Xoutpost.com - iPhone 4 snap in adapter

Review of the snap-in iPhone 4 adapter.

To start off, it's an attractive design that allows for a sleek docking station for your iPhone 4. To access the dock, you're only required to open up the right half of the armrest compartment. Instead of using the USB port and iPhone cable, you have an integrated system that's been made for the iPhone 4. With the adapter, you also receive better network/phone reception as it utilizes your X5's antenna. When the iPhone is docked in the adapter, the menu item for playing videos appears as an option. This is a nice feature if you want to play videos through the Nav screen. There's a built in cooling fan as well during those times your phone gets hot.

I've just given a run-down of all the pros and the concepts behind the iPhone 4 adapter. Here are the cons:

1) The adapter has been made to fit the iPhone's dimensions exactly. If you have a bumper case or any type of case, forget about using the dock with the case on. You're going to be required to remove your case prior to placing your iPhone in the dock.

2) The dock has a pretty sturdy latching system. The idea is to be able to dock your phone with one hand, but over time, it will most likely scratch your iPhone. You can't avoid this because the dock has been made to fit your iPhone and only your iPhone with no protection. You are docking your phone naked every time. Let me explain:

If you don't pull on the lever that releases the latch prior to pressing your phone down, you're going to forcefully press your phone down with one hand subjecting it to pass the metal latching system near the top of the phone before it's in place. Now everyone that has an iPhone 4 knows how fragile it is and subjecting it to this type of latching system every time you enter your vehicle is most likely going to scratch the nicely machined satin touch metal band of your iPhone over time. To avoid this, I'm extremely careful to pull on the latching system with one hand and with the other, press my phone into place and then gently unload the latch lever to lock the phone in place.

3) Videos:

You can only play videos from the iPod section of your iPhone. You will not have access to videos that you've shot on your iPhone in your Photo Library section. I don't know of a way to transfer the videos within the Photo Library directly to the iPod section without connecting to iTunes so don't go thinking you can preview on a larger screen what you just shot with your iPhone.

I encoded a video from a widescreen 1080p source which down to 720p to test the video output feature. Once you start playing the video, you really have no controls offered through iDrive. There's nothing in the menu that allows you to pause or play. You can only go to the next/previous video. There's also no controls for zooming in. I found the video was cut off on both sides which meant it didn't fill up the entire Nav screen. You have the fast forward and rewind buttons which are the same steering wheel buttons you'd use for audio CD's (hold down advance track to fast forward, if you press the advance track button once, it skips to the next video file).

4) I don't know how effective the built in fan is but with bluetooth on and Pandora streaming, my iPhone gets extremely hot. During normal everyday usage, my phone never gets as hot as it does when it's docked.

Here's the summary:

You can do pretty much everything with the USB iPhone cable that you can with the dock except for these features:

Takes advantage of the onboard antennas.
Playing videos from your iPhone displayed on the Nav screen.
Built in fan for additional cooling.

For these few additional features, $200 may not be worth it to some people. I've found that everything else that I haven't covered are exactly the same docked or if you're connected via the USB cable. If you care for a great looking snap-in dock that has an integrated OEM appearance then it's worth it. $200 isn't that much considering your X5 was already $70K.