Using your HTC HD2 in the Car

The HTC HD2 is one of the nicest looking phones on the market, although the size of it may not appeal to everyone. The screen of the device is larger than any other handset and is great for watching videos and looking at photo’s and browsing the internet and for those that spend a lot of time driving, the bright, clear display of the HD2 makes it perfect for use as a full turn-by-turn Sat Nav unit.

Depending on your budget and what you want to achieve in your car, there are a number of options available that will help you to use your phone safely and stay legal. To give you an idea on some of the car kits and accessories that are available for the HTC HD2 here are some of our most popular HD2 Car Kits, HD2 Car Mounts and HD2 Car Chargers.

Car Chargers:

The HTC CC200 car charger for your HD2 is a must have item – especially if you’re using the GPS functionality on your phone. The HD2 Car Charger consists of a tangle proof Micro USB charging cable and a USB Car Charger adapter. This allows you to not only charge your HD2, but by using a different USB cable you can also use it to charge MP3 players, Bluetooth Headsets and portable games consoles.

If you’ve already got a USB Charging cable for your HD2, you can use that to charge your phone in the car – you’ll just need to get yourself a USB Car Charger adapter.

Car Mounts & Holders:

The safest way to use your HD2 in the car is to have it secured in a car holder. There are loads of different styles to choose from but given the extra size and weight of the HD2, some car mounts and holders won’t be strong enough to support your phone.

For the best possible hold, I’d recommend using a Brodit Active holder/ Brodit Passive holder with your HD2. Active holders have a built in car charger where as Passive holders will just hold your phone. They are sturdy, robust holders that are designed to be screwed into place. Now I’d never dream of drilling holes in my car just to keep my phone safe, and Brodit know that this is something people won’t want to do, so they have developed the Brodit ProClip. ProClips clip on to your dashboard and provide a solid, flat area that you can screw your HD2 Car Holder onto. They can be removed easily without causing any damage to your vehicle.

If you want something a little less permanent, then the HD2 Car Pack is a suction mount holder that fixes your HD2 to the windscreen. Unlike some suction pads, the Car Pack has a heavy duty rubber pad that stays stuck to your windscreen and won’t fall off when you park in sunlight or have the heater on.

You can rotate the holder in 3 different directions to make sure that you have the HD2 positioned exactly as you want it and can switch between using your phone in landscape or portrait in seconds. The HD2 Car Pack also includes a HD2 Car Charger.

If the HD2 Car Pack isn’t stylish enough for you then you should take a look at the HTC HD2 Cu-S400 Car Holder. This is a genuine HTC in-car solution that looks great. It’s got a strong suction base that can be stuck to your windscreen or dashboard and a fully adjustable chrome arm that lets you position of the phone exactly where you need it. It has a charger connection built into the base, so instead of having to plug your HD2 into the car charger each time you get in the car, you can leave the charger connected to the base of the car mount, then every time you dock your HD2 in the cradle, it’ll switch to car mode and start to charge.

Car Kits:

If you really want to get the best from your HD2 and want an in car set up that can be used with your phone for handling calls, listening to music and satellite navigation there are a number of Plug & Play Car Kits and Fully Installed Car Kits available.

There are a number of Plug & Play Car Kits that will work with the HD2, and the Jabra Cruiser is one of the best. The Jabra Cruiser is a self install Bluetooth Car Kit that simply clips to the sun visor of your car and pairs to your HTC HD2 using Bluetooth. The Cruiser supports the A2DP profile, which means that you can stream your music to it over Bluetooth and listen to it either using the internal speaker or you can stream the music from the Cruiser to your car stereo speakers using its built in FM Transmitter. If you use a Sat Nav app on your HD2, any voice commands will also be played through your car stereo speakers so you shouldn’t ever miss any directions. The battery life of the Cruiser is upto 14 hours talk time and 250 hours stand by.

Streaming using Bluetooth can be quite a drain on the battery, especially if you are using Sat Nav at the same time so you’ll almost certainly need a car charger and a way of mounting the phone in the car.

Fully Integrated to your Car

If you want a more permanent solution or one where you don’t need to recharge the handsfree unit, then a fully fitted Car Kit will be your best bet.

Of all the car kits available, the best kit you can get for calling, music playback and sat nav is one of the Parrot MKi Car Kits. Parrot only make Bluetooth accessories and because of that they make sure that every phone works brilliantly with their car kits. There are three kits in the MKi range, but the Parrot MKi9000 is your best bet for the HD2, mainly because the 4.3″ screen on the phone means that you don’t need the external screen of the MKi9100 or MKi9200. You can play music from your phone through the MKi9000 either by connecting the 3.5mm headphone jack or you can stream your music to it using Bluetooth. The Mki9000 will synchronise with your phone book, and supports voice dialling. There is also a small remote that you can attach to your dash or steering wheel to control your music (Play/Pause, track skip & volume). When you use Sat Nav on your phone, voice instructions come through your car stereo clearly, and if music is playing at the same time, it briefly mutes out the music so that you don’t miss any directions.

Sat Nav:

The HTC HD2 doesn’t ship with sat nav software installed, so it’s something that you’ll need to buy separately along with a car charger and car mount, but with sat nav applications such as CoPilot Live 8 for the HD2 available for as little as £45 it works out to be a much cheaper option than buying the latest stand alone Sat Nav Unit.

CoPilot Live 8 is a great alternative to TomTom. The software has been around for years and is the pre-installed mapping application on most T-Mobile and O2 smartphones. Feature wise it does everything that TomTom does, but for a lot less money. It has full UK Postcode search, POI, Lane assist, Text-To-Speech, live traffic and more.  The software can be installed to a memory card or to the internal memory on your phone.