If it’s one thing that I know about, it’s pagers!!! (Why do you think I’m the Pagercat?) As a telecommunications professional, I have worked as a subject matter expert on pagers and have owned many, and still do to this day. This review spotlights Motorola’s finest numeric pager, the BR850.

About five years ago, Motorola featured a top-mount display pager called the Bravo. It was your basic “beep-and-buzz” but included a couple more bells and whistles than the bare bones Pronto and Lifestyle pagers. Most of the feature-rich units were the side-mount pagers like the Ultra Express and Express Extra which boasted multiple alter tones, more message slots, time-stamping and a built-in alarm. A few years later, the market demanded a smaller, lighter, stylish and flexible pager that could be incorporated in a more active lifestyle. Soon, a whole new series of pagers were released: the BR (or Bravo) 350, LS550, LS750 (a side-mount display unit) and BR850. These units are much smaller, much lighter, extremely cool designs and boast many more features than their ancestors. On the highest end of the line is the BR850. This unit is the only one to offer volume control, which is a great feature due to the high default volumes of the other pagers in the line. It also has many user-friendly options and features that will allow you to customize your paging experience.

This unit is a high-end numeric pager. There are more features than any other numeric pager in the Motorola Product Portfolio. Its design is more conservative than the sportier LS550 and the features are geared more for the serious user over the casual. Here are the stats of the three top-mount display pagers Motorola now offers: All have FLEX capability (the technology that allows for longer battery life and much better reception/coverage), erase all, selective erase, message lock, duplicate message alert, memory retention, battery backup, low battery indicator, reminder alert and time/date display. The LS350 has 30 message slots, message time stamping, backlighting (no E-Luma-Glow), alarm, multiple alert tones, and a removable belt clip. The LS550 has 40 message slots, E-Luma-Glow backlighting, Private Time, Quick Notes, time stamping and removable belt clip. The BR850 has all of the features of the LS550 in addition to 60 message slots, a more conservative design, message and date stamping, 3 separate “smart” alarms that allow you to program the alarm to go off only once, or at the same time each week, month, etc., and is the only model to offer volume control (low, med, high).

Being the best numeric unit available, you would think that it would also be the most expensive, but that is no longer true! The BR850 is the actually now the best buy! Originally, when this new line was released, the BR850 was very hard to find and was the most expensive (usually over $99.99). Recently, due to a high supply and lower demand, most paging providers are drastically reducing the price of the BR850. I recently got one from Metrocall and instead of the $129.99 it was originally, it is now down to $39.99 ($10.00 cheaper than the mid-range LS550!!!). So do yourself a favor and now get the highest quality, most feature-rich numeric pager on the market for a small fraction of the inferior competition!

Good luck and Happy Paging!


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 39.99