Parrot 3400 LS-GPS Bluetooth Car Kit Review

The main menu consists of five choices. You can see only one icon at a time, and going through the options is done by moving the Wheel left or right. It is a little uncomfortable that when you get to the fifth (last) option (GPS), you cannot go to the first (phonebook) by turning the wheel right again – you have to go back in the left direction. The options are as follow:

1. Phone book
2. Calls
3. Dial number
4. Settings
5. GPS

After a correct pairing and connection of the phone with the car kit, the phonebook of your handset automatically downloads to the kit if your phone supports it. After entering the Phone book menu you can choose the letter of the contact you're looking for. For example if you choose B, we see the contact called “Brother” followed by other contacts arranged in alphabetical order (note: the contact here is displayed twice because that's how it is saved in the phone and sim, and not because of device error).

You can also attach photos to the contacts, as they're displayed during conversation or an incoming call. The pictures are sent manually from the phone and in order to do this, first you have to enter a mode for accepting vCards. Transferring a large number of pictures this way is pretty slow.

Receiving a Call

The Calls menu shows Missed Calls, Received Calls and Calls Made. This information is taken from your phone, which should have this feature. You can only see three rows at a time and you can use the wheel for scrolling.

The Third menu is Dial a Number – quite useless menu – you see the phone keypad on the screen, and choose a number by moving with the wheel and pressing it. In case you make an error you can use the “C” button. There is no voice support, which can be expected of a Bluetooth Hands-free car kit. If there was a voice digit dialing, then this menu would be worth it. But in this case, dialing through it is even more uncomfortable than with the phone.

The Settings menu contains the standard preferences that one would expect. An interesting feature is the support of different Wallpapers and color themes. You can also set the brightness of the display from this menu.

There are voice commands, or to be more precise – Keywords, which are:

• Phone
• Home
• Work
• Cellular

In fact, they are auxiliary words for Voice Dialing. When you use the Voice Dialing feature of your phone (by pressing the Answer key) you say a name, which is already saved. If there is more than one number saved to it and your telephone supports it, then you will be asked which of the numbers you want to dial – and you can choose whether it will be the one saved as Phone, Home, Work or Cellular, but you must do some training saying them beforehand.

Voice commands

Keywords options

Training a keyword

We are totally disappointed of the voice controlling of this car kit. As a high-level hands-free it should have a lot of capabilities for navigation with commands. That's not the case here as you have to go through numerous menus. As the device is powered directly by the car, there should not be a problem supporting something like the “MagicWord” by SonyEricsson, and to be awaiting commands all the time so that you can control it without taking your attention off the road while driving. There's no support for even simple commands like “Answer” or “Reject” when you have an incoming call. Not to mention navigation through the menu or other more complex tasks. That's the major drawback of the 3400 LS-GPS.

Information of the unit we tested