New photos and details for TomTom's iPhone Car Kit appear online

TomTom has yet to make any formal announcements on availability about its iPhone car kit, but some additional information has appeared courtesy of the FCC.

The Car Kit is currently undergoing FCC testing (something it must pass before going on sale in the US) and as part of the process, the FCC has released a few snaps of the device, along with some technical information and the TomTom Car Kit’s user manual .

The TomTom Car Kit for iPhone consists of a suction cup mount for fixing to a car windscreen and a cradle that holds an iPhone in either portrait or landscape orientations — as already seen in the TomTom marketing video.

Although the TomTom Car Kit has an iPhone Dock connector, this only supplies power from a cigarette lighter adapter — the iPhone communicates with Dock via Bluetooth. The Car Kit uses its own SiRF Star III GSC3f/LPx 7989 GPS chipset and antenna. This seems like a silly extra cost given that both the iPhone 3G and 3GS have onboard GPS, but it does suggest that the Car Kit can also be used with the iPod Touch. It also means that the Car Kit has to be connected to a power supply for it to work — there's no relying on the iPhone battery (though that's probably for the best...).

The Car Kit also has a 3.5mm headphone socket for music playback over a car stereo (assuming the stereo has the requisite input), but this can’t be used for telephone calls. The Car Kit can be used for hands-free calling, though — it has a large built-in loudspeaker and its own volume control.

The best guess so far on the TomTom Car Kit for iPhone’s price is £114 inc VAT — or at least that’s HandTec’s pre-order price. Add the £60 it costs to buy the TomTom iPhone app and a big blob of Blu-tack starts looking very appealing, not least since the cheapest TomTom ONE in-car navigation device costs just £90. Let's hope TomTom isn't so crazy as to keep the prize that high when it finally goes on sale.

[ FCC]