sorry about that. Will get you the apk you can download to your sd card and install from there.

UPDATED the link above. The link is direct to the application.

I really like "Car Home Ultra" from the market. It's fully customizable and has a few pretty cool features. It tells you your speed, weather and location on the car home screen. It works very well! There is a 30 day trial and then you can buy it if you like it for, I think, $1.99.

 

[kramerica]

I really like "Car Home Ultra" from the market. It's fully customizable and has a few pretty cool features. It tells you your speed, weather and location on the car home screen. It works very well! There is a 30 day trial and then you can buy it if you like it for, I think, $1.99.

"Car Dashboard" is pretty nice too. I seems a little less "busy" to me for some reason, but the ads are annoying for the trial (which is the point I reckon).

 

[GunnerJim]

Hoping someone has purchased the car dock and can answer a few questions?

1. Is it even remotely stable/sturdy?
2. How is the "connection"? (easy to get in/out)
3. Does the home page switch to landscape (providing dock is horizontally mounted)? (I know Launcher Pro will, but will LG UI?)
4. If it does, does the LG UI phone/contacts/etc switch to landscape while in dock mode and/or car dock (again, providing dock is horizontally mounted)?

The reason I ask is that it was a major pet peeve of mine with the TB. The phone would switch on occassion, but contacts would not. Thanks in advance!

I had the LG Revo car dock, I thought it was one of the better VZW accessories, I had to download the Google Voice command app that was prompted by Google Maps. I had it switch to horizontal/landscape no problem. The phone seemed to sense the dock and switched right into the dock mode... Binged out of course. Very sturdy car mount, no case can be left on the phone, must be naked. I already had Launcher Pro installed, so naturally it shifted most stuff horizontal.