[8125, K-JAM, P4300, MDA Vario Accessories] mpd:
There seems to be a general dearth of reviews when it comes to Parrot MK6000, and I decided to remedy the situation somewhat by ordering one and writing a review of my own. Executive summary: It mostly works.

It took the good folks at MobileCityOnline.com less than 24 hours to ship my MK6000, and two days later I was already making calls and listening to music. The most prominent element of the set is a soapbox-sized blue box (it’s actually labeled “blue box”), which apparently contains the computer that runs the entire system. The control panel, microphone array, and the wire harness that connects to the car’s power and speakers all plug neatly into that box. Installation was a snap, since I happen to have ISO-compliant radio connections in my car. Those of you who are not so lucky (mostly, my fellow Americans) will have to buy an “ISO kit” fit for their vehicle.

I turned the ignition key, and a few seconds later (some time needed for the device to boot, I guess) the Parrot MK6000 started speaking to me. “Please, pair device” - it insisted. I complied, and my WIZA100 (Cingular 8125) soon reported “Parrot MK6000v1.00a”. The device offered “Wireless Stereo” and “Hands Free” profiles, and I checked both. Next I hit the green button on the Parrot’s control panel, and was delighted to hear Voice Command’s familiar chime through my car’s speakers. I spoke the name of a contact, and was soon having a conversation with Cingular’s “Voice Connect” service. So, headset functionality – check! It wasn’t until the next day that I discovered a few bugs in the phone interface – like if the Parrot user presses “hang up” (red button), but the remote party manages to hang up meanwhile, the interface locks up and the only way to recover is to reboot. Unfortunately, that requires turning the ignition off. :-( The few people I spoke with reported good voice quality and lack of background noise, up to the point of not believing that I was driving during the test calls.

But I wasn’t just looking for a glorified headset. The real power of the carkit is in being one of the very few products of this type to support A2DP and AVRCP Bluetooth profiles. So, as you can expect, as soon as I hung up my first test call, I hit the green button again and said “START POCKET PLAYER”. I had already verified that PP3’s A2DP and AVRCP support works with my Plantronics Pulsar 590A, and the Parrot performed just as well – the blue PLAY/PAUSE button lit up, and as soon as I hit it, the “NEXT/PREV” buttons also started glowing blue. The music boomed from the vehicle’s speakers. Success!

Or so it seemed. Later I discovered that if a phone call arrives (or is placed) during music playback, after the call is completed the music starts skipping. There is a “pop”, then a second or so of silence, and then the playback continues. Pressing “STOP” (press and hold the PLAY/PAUSE button for 2 seconds) and “PLAY” a few time seems to cure that malady in most cases.

The set automatically downloads Pocket PC’s address book, and then announces the callers by name, using a more or less decent TTS engine. It also allows voice dialing by recording voice tags, but I never bothered with that “feature” – Voice Command works just fine. There are quite a few other features, like dialing DTMF with the rotary knob (turn, listen, if it is the right digit – press), selecting contact with the same knob, etc. I wasn’t particularly interested in those, and I don’t think they would be of great interest to the readers of this forum, either.

Test setup:

Cingular 8125 with Molski.biz 2.26.10.2 ROM (Carrier: AT&T)

Microsoft Voice Command 1.60

Conduits Pocket player 3.01

1998 Mercedes-Benz ML-320 with stock radio

The good:

-Almost all features work (more or less)

-Easy installation

-Allows use of phone-based voice recognition

-Decent voice quality

-Decent power levels (loud enough)

The bad:

-Phone calls screw-up playback (that may be media player’s, or Wizard’s fault, but I tried three different players and the same thing kept happening)

-The “magic words” (permanently-on, Parrot-based voice command set, originally meant to allow users to place and hangup calls without toughing any buttons at all) do not survive the first reboot.

-Easily gets confused about the state of the phone.

-No reset button! (Rebooting, which is needed often is only possible by turning the ignition, and thus the vehicle off)

All-in-all, I’m happy with the device, and I don’t regret spending $180 on it. I hope that the next firmware release will fix most of the bugs and will make the Parrot what it was intended to be in a first place – the ultimate integration between phone, media player, and vehicle. I would recommend this kit to Bluetooth and Pocket PC enthusiasts, the rest would be better off with what their vehicles already have.

Mike.