I need to get a handsfree kit of some kind for my tin top and notice that some of the sat nav units offer integrated bluetooth phone support.

Are these any good and do they have their own speaker built in or do they work through the car's stereo system?

Alternatively as I can manage perfectly well without satnav what do people recomend for hands fee phone only systems? A friend has been recomending the Parrott, but I haven't actually seen or used on yet.

BTW the car is a VW passat 07 model with standard factory head stereo system

I havnt used the intigrated units but I do use the Sony kit which connects to the back of my head unit and mutes the stereo when a call comes through and pipes the sound through the car speakers makes the whole experience very easy. as long as you leave you bluetooth on it will instantly hookup the the car as soon as you get in. The unit has a break out control unit which allows you to answer/reject/mute the call and a volume button if the sound isnt going through the speakers loud enough

I have seperate Parrot bluetooth car kit and Navman sat nav both are excellent.

If I was going to update the sat nav I would go for Navman S70 or S90, which both now have bluetooth built in. There are no connections to the head unit, they are self contained.

If you look at the higher end stuff, some of them also do music (e.g. TomTom 520 upwards)

So long as you have an aux-in on your head unit (cable normally easily available), the SatNav can normally be plugged into this and provide music, navigation and bluetooth services through the head unit.

Obviously if you want to listen to the car's radio, then the unit will only provide navigation and phone sounds through its own internal speaker.

HTH

Stephen

I bought a Tom Tom 510 through my last company because it meant I got a sat nav effectively free by comparison with the cost of a fitted in-car hands free kit. (The company pay for a hands free kit).

Works OK but it does mean you have loads of wires trapsed over the dash (power lead, microphone etc). Whilst I can hear callers very clearly they seem to struggle to hear me so I guess the single microphone clipped on the dash isn't as good as a proper car kit.

If I had the money I'd probably go for a dedicated hands free kit and a seperate sat nav.

John.

John P, move the mic to your sunvisor, it will be a lot clearer.
I have a refurbed tomtom 910.
You can bluetooth it to your phone and your stereo (if it has it) and play music from the "jukebox" mp3 player inside.
The music goes quiet when you get a call or instructions are given.
A cool feature is that it will read out your text messages too!

[Edited on 11/2/2008 by nitram38]

my mates got a brand new still rapped tomtom 920 built in hands free wants 200 for it posted u2u if you want

if one goes wrong, then they both do.

if you want to upgrade one, you have to do both.

so keep them seperate, they are normally better anyway....

cheers for the feedback chaps.

Decided to look into a Parrott to start with as I can live without sat nav.