CHOOBY Compatible Cellphone Adapter Replacement for Cellphone

I've had this adapter for about a year. I bought it for use with my JVC 'shrooms and the iPhone 4. This was meant to be a temporary fix until something of better quality came out. Sad to say, but there still isn't anything better after an e n t i r e year. I think it's safe to say that Apple or China is inhibiting the mic adapter market for iDevices. But I digress politically...In the beginning of my experience, the adapter was a great fix for a harsh vacancy. One who loves music must surely spit when apples earbuds are mentioned. The voice quality was crisp and I didn't detect any loss of quality for music. The volume slider worked great.Then, after one month of use, the clip decided it was through with life and promptly split at the hinge. Being the ghetto genius I am, I modded the hinge part with a paper clip and continued.After about seven months of use the wire at the plug end began to decay, showing clear stress signs. Shortly thereafter, it separated revealing the inner guts. It took some heatshrink with electric tape to create a suitable fix. Needless to say, it became unattractive at this point.About a month ago, I began encountering intermittent interference while on voice calls. Unfortunately it's steadily become a receiver for a gremlin minimalist band that loves to chip at my sanity with bits and bops. Talking over the sequential patterns is like trying to sing under a Chinese water torture device. It is freaking irritating. I notice that tapping/lightly slamming the volume control/control button/ microphone case seems to deliver an instant encore.It's dead Jim.Now after much research I find that there is still no better option. The Shure MPA-C3 is oddly vacant from the face of the planet. Griffin smart talk is described as coming apart after a month, Monster has issues with destroying pocketed iphones, and Audio-Technica has build quality issues that are almost as bad as the Griffin smart talk adapter. Just the mention of any of these aberrations makes me recoil. The saving grace is that while this brandless adapter is disposable, it's also cheap to replace. I'll be purchasing this again but this time I'll modify the heck out of it. Gorilla glue, heatshrink and some steel iBeams for good measure.

If you look at my previous reviews, you may see that I use quite a lot of these. The reason is that I am a headphone addict and that in consequence, I do not get any satisfaction with the OEM headphones delivered with the phones.I currently use an Iphone4 for calls, skype and listening to music.Since I use my own headphones, the lack of remote and microphone can be solved by buying a third party provider like this one.My first one was a Shure MPA-C3 which was nice but expensive and which failed me after maybe a year of use ($45). It went eventually out of production. I would have given it maybe two stars.Then I went to Audio Technica with the AT-MP100.http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001USYI2M/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01 It had its quirks and eventually failed me too ($25). It also went out of production. I gave it two stars.Then I went for this one:http://www.amazon.com/Headset-Hands-free-Adapter-Microphone-Generation/dp/B000YE35I6/ref=cm_cr-mr-titleI gave 3 stars for this one because it was relatively cheap, had a volume added to the set and worked for a while. I paid about $12 for these.And now I eventually returned to this model. I had bought some of it in march 2011 and I had bought 3 units for a price of $1.52 each. With the shipping costs, where it seems some dealers must be making their money, it meant about $4.5 per item which is the price I eventually paid for the ones I am currently reviewing (different seller).At the time, I had given it 4 stars. I remembered offering maybe two of these out of my original order to friends/family. However, for such a low price, one cannot expect perfect quality.So here is my advice to anyone searching like me. Look at the prices of well-known brands. For the original price of the shure, I could have bought about 8 of this one. I could have bought about 5 of the same units for the price of the Audio Technica.Remember, these units fail and they fail often due to their nature. They are being pulled, twisted and so on.So I bought 3 of these at once. I expect them to fail once in a while but considering that they all fail these are the cheapest option for it. One missing thing compared to the competition is the lack of volume control. To be fair, I do not mind it.So 4 stars it is considering the price and the competition.

These devices with a remote button are hard to find if you want something that actually works. First I bought one that was cheaper -- the Monster iSoniTalk Microphone. When I finally had it all set up in my car, connected to my cradle and all my other wires for charging and playing music and phone calls through the aux-in port, I discovered that the remote button didn't work at all. So then I order this generic version, and it was working great. For a month. It still seamlessly carries sound to the aux-in port so that I can hear everything through my car speakers. I'm not sure if the microphone is still working, but I cared less about that feature anyway -- people were telling me I sounded fine (enough) when I was just having my voice go directly to the phone, which is cradled pretty close to my mouth on the windshield. The problem I need to solve is to manipulate the phone for calls and managing my music playback without having to extend my hand all the way to the phone -- it's not safe while driving and isn't comfortable either. The remote button on this device was hanging basically right next to the steering wheel, so it was helping me address this problem wonderfully. But now the button doesn't work. I had read about people just buying several of these for this very reason, but I'd really prefer to have one adapter that can do this job without my having to disconnect everything, swap in a new one, and reconnect (I use some nifty velcro straps to keep everything neatly tied up so that the wires don't get in the way and can hang in just the right place). So, while I'll need to do this swap one more time, I figure I'll spend a little bit more to get something that maybe will actually last.