Plaidophile

The Seidio iMount is pretty simple, yet surprisingly unmatched in the market. It is basically an iPod car cradle, line output adaptor, and charger integrated into a single unit, providing the convenience of charging, mounting, and audio routing in a single, convenient unit. I had considered Belkin's various offerings, but they seemed pretty lackluster, chintzy, and way overpriced ($30 for a cup-holder cradle, $40 for a charger + line output), and that setup still requires manually plugging and unplugging a cumbersome cable all the time in addition to still being in a suboptimal position.

I ordered the unit on Sunday with the cheapest ($6) 3-day USPS shipping option. It was shipped on Monday and arrived on Wednesday, a day early.

Inside the box is the cradle, a couple of scuff-protection pads (one thick and one thin), and two modular arms for the cradle, one double-jointed one to convert the cigarette lighter outlet into a standard 12V circular plug, and the other one to extend the circular plug and provide a 90° bend. Everything had a chintzy, toy-like feel to it.

My iPod is a 30GB, which is slightly thicker than the 20GB (and smaller) models, but the enclosed documentation indicated that the scuff protection pad would work with it too. So, I tried the thinner one out, and unfortunately, it was still too thick to allow for easy insertion or removal of the iPod. Removing the pad was easy, however, and I don't think the cradle will cause any more scuffing to the iPod's back than what already happens in my pocket anyway.

I tried various configurations of the connector, both with and without the extender. Unfortunately, to put the iPod in the position I wanted would have required more degrees of freedom than what the extension arm provided. However, I did manage to get it into a workable position which doesn't block the other controls on my car too badly (the cigarette lighter outlet on my car is directly below the factory radio's tone and input controls, but the cradle's arm doesn't block them), and it's not in a position which will cause front-seat passengers any discomfort.

The line output jack is on the left side, so I routed my line input cable around the arm a few times to keep it snug, then bundled up the slack and tucked it safely (I hope) under the console.

The jack is a little bit finicky; it's just barely recessed into the cradle's enclosure and has very tight tolerances, so you have to make sure that the cable is pressed in rather well or you only get one side of the output. Fortunately, the plug I'm using is a 90° type and so it shouldn't pose an accidental bumping hazard when I'm reaching for the air conditioner controls (which are slightly obscured by the iPod now).

The main problem with this is just that there's not enough flexibility with positioning. It'd be nice if I could bring the iPod just a little further away from the console, and make it a bit lower, and tilt it to the side. The extension arm just doesn't have enough flexibility in its ball joint at the end, and without the extension arm the iPod is too low and pretty much has to block the radio controls. The Seidio people obviously didn't design this for the Echo, which has a somewhat different layout than most cars.

The arm feels a bit flimsy when everything's installed, but most of that is because it's relying on the cigarette lighter jack for all of its support, which wasn't designed for this sort of thing. Even so, docking and undocking the iPod is easy, since the cradle's connector is looser than the normal iPod dock (though it still snaps firmly enough that I feel confident that the iPod will stay connected even on rough roads).

Personally, I don't think this is worth $40, but it's definitely a better value than any of the other car mounting options out there, and having the integrated line output makes it both easier to deal with and doesn't require that I keep on changing the volume when switching from headphone listening to car listening (since the line output is not attenuated, and also runs at line output current so it also produces a louder signal at the same volume level as the headphone output turned up all the way).

It also seems much safer to use the iPod in this mount than to have it just sitting in the cupholder, since now I can just glance at the iPod to get my bearings instead of having to take my eyes completely off of the road to skip a song or whatever.

Now, there's one big drawback which may piss off audiophile types: If there's any power filtering in it, it's not very good, since the electrical system is pretty clearly audible. As long as music's playing and the engine is sparking relatively quickly, it's not noticeable, but if the music's quiet and the car is idling, it's pretty apparent, enough so that my mom actually commented about it (and she seems to take pride in her apathy towards audio quality). Fortunately, car-audiophile geeks do have products available to purify the power which would probably mitigate this, and there's always the possibility of hacking on the iMount itself (though I wouldn't modify the cigarette lighter plug, since it needs to be really tight in order for the iMount to, well, mount). Personally, the noise doesn't really bother me, and it at least reminds me to turn the music on if I'm being all scatterbrained anyway.

All in all, for the same price as a car charger you get an entire mounting and charging solution, so I'd say the Seidio iMount is the best value in iPod car accessories right now. Which is still overpriced, but this solution at least removes some of the frustration and danger of using an iPod in the car. So, it's a recommended purchase, though ideally it would be priced closer to $25.