DROID Phone Holder and Multimedia Station go for $30 apiece
By Paul Miller 
posted Oct 29th 2009 3:36PM
posted Oct 29th 2009 3:36PM
posted Oct 29th 2009 3:36PM
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This is stupid that should be included.
Because it is included in any other phone? $30 dollars a piece is fair. Especially considering GPS companies are hosing iPhone users for $100 bucks instead.
I'll take the cardboard version.
OMG, It doesn't have a fruit logo!!! Total ripoff!!! I would gladly play $80 if it had the fruit on it.
Why should it have to be included? Just because you want one but don't want to have to pay for it? It would almost certainly add something to the base cost of the phone, and very few potential Droid owners really care all that much about docks as it is. Sure they might be a bit over priced on their own, but Moto's doing the right thing by keeping them separate.
dang for a second i thought it was $30 for both. got my hopes up.
I remember a dock was included with the first generation iPhone. Apple got greedy after that :(, and so did every other manufacturer.
@ Maddy
Do you also remember that the 1st gen iPhone was $600 WITH subsidy? Maybe it's just me, but I prefer $200 hardware with optional accessories to $600 hardware with included accessories.
@Matt,
That $600 price point was for suckers.
I remember buying mine for $300 a couple of months later, WITHOUT having to sign a contract, go home, unlock it and use it merrily with my T-Mobile SIM card.
@Matt: Actually Matt, it was $600 without a subsidy. Why apple was willing to subsidize the 3G for all of those original users. No one but the user had ponied up the money for it.
This is a fair price I think. The only reason I haven't sprung for a Zune HD is because the dock costs $90 which is a complete ripoff.
30 dollars is a lot to ask for what amounts to a brick of molded plastic with a mini USB port. There are no extra buttons, no dedicated audio line-out for "media mode," nothing. I like the Droid, but this dock lacks any kind of value. At least the shitty TomTom holder includes a supposedly beefier GPS module. This adds nothing. Here's what I'm doing: wood. Make your shop teacher proud.
people always forget, all these phone companies wether it be apply moto or even cricket....ARE ALL HERE TO MAKE MONEY. they sell products we buy them. i dont understand why people always forget that.
I'll take five.... no wait.... none. Docking stations cost extra for everything Apple as well.... that's why eBay was invented so you can get the same product from the same China factory for $5 instead of $30.
yay, chinese phone accessories! hopefully they're better than engadget's cardboard and nail homebrew version.
Thanks but no thanks.. I like my one dollar homebrew solution better.
Dock does more than hold phone, it activates the screen and features you see in the pic. That being said, Engadget showed it's just a couple of magents that do it and they were able to. So you need to add a few magnets to your homebrew...just a headsup!
Holy crap, motorola is desperate for $$$
Really? I think the price is fair. Did you know that the car one comes with a car charger too? I just did a quick search for iPhone car chargers and they are 20 and do not come with the dock.
I will wait for a home charger that is more like an ihome and has built in speakers so i can use my DROID as a small home entertainment system.
This is not new, prices on all accessories are rape.
Have a friend who runs 3 Verizon stores and he showed me the price his stores pays for the colored faceplates sold to 'personalize' some phones. He pays .50 and they retail for 19.99.
I applaud motorola.
That's one way to start creation of your ecosystem.
Bloggers will never get this. It's above them.
Bloggers are like what's music????
I'm confused. Do these have pass-through charging or do they just "engage" the magnetic switches necessary to put the phone into it's two auxiliary modes? Assuming they do have pass-through, this certainly seems right in line with what any other company charges for docking solutions.
The multimedia dock has a charger hook-up, the car one doesn't. But I think the car one still gives you access to the power connector on the phone.
Yes the car dock gives you access to the charger. I placed mine close to the outlet in my car so i can charge it whenever I'm driving. This follows my Droid ABC guideline (Always Be Charging)
I actually think those prices are reasonable, assuming that they are built well. The cheap ebay knock-offs usually feel like crap and break quickly, in my experience.
$30 isnt bad considering the phone you're getting. I just wish MS had a Zune app...
Why would they have a Zune app on an Android based phone?
Theres money to be made. Why does iTunes work on PC's?
Not just that, the Zune UI trumps all.
On a slightly related note...MS should just consolidate Media Player into Zune and prepackage it with their OSes.
Droid looks like a piece of poop to me, but I must say I really like this accessory. I've been waiting since day one to use my iPhone as a bedside alarm clock but there still aren't any solutions that work horizontally because of the unfortunate placement of the connector. Almost makes me want to buy a Droid just for that.
I read your comment six times because it's so mystifyingly stupid. Lots of stupid in there.
Not completely. I want something like this for my iPhone too. I want to use it as an alarm clock. Lots of nice software apps that let you do that, but no SIMPLE SMALL docks. Lots of clock radios with iPhone docks. I don't need another clock radio, just a dock. I can use the Apple dock, but I'd prefer to mount the iPhone horizontally. Which is a little tricky because the dock is on the bottom, so it needs to be some L-shaped thing. And yes, I would be willing to pay $30 for it. Somebody build it please.
I would love the magnet auto-sensing clock app launching thing, but I'll survive without it. But I want my dock.
Do these docks also charge the phone? if so how... by magnets?
The home dock has a mini USB port on the back, so it seems safe to assume that it will charge the phone. The car dock doesn't appear to have any sort of charging mechanism built in though.
The phone plugs into a mini-USB plug in the home cradle. I saw the tip of it in the video and a picture somewhere. You can also watch in the Engadget posted video from yesterday the "marketer" jiggled with it slightly to put it in the dock.
The Motorola website says the phone holder "Includes a Rapid Car Charger". So, it sounds to me like the car mount includes a car charger, or am I reading too much into that?
To everyone complaining about the price on this deck. Do you not know or did you forget that Apple charges $30 for a small ipod shuffle dock? http://store.apple.com/us/product/MA694G/A?fnode=MTY1NDA0OQ&mco=MTA4MjUwNDk
Or that they charge $50 for a universal dock with a useless remote: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB125G/C?fnode=MTY1NDA0OQ&mco=MTA4MjUwNjc
I'm not saying $30 for the Moto dock is cheap, but comparing it to Apple, it is cheap because you get two types of docks that allows extra functionalities.
I like the idea, make it more than just a recharging station. assuming it does recharge. my question though, will they come out with more? like this one works well for the night stand as an alarm clock. will they maybe come out with one more tailored for your desk, either at home or work, ect.
i doubt i'll buy the car dock until it also recharges though. especially if your using it for turn by turn directions on a long trip.
The car dock comes with a charger in the packaging
I can see the Android community adding functionality like you're talking about fairly soon (hopefully anyway). I have never seen an alarm clock type setup like that for a phone but that doesn't mean someone else didn't think it up first, I think the alarm clock dock would be perfect for me since I always use my phone as an alarm anyway
the inclusion of a cord is nice. but i still hold out hope that we can get a holder that will automatically start charging when you place it in the holder (much like the dock for the home). instead of a separate cord that needs connected every time.
if it charged it too, then Id bite
Direct product page links:
Car holder comes with a "rapid car charger:"
http://www.motorola.com/consumers/US-EN/DROID-Phone-Holder-US-EN.do?vgnextoid=5c0dcda87c704210VgnVCM1000008406b00aRCRD
Desk dock doubles as a charger and lets you link the phone back into your computer for connectivity and comes with a USB cable:
http://www.motorola.com/consumers/US-EN/DROID-Multimedia-Station-US-EN.do?vgnextoid=e17133289d704210VgnVCM1000008406b00aRCRD
sweet thanks for the link
Here's how you do it....you put as much bubble gum in your mouth as you can. Then when it is soft you slap it on the Moto Droid and stick it to the dash.....nah really though $30 is not bad.
No speaker output on the multimedia dock?!?!? How can they call it a "multimedia" dock. I'm getting a couple regardless, but I wish they had a speaker out on it. Would love to hook a couple of nice small speakers up to it and have a little Pandora station on the nightstand. Missed opportunity.
It will be interesting to see what the 3rd party accessory market develops. Since there's nothing magic about the magnet placement, I could envision other providers making their own similar docks, but maybe they WOULD have a speaker out??? I can always hope.
The phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack, just use that.
For a speaker out to work Motorola would have had to include audio output via USB. Otherwise no matter what you're going to have to connect something to the phone's headphone out, and in that case you might as well just connect your speakers to the headphone out directly when you dock it. (I suppose they could have done something with Bluetooth, but that would have been more hassle than it's worth.)
Seriously man, 30 bucks is a sweet deal. I wonder if it also serves as a charger.