Hot on the heels of our review of the Bat Rest stand for the iphone, I’m finally stealing some time to put finger to keyboard to review the PED3 iPhone Stand.

The PED3 stand is an interesting device, beautifully made and very solid, that will cradle your iPhone allowing you to watch hands free – in either a vertical or horizontal position. However it has some serious flaws

When the PED3 stand first arrived, I very quickly whipped it out of it’s box and threw it together. It comes as two parts. I then proceeded to put my iPhone into the holder – which to be honest didn’t really fit all that well … a few short hours later I was on a plane and couldn’t get back to the PED3 to really test it. Now I’ve had a chance to really explore the stand over the past few days … and on one hand I like it, on the other … well you’ll just have to read on.

PED3 iPhone Stand

Made from metal (I wish I could tell you it was aircraft grade aluminum or … but I just don’t know Edit: Thought Out tell me it’s Solid American Steel) and coated in a beautiful glossy black (I’m going to guess it’s powder coated – it has that look to it) the PED3 is very solid, the two parts are well made with a very nice finish to them. The cradle itself has little up-risers to hold your phone which have little rubber coverings to protect your device.

The iPhone fits very snugly into this cradle – in fact with the skin on my iPhone, it’s too snug & requires far too much pressure on the phone to get it to fit into place. Take a look at the shot below & you’ll see that the phone does not really fit well into this cradle.

iPhone not sitting right in the PED3 stand

As you can see from the pic above there is a lot of space around the back of the phone, and if you look closely you can see the end with the cable is sitting higher in the cradle than the top of the iPhone.

The base of the PED3 has two holes, each with rubber grommet, into which you can stick the cradle. It’s a snug push to pop the cradle into place meaning you can put the phone into a partial rotation and it’ll stay in place.

iPhone in 3/4 rotation

I usually have the cradle in the top hole as it gives a nice angle for using the phone. If you are using the phone in the cradle it will move around a little as you tap the screen given the little bit of play in the rubber grommets. On the whole the cradle gives good access to the sleep button, mute and volume control. The single up-riser on the top doesn’t block anything and so you can easily add either headphones or speakers to your iPhone to enjoy a movie.

The other end however is a different story. The two up-risers are well positioned from a cable clearance point of view, although they do sit over the speaker and microphone. While I could still have a conversation with the phone in the cradle my voice was muted. Likewise you can still hear out of the speaker, it’s just a little muted. I also found using my old iPod cable (as seen in the pics) that getting to the two release buttons on the cable can be a little hard.

A very nice feature is the cutout in the back, which you run the cable through. I’m forever picking up my cable from the floor, so to have this stand capture it for me is great, the cable is always just there and easy to grab.

I mentioned it was a tight fit, with the ever so small, extra thickness the BestSkinsEver skin gives my iPhone it is a very tight fit (I’ve not removed the skin yet to try it without). So much so when I removed the iPhone from a night in the stand it’s damaged my skin.

Bubble in skin after night in PED3

I’m happy to say that subsequent nights usage have not made these bubbles any worse – although for me that doesn’t matter as the skin is coming off shortly anyway.

Summary

To be honest while I may mention some of the issues I’ve had with this stand I actually like it. It’s solid feel is great, the iPhone feels safe in the cradle. It’s ability to provide two different viewing angles and to allow the iPhone to rotate freely is a huge bonus.

I am going to take it downstairs to the garage and give the up-risers a small adjustment which PED3 do suggest you can do. Note if you do this don’t over do it, take your time or you will crack the paint.

Would I buy one, actually, yeah I would. US$40 is a good slice of change, but this is a robust stand that will easily last the life of your iPhone and then some. This PED3 has earned it’s place beside my bed as a cradle for my iPhone while I read email, watch movies or listen to podcasts as I drift off to sleep.

You can Purchase a PED3 Rotating Dock/Stand/Holder for iPhone Original/3G/3GS from Amazon.com.

UPDATE

I just received a note from Thought Out with a link to some details I’d some how missed – not sure why I didn’t see this before. Thought Out DO fully admit that the PED3 stand may need some tailoring to fit your exact device – that is if you have a case or skin on the phone you may not need the rubber cases on the up-risers, and that you can tweak the up-risers to give a better fit for your iPhone.

Check out this image:

Thanks to the guys at Thought Out for pointing this out – gives me even more reason to support this device, because you know the team behind it support it 100%

After 2 seconds with the pliers and the image above, the iPhone 3G now sits perfectly in the cradle and doesn’t put as much pressure on the skin and phone. See from the pic below the phone is now sitting fully back against the rubber stop.

Better fit in the PED3 after 2 seconds with the pliers