Motorola MOTOROKR T505 Speaker phone wireless Bluetooth 2 0

March 31, 2009 by admin
Filed under Electronics

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Congrats and thanks to Motorola
I am in the business telecom industry and see all kinds of wireless products. I have to say, “this unit is pretty darn good.” I hesitate to say great because I believe there is always room for improvment when technology is involved. All things being considered though, you won’t be disappointed.

My biggest con with this unit is with it’s ability to choose the same FM station every time you turn it on. Now…in all fairness to Motorola, I have to tell you that it does have the ability to allow you to choose a certain channel as a “default” channel everytime you turn it on. However, and I am not sure why, it doesn’t always work. Ideally, you turn it on and press a preset station button on your FM Receiver…done! When it doesn’t work however, you have to manually tune your receiver and I don’t want to do that. I am too busy and lack the patience to take the time to set it up all over again. I would guess that it works properly 70% of the time.

It would not be fair to only dwell on the negative when it is only negative 30% of the time. So on to the positive: this is a wonderful alternative to a Bluetooth headset. If you hate never being able to hear, the sloppy way they fit and the possibilty of a future brain tumor from your Bluetooth headset, then you should seriously check this out. I dare say this is one of the best “gaget” investments I have ever made.

If anyone at Motorola is listing…can you design the next gen. to integrate my GPS “text to speech” through it. How sweet would that be!

4 Stars Excellent product, serious design flaw
This device worked for me as advertised, out of the box, no issues. It does what the description says it will do, and does it well:

* Connect with your phone via bluetooth

* Play music out of your phone (if your phone is capable) and phone conversations via the built-in speaker

* Has volume control for the speaker

* Transmits whatever your phone is giving you (phone conversation or music) to your FM radio

* Next/previous track control when streaming music

* Allow you to use your phone’s voice commands – again, if your phone is capable

* Announces caller ID for incoming call

* Speaker volume is adjustable

* Allows you to accept or reject calls based on caller ID

* Automatic last-number redial

* Mounting on visor puts the microphone close enough to your mouth that the other party hears you very clearly.

* Clear, concise manual

Some limitations are entirely a matter of the functionality of your phone, and are the result of the kind of interfaces your phone allows. Example: On my LG-Vu (CU920), you can have the phone play MP3 music, and the T505 will stream it to your FM radio. The phone allows you to “minimize” the player on the phone’s screen so you can access other functions, like make a call. Now bear in mind, that to make a call, you have to pause the music-playing function. If you then go to the voice-command screen, the minimized music player disappears, and you have to re-start it after you’re finished with the call, if you want to go back to playing music. The spot where you paused, of course, will be lost.

BUT – If you have your music player minimized, and a call comes in, you can pause the music and answer the incoming call, without losing the minimized music player, and when you hang up, you can go back to it and play from the paused location.

Well, that’s what the phone is capable of, so that’s what the Motorola T505 will let you do. So if I’m streaming music, and I need to make a call, I press a button on the Motorola device to pause the music, another button to make the call, same button to hang up, and then I need to fiddle with the phone to get back to playing music.

Minor issues:

* When you need to flip the visor, the microphone will be facing away from you, but the device can be mounted or double-taped anywhere else in the car

* Comes with a car charger (cigarette lighter plug) only, wall-outlet charger sold separately, and if you charge the device in the car, better take it off the visor or the cable will stretch from your cigarette lighter to your visor

A serious caveat: I wish I had known this before buying it, so I’ll share it here: The “Station Finder” function for the best FM frequency on which to transmit, is a serious design flaw. When you turn it on, a friendly female voice announces a frequency that the gizmo estimates is the best one. Sure enough, tune your FM radio to that frequency, and try to make a call, it will stream to the radio flawlessly. However, it turns itself off after 10 minutes of idle time (nothing transmitting), to save power. That’s fine. When you need it back on – say to make a call or answer an incoming call – well, you’ve traveled a bit in the last 10 minutes or more, and whatever the gizmo “thinks” is the best frequency is likely different than the previous one. Which forces you to re-tune your FM radio – which defeats the entire concept of “hands free,” doesn’t it?

Announcing the frequency by voice, rather than a power-consuming backlit LCD is a very nice idea, but I wish I had been allowed to SET the frequency myself and keep it where I set it. You can, according to the manual, make whatever current frequency was picked as a “preferred” station, which is given preference when the gizmo tries to scan for suitable frequencies, but there’s no guarantee it will be kept.

For now, this is not a major issue for me yet, but man, what a way to mess up a killer product!

5 Stars Better than expected
I bought the T505 mainly for listening to the music. I have an HTC Mogul and I enjoyed the internet radio for some time but I could only use it in my car with earphones- my car sound system does not have an auxilary input. As a last resort before purchasing satellite radio (which I borrowed for a few days and was dissapointed with the programming) I decided to give the T505 a try. What a pleasant suprise. I know it’s not CD quality (MP3 and WMP format)but can’t complain about the quality of the sound. I am not a music connoisseur but I have a Bose system in my car and the sound comes through clean and without any distortions. So far I only made a couple of phone calls and I was told that the reception on the other end was good.

I only had the unit for a few days but it’s a keeper.

4 Stars Great hands-free solution that has its quirks
The MOTOROKR T505 was purchased by this reviewer to work with the Blackberry 8830 cellular phone for hands-free communication while in transit via automobile. Consideration to purchase a headset was not given much weight due to frequently-heard complaints that headsets are not very clear, the seeming social awkwardness of headsets, and the unnecessary need for hands-free communication by this reviewer unless driving a car. This Bluetooth device is extremely simple to use, and one can be assured that this is the case since this reviewer lost the instructions soon after receipt and was able to put it into use in less than 10 minutes. After using this device for over two months, this reviewer finds the MOTOROKR T505 to be fairly consistent in quality for both cellular phone calls as well as mp3 playback, both of which are transmitted via FM radio. While better hands-free devices of this genre might be available in the marketplace, no installation is required here because the MOTOROKR T505 works as a hub between phone and FM radio. And although FM radio is not technically needed, the user of this device may be disappointed by the limited available volume. Now, as good as this device might be, it has its quirks, and the potential purchaser needs to be aware of these. First of all, it is not possible to determine whether this device needs to be charged, although it does have a long battery life and this reviewer has never experienced it running out of power. Second, while this speaker initially assumed a heightened voice volume was necessary in order for cellular phone communication, both with the cellular phone itself and other individuals, after some trial-and-error this reviewer determined that a normal voice volume is all that is needed. The catch is that voice volume needs to be slightly raised if the device is not directly in front of the user. While these first two quirks are rather trivial, potential customers might want to pay a bit more attention to the third, which is solely due to MOTOROKR T505 usage of FM radio and will not be a factor if the FM radio option is not used. Over a time span of over two months, a 30-minute work commute in the western suburbs of Chicago, a rather populous area, necessitated a minimum of 4 changes between radio stations in order that optimal cellular phone call or mp3 playback clarity might be maintained. Slightly less than optimal clarity was typically maintained with about 2 changes between radio stations, and in the opinion of this reviewer such a factor should not sway anybody against use of this device, especially given the many positive qualities of this device. The device always recommends an FM radio station that offers the clearest communication, but it is unfortunate that the switching itself between FM radio stations is not hands-free. All in all, this device is recommended to those in pursuit of a relatively inexpensive solution for the automobile, but the potential customer just needs to be aware that this is not a perfect solution.

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