You can just forget about Nokia’s CK-200
By The Prodigal Fool, published on 20 May 2010
Last Friday was a sad, sad day here at Prodigal Towers. Oh sure, we got to race around London in a 911, completing the last of the #NokiaNav challenges. Yes, we got to meet up with a great group of fellow gadget-obsessed nuts (we even met the legendary Steve Litchfield for goodness sake!) And OK, it’s true, we were plied with food and gallons of free booze.
But here’s the rub: somewhere between the first – and well-deserved – cool, crisp beer and the rather sordid – and certainly uncalled for – last glass of warm Sauvignon Blanc at the end of the evening, the good folk at Nokia swiped the Porsche’s keys from us. We’d always said they’d have to prise those keys out of cold dead hands and – frankly – that’s not far from what transpired.
Anyway, now that we’ve – eh, disgracefully – returned the keys to the 911, we’ve had some time to reflect on what was – after all – supposed to be the subject of the #NokiaNav promotion: Espoo’s latest car kit and how it integrates with phones and the car’s built-in audio equipment.
And the answer is: much better than we were expecting.
The CK-200 uses Bluetooth to connect to any Nokia mobile phone (we tried pairing it to our iPhone 3GS and they didn’t get on. In fact, the CK-200 rolled its eyes in disgust and passed out.) Once paired – with something Finnish – the unit relays the audio from the phone through to the car’s speakers. But it also relays the input from a mic back to the phone for hands-free calls and – here’s the clever bit – its screen and controller give you access to the phone’s main functions such as Contacts and Recent Calls. So, what this means in practice is that – once you’ve been through the pairing process once – you never need to worry about getting your phone out of your pocket again. When you get into the car, the CK-200 pairs automatically with your phone and, from that point onwards, all calls, music or satellite navigation instructions are relayed directly through the car’s speakers.
Now, elegant though this solution is, we were expecting to tell you that if you have a high-end car like the Porsche 911, you’d be better off using the car’s built-in phone and satnav. But it turns out there are two reasons why, even in a 911, the Nokia solution comes out on top:
- Porsche doesn’t know how to integrate phones: Believe it or not, the way you make phone calls from the Porsche’s built-in system is to remove your SIM card from your phone and insert it into a little tray on the dash. That’s right: every single time you get into the car, the Stuttgart engineers expect you to fiddle around getting your SIM out of your phone and into their pride and joy. Insane. Guys, ever heard of Bluetooth? (Incidentally, we think this is a weird anomaly reserved for poor Porsche drivers because Straight-Six’s M3 has integrated Bluetooth connection as does The Prodigal Fool’s S4.)
- Ovi Maps also integrates with Ovi online: Your car’s built-in satnav typically works from a DVD that came with the car at time of purchase. That’s a fine solution until some clever town planner makes that two-way street one-way or that ‘nearest petrol station’ you need in an emergency closes down and reopens two blocks away. The only way to get the latest maps is to buy a new DVD. (You won’t believe what Porsche charge for this!). So, the advantage of using Ovi Maps on your phone is that you get access to up-to-date maps. But that’s not all. As the Nokia guys demonstrated during the challenges, you can also sync your phone with the online version of Ovi Maps. So what? Well, anyone who’s ever fiddled around with a car satnav system to try to find the destination they need and plan a route knows that it can be a pain, especially if you’re looking for something out of the ordinary or planning multiple stopovers. With Ovi Maps online, you can do all of that from the comfort of your PC, with a large screen, QWERTY keyboard and a mouse: you can add favourite places, plan itineraries and so on. Then, you simply sync them all with your phone. A very elegant solution.
The other clever thing the CK-200 does is allow you to pair two devices at once. If you’re using your partner’s phone for navigation and your phone rings with a call, no problem: the CK-200 can handle both at once
The only complaint we had with the CK-200 was the remote control. Maybe we just didn’t have enough time to get used to it or maybe it was not installed in the right location (you pretty much stick it where you want it in the car with some Velcro) but it never felt intuitive and we certainly struggled to use it without looking at it (which led to some near misses in the Porsche that the guys from Nokia would prefer never to know about, we’re sure.)
One other issue we did encounter was that when the CK-200 was paired with the N97 mini in navigation mode, it completely took over the car’s audio channel. In other words, even when the phone wasn’t speaking directions to us, the car’s music system didn’t come back to the fore. We would have expected the CK-200 to intelligently fade the music when a direction was being spoken, then return to it when the direction was over. Elina Paavilainen-Heikkkinen, the product manager who worked on the CK-200 and whom we met at the #NokiaNav party, told us that this is exactly what should happen and she suspected the unit in our Porsche simply hadn’t been wired up properly. She was a lovely woman, we’ll take her at her word.
So, in short, there’s not a great deal to say about the CK-200. It does exactly what it claims to. You don’t really notice that it’s there. And we mean that as the biggest compliment we could pay it because that’s exactly how technology like this should work: it should blend into the background so that you don’t notice it, seamlessly connect other equipment so that you don’t have to worry about doing it yourself, and step into the void at exactly the right moment to help you out. The CK-200 delivers so you can just forget about it.
You can just forget about Nokia’s CK-200
Last Friday was a sad, sad day here at Prodigal Towers. Oh sure, we got to race around London in a 911, completing the last of the #NokiaNav challenges. Yes, we got to meet up with a great group of fellow gadget-obsessed nuts (we even met the legendary Steve Litchfield for goodness sake!) And OK, [...]
7 Responses to “You can just forget about Nokia’s CK-200”
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[...] of the toys they guys played with was the Nokia CK-200 Car Kit, and The Prodigal Fool takes us through the pairing process and usage, as well as the fact that it [...]
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I know something else that’s paired to something Finnish: Straight-Six!
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24 May 2010
Nokia CK-200…
Thanks to @WOMWorld/Nokia and to the #NokiaNav Challenge (read here, here and here) which ended last Friday (14th May 2010), I’ve had the privilege of testing the yet to be released Nokia CK-200 in car Bluetooth car kit which was announced over at ……
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24 May 2010
[...] or satellite navigation instructions are relayed directly through the car’s speakers. from You can just forget about Nokia’s CK-200 The Prodigal Guide nice now I only need the [...]
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Juvenile? Us? Yes, you could say that: Porsche 911 Carrera S, 70-100mph « The Prodigal Guide
5 June 2010
[...] the in-car navigation review is in the bag. Check it out here. The full review of our time with the Porsche 911 is yet to come. That’s something you [...]
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[...] the calm, good folk from the NokiaNav launch event looked Straight-Six in the eye and happily handed over a Nokia E72 to trial. Now, if you’re [...]
The Prodigal Fool
20 May 2010
Addendum:
It seems I was a little hasty in rubbishing Porsche for their in-car phone system implementation. According to @ItsNoel, you can simply tick the Bluetooth integration option on the order form and – at a cost – Porsche will install a Bluetooth-enabled system. Sounds a lot more plausible and sensible than having to insert your SIM into a tray – as was explained to me by the guy who delivered the 911.