In addition to letting you make and receive calls in your car, the Chic goes a step further than most other by absorbing your contacts list. The feature, which worked great in my tests, lets you store up to 1000 contacts per phone (you max out at 2500, if you have the Chic paired to more than one phone). This helps if your contact list contains hard-to-pronounce names, since you don't have to waste time trying to have your voice understood ("Call Thérèse Home"); instead you can use the device's controls to navigate to your contact's name by letter and select it.

I liked the prominent knob atop the unit--a breeze to find while keeping my eyes on the road. You turn the knob to cycle through menu options, which let you adjust the volume, locate contacts by first letter, and then initiate a call.

Immediately to the left of the knob is an area lit by a red light, which you push to reject an incoming call or hang up. And to the right is an area with a green light to accept a call, to redial (by holding it down for a couple of seconds), and to start dialing by voice. Again, these controls are easy to find by feel alone.

The Chic comes with its own voice-prompt interface, which made me feel as if I had my own virtual butler in the car at all times. For example, when you push the green-lit area, a British-sounding robotic female voice pipes up, asking, "Who do you want to call?" I would respond by stating a name from my phone book, and in my tests it understood me well, initiating calls to the right folks. "Scott cellular, call in progress," it would say, for instance. Similarly, when calls came in and the Chic's memory contained the number, it would announce the name of the caller--a huge benefit when driving.

As with all the Bluetooth speakerphones I tested, the call quality was not perfect. Overall, call recipients thought I sounded far away and muffled; occasionally my voice would fade in and out. Nevertheless, they could hear what I was saying, no problem. The level of interference was up and down, as sometimes it was barely discernible while other times call recipients could pick up a churning sound. I could hear callers' voices just fine, with practically no distortion.