What is the advantage of a phone cradle over standard bluetooth?

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GSEH88

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Mar 2, 2012
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152
Location
London
Car
AMG C63S Estate, AMG C63 Black Series, Porsche Cayman GT4 & Porsche 964 Carrera 2 Cabriolet
I collected my new 2012 C63 a week ago and have finally got the correct iPhone 4S cradle with media interface cable. Apart from the phone being connected to the car's roof antennae (presumably for better reception), what actually is the advantage of having such a cradle? Thankfully Merc gave the cradle to me but if I had paid £250 for it I think I would feel pretty aggrieved. Before the cradle arrived I was happily linking my iPhone to COMAND via the normal bluetooth link and notice no changes since I got the cradle. I realise you can search through your songs by artist, album, etc if the phone is in the cradle and you can't when playing music through the bluetooth link but I have all my music on a 32gb SD card so don't use this facility. Anyway, have I missed something?

Incidentally, I've also noticed that when searching for a particular artist on the SD card, you can scroll through quickly using the alphabet tabs but this facility isn't available when searching through the iPhone in its cradle (you have to scroll through every artist).
 
That about sums it up for me. Problem is, my phone is in a case so it means taking it out each time I get into the car :(
 
Yes I cant understand the number of W204's we get in with pre wire... why?! they have bluetooth as standard.
 
Does a cradle connection mean that the phone signal is received via a car ariel rather than the phone?
 
My E Coupe has prewire and cradle. As well as charging the phone, and using the shark fin aerial on the roof it also displays text messages on the multimedia screen. It can't send texts, just displays. I believe the exact features vary from phone to phone. Mine's an old nokia.
 
I have a viseeo fitted in the cradle and must admit I prefer that to the older Nokia cradle I had whereby you had to put the phone in the cradle then take it out again. Much easier just jumping in the car and driving off and still being connected via Bluetooth
 
Phone prep also let's the phone book be read by the COMAND unit, I just use the Bluetooth and I had to manually load my contacts. So any changes in my phone address book are not reflected on COMAND.

Whether than is worth the money I am not sure.
 
I think people like me see the phone prep option when we order the car and relative to the price of the car, just tick the box on the assumption that it offers positive benefits without knowing the full story. When I connect my iphone over the standard bluetooth, I can see my address book so even that advantage of the cradle isn't there.

You live and learn.....
 

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