Venturi Mini

The Venturi Mini is absolutely awesome. I bought this little gadget a couple of weeks ago, and have been meaning to do a little review, but haven't had the time to upload the photos for it. I still don't have the photos for it yet, maybe a bit later.

So, what is it? It's a bluetooth receiver + fm transmitter + usb charger that plugs in to a 12v plug in the car - the complete in-car solution. This little gadget allows me to fully connect my N95 to my car. It's about the size of an iPhone Mini. Mine came in a sleek all black casing. On the top surface, there are four back it buttons - Music, Phone, Play/Pickup, Stop/Hang up. Wedged in between them is the bright white LED display. Just beneath this is the built in noise-cancelling mic, and below that a scrow wheel similar to one you find on a mouse but wider. On the left of the device are two 3.5mm audio jacks for in and out by wire, and a FM frequency selector. On the right there's a settings button and a usb type A female plug.

Setting up was a breeze, just plug it in, and follow the instructions display. The device plugs in quite snug, and then to keep it in place, there's a locking ring. Nexdt, set up the FM requencies. There are 4 channels you can set, and the range goes from 88.1Mhz to 107.9Mhz, incrementing by 0.2Mhz. After this, its time to pair with the phone. Pairing with the N95 is straight forward as well. Pairing only needs to be paired once. Venturi also allows you to download 100 phone book entries to the Mini, but this did not work with the N95.

So how does it work? I enter the car, turn car on, and the Venturi connects automatically. I press the music button, and then press play. Music is now streamed from my phone to the car audio. When a call comes in, I simply press the pickup button again. The music is crystal clear as are the phone calls, keeping in mind my car has a modified shorter FM antenna. The music does however skip every now and then for half a second, but I haven't isolated the problem yet. If I need to charge the phone, simply plug the phone into the usb charger. Perfect.

One curiosity, although a nice feature in my book, is that despite selecting one radio frequency, the Mini seems to be transmitting in at least 3 frequencies at the same time. This is actually quite convenient sicne I can just switch the radio in the car when there are interference without touching the Mini.

Definately one of the best in car solutions I've come across! 10/10.