Good work group phone
Written: Jan 10 '00
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Pros: Two-way radio, speakerphone and alphanumeric paging
Cons: poor control layout, hard to program
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| pweisenberg's Full Review: Nextel i1000 |
My department bought 6 Nextel/Motorola i1000 digital phones in December for the big Y2K fiasco. The plan was for everyone having immediate access to any member on the project team in case there were any emergencies. Like most company, we were well prepared and there was little use of the phones.
Now my department owns them and the 69.95 dollars a month service plan that went with it. The plan is expensive because we have the two-way radio feature that allows us to communicate within our workgroup from anywhere in the US. I have used the phone over the last two weeks and the following is my assessment.
Positives:
Two-way radio – Great for a work group environment. One touch feature will instantly connect you to one or all of your co-workers that have been preprogrammed to receive you calls. The phone looks like this was the original design intent and then a cell phone was added, instead of visa-vera.
One touch dialing and speaker phone option. The speakerphone is loud and clear. This is very useful feature if you in the car doing other tasks while your talking. The lid can be open or shut to use the speakerphone option.
It’s also an alphanumeric pager. – You can set the unit to give you a vibrated alert when receiving a page. The phone is also Web enabled, but Nextel does not have the service available yet.
Negatives:
The phone is trying to be all things to all users, but it comes up short in many areas. Because of all the features the programming and button choices are very overwhelming. Without the manual or the included cheat sheet card, it is almost impossible to program this devices. It uses touch-pad shortcut to program this device.
This phone uses Nextel’s proprietary digital network (IDEN). This service is not compatible with any other provider out there. Therefore, on Nextel customer can use this phone. Also Nextel service is very spotting and there are a lot of dead spots even within our complex. We will have to resort to the expensive option of getting a signal repeater in the areas were service is needed most.
The unit is not that light with the Li-Ion battery pack. Many other phones today are lighter. The manual states you should get 180 minutes of talk time, but I found it is probably half that amount. The Standby charge however is understated. I was able to get about 2 days without a charge.
Conclusion: This phone is a decent phone for works group environment and has may useful features. If the programming and controls were better, I would have given the Nextel i1000 phone a higher rating.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 199.00
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Epinions.com ID:
pweisenberg
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Member: Peter Weisenberg
Location: Hartford, Connecticut
Reviews written: 261
Trusted by: 444 members
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Enjoying the ride, only 19 more years til I retire!
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