Parrot Minikit Bluetooth Speakerphone Review

Parrot have promoted Minikit as a wireless loudspeaker for use with mobile phones at various places, including your home, office and car since the device is mobile and you can carry it with you anywhere you need the convenience of the ‘hands-free’ device. For the purpose, the minikit is supplied with a battery ensuring autonomous power supply without the need for connection to the electrical mains.

The set includes:

The battery can be charged both at home and in the car since the port is a standard mini USB cable. Using a cable connected to your computer you can use it as a power source.

Design:

Parrot minikit is with the size of a relatively big phone, almost as big as our HTC Wizard (T-Mobile MDA). With its weight of 3.66 oz (104 g), it is not a problem to put it into a bag or a bigger pocket and carry it. It is offered in two shades of black – mat and shiny, and definitely attracts attention with its futuristic design with oval lines and symmetric look. We have definitely no remarks to make on its appearance.


On the front panel it has a small 2W speaker reproducing the sound during conversations, with 2 buttons (green and red receivers) and a turning navigation button. The buttons have a slightly concave part to be easier felt, but since they are located at the edge, this is not quite so. Pressing them is hard and without any tactical response which makes them unpleasant to use. They have LEDs in green and red. The wheel on its part is very convenient to both turn and press. Its side surface is rubber-coated to make it convenient for you even when your hands are damp – when driving, for instance.



The microphone is below the turning button and the power key and the mini USB charging port are on the left and right upper part, respectively. A little above it on the front panel there is a small LED lighting only when the battery is charged.


There are 4 rubber legs on the back on which the device rests when put on a smooth surface and space for the sun visor hanging clip.

Operation:

To connect the minikit to your phone you should do almost nothing in most cases: for hands-free profile supporting phones just search for a new device and when you find the minikit input the password of ‘1234’. It is a little bit inconvenient that it is not 0000 which is the most widely used one, but this is comparatively standard and is used with many (or all) Parrot products. The minikit will announce ‘pairing successful’ through the loudspeaker.

When pressing the wheel-button you will enter the (voice) menu of the device – turn clockwise or counter clockwise to change the menu you enter. Here you can change the language or the sound volume. You can record voice commands and names.

The minikit has its own independent voice dialing system. Unfortunately, it is not speaker independent and you have to add a voice tag to each of your contacts. To have contacts you have to receive them via the bluetooth of another device – e.g., your phone. You need to record voice keywords such as ‘home’, ‘cellular’, ‘work’, etc. if the contact you want to dial has more than one number. Recording of these keywords is not the fastest task but when you chose to record all contacts, the device will just ask you to say a word after the beep till you record all of them.

Performance:

Unfortunately, we were not satisfied with the sound of this product. Its volume and quality depend too much on where you use it: in a small room they hear you weaker than the average level, otherwise the sound is clear when the minikit is at a reasonable distance from you and put on a table.

When used in a car, there is a great difference depending on the type of car and the device position in it.  The most appropriate position providing the best connection, is on the sun visor of the windshield.  A lower position, near the gear lever for instance, will reduce your voice quality and volume.

Despite the Parrot’s hi-fi 2w speaker advertisements, the sound the MiniKit produces is of low quality. The voices sound monotonously and sometimes even incomprehensibly even at weak and average levels.  When you make the sound louder, it is quite distorted and on the other side they start hearing the echo of their own voice although you have a DSP system.

Conclusion:

Unfortunately, Minikit did not live up to our expectations. Maybe they have been too great because of the really classy and high-quality appearance, but the sound level and quality were not proper.  Of course, our criteria is high comparing it to such excellent systems as CK3000, but to the fact of ‘if it does its work’, too.  Had the manufacturer improved the sound, the minikit would be close to the perfect hands-free module.