Gadgetory

hey guys it's joe the android guy been quite a while since the Samsung Galaxy Nexus was announced and released and while the accessories have been trickling in smoothly finally all of the accessories are now available and yes that includes the vehicle dock which I have in my hand let's go ahead and unbox it see if it was worth the wait so we've got the Samsung Galaxy Nexus a vehicle dock kit which includes the dock phone is not included and the power adapter let's go ahead and open it up and take a look I've already cut this and make it easier on camera opening this up we've got this kind of flimsy plastic stuff let's look at the power cord will open up in this little lies Ziploc bag now this plugs into your 12-volt DC also known as a cigarette lighter adapter in your car as the Samsung name brand right there really slim profile it's even got this nice little gooseneck in it and some finger grabs to help you pull it out when that time comes spring loaded tip spring loaded ears looks pretty good and I really like that gooseneck next you've got a relatively long length of cord I don't know exactly how long but it looks like it should easily reach just about anywhere on your dash so there you go four times whatever that is and then on the other end we've got a kind of a Samsung branded micro USB port that has the little offset to the cable helps removing it a little bit easier a little easier to handhold and next what we're all waiting for the manual right there yes there's a manual yes it is that thick if you need that much of a manual Wow why do they think we need that so let's move right onto the dock first of all it looks terrible now that's because it's got all of this protective film on it which honestly takes forever to remove it all so there is everything off the base I've got one off of the USB or excuse me that the Bluetooth right and that one takes a little bit of time to get off these guys if you work them out from the middle and pull down you're good and once all of that is off you're good to go now the dock actually looks really really nice you've got a matte finish up here and everything else is kind of a glossy finish show you the suction right there that's the the suction cup I like to add a little bit of moisture to this I'll take and use a a nice alcohol wipe to clean not only this off but also the windshield that I'm going to attach it to not included like like they had with the Nexus One car dock if you remember that next you've got this little guy and now this is your suction actuator if I de read the manual I probably could tell you the real name but once you have it in place you hold it firmly against the windshield and push that down and that actuates the nice little suction right there by pulling the middle plunger out and creating that suction effect you guys know how a suction cup works and then of course we've got a nice little help to pull this off the windshield to to move it around tab right there over on the side we've got a an audio port just takes a regular headphone jack and you can plug that in to your car stereo and then your micro USB port now that hold it up is where you're going to plug in your power just like that if it's really well I'm a little bit confused that they didn't put a right angle on this because it's gonna attach to the windshield if the windshields over here it's going to attach like this and then this is gonna run down so it wouldn't make sense if they made that into a little atleast a 45 or a 90 degree connector rather than a straight but you know Who am I so let's go ahead and take a look somewhere I said that it's gonna mount to the windshield like this okay so if you're looking at it there you go look like that now inside you've got a few things first you've got a big hole in the back and that is to accommodate your camera and your flash we line that up see works really well you've also got this hole on the top that's for your noise cancellation microphone which is right there so you still get that advantage down here on the bottom you've got another hole that is for your speaker just like that now you'll notice I've got a little chin here on the the bottom of the Galaxy Nexus GSM but I don't have a mating chin on the inside of the actual dock now what that means is I can put an extended battery or a phone with an extended battery into the documental fit just fine it is very very very tight I mean ridiculously so but we'll get to that in just a minute next down here on the bottom I don't know if you can see this or not there's actually another hole that doesn't go all the way through and that is for your microphone I don't know where it goes honestly there's a little indentation and nothing weird but over on the top we have a volume up and a volume down button and all that does is it passes through to the inside of the dock so just little actuators there I like that word today down on the bottom we've got the power button which again does the same thing it just passes the press up through the frame into the the button so it doesn't do anything special or talk to be a bluetooth or anything like that to do your button presses and then what everybody is waiting for the pogo pins right there you can see the three little gold pins and those made up really nicely with the three little gold contacts on the phone so let's see how this thing well before we do that you can take this and you can rotate it loosen this guy up and up down around around whatever just like that right and tighten it down wherever you want it so you can do it in landscape and it looks really nice in landscape if I can get all the way over there you can't do it in portrait we'll go ahead and leave it in portrait for now but make sure you loosen up that that nut on the back it makes me a lot easier than trying to just bend it around so once you've done that you take your phone put it in pogo pins first and once that's I like putting my thumb right here and there's actually a little bump out that you can use as a reference and then you just press once that is done this whole unit becomes very very uniform it looks like it is an installed accessory not just a phone in a dock to get it out you need a little bit of pressure again a pair I'm pushing through the backplate through that hole and you just pop it out the first several times you do this it is going to be very very tight now you're asking Joe how can you know that you just got this phone either just or you just got this dock and you just unboxed it well I cheated a little bit I got to I got one for me and one for my spouse we both have the Galaxy Nexus phones so I put mine in my phone yesterday or my mine in my car yesterday and then I've been putting my phone into the dock yesterday and today so very kind of cool now you do need to have Android 4.0.4 to be able to take advantage of all the docking features especially that bluetooth pass-through but to get just the regular charging all you need is your phone and the dock and a USB to 2 power connection so anyway there it is it's very nice it's a very very snug but once its installed it looks beautiful so if you held out for this I highly recommend it it's very nice and it's going to do everything that you want in a car dock and then some especially because you won't have to plug in any external power every time you dock and undock the other phone from the adaptor it is available from expanses but it's also available from directly from the Google Play Store as well so you can go ahead and get it straight from there they should be rolling out there shouldn't be any waiting period that you have to go through so orders should be filled relatively quickly what do you think let us know over in the comments at pocketnow.com