Motorola Timeport : A Quantum Leap Forward in Cellphones!
Written: Jul 18 '01 (Updated Jul 22 '01)
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Pros: Many WORKING features making it WELL worth the money.
Cons: Internet capability still in infancy stages but interesting.
The Bottom Line: This is the best and brightest all-around cellphone I think you will find as I write this review in mid-2001.
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| Ed.Williamson's Full Review: Motorola Timeport P8167 Cell Phone |
The new Motorola Timeport is a quantum leap forward in cellphones from my perspective. Please indulge me with a somewhat lengthy introduction as to how I arrived at this startling conclusion.
I had carried a little black Motorola Star-Tac for 3 years, and while I loved its size (I hated carrying around a cellphone as big as an ice-cream-sandwich like my earlier Nokia had been- it had that "Is-that-a-cellphone-in-your- pocket-or-are-you-just-glad-to-see-me" look), the Star-Tac had some real limitations.
Maybe it wasn't so much the phone, maybe it was the cellular telephone service. Like a number of small, local-area companies, this particular Mom 'n Pop-type small-town cellular operation (which probably bought their low-bid equipment on the cheap from Haiphong Harry out of Hong Kong), their (analog) service was really substandard (as was the public relations skills of their bookeeper, too, I might add.) I could only count on about 1/2 of my calls coming through to my Star-Tac mainly because of their service. The fellow that did maintenance for them was a nice guy and did the best he could to help me, but it was very annoying to have crummy cellphone service especially as I am in the people-helping business and I was missing calls from people who really needed help. If you live in a small town you may have this problem too. It won't last forever- technology and expanding competent service systems will solve it in time.
My other problems with the Star-Tac were that the antenna broke off easily, the software was a problem to program, and the batteries were pretty short on life. Other than that I loved the fact that it was small and easily carried on a small belt holster I had custom made.
Let me tell you about the holster. At places like Best Buy you can buy a small LEATHER holster for the Motorola Star-Tac flip-phone. I wanted one of these leather holsters because a time or two when I was getting in and out of my car my seat belt would snag on the standard-issue Star-Tac plastic clip holster and flip the phone (no pun intended on the term "FLIP-phone") out of the car onto the (to say the least) very user-unfriendly hard surface of the parking lot. Cell phones don't like to be whacked down onto hard concrete or asphalt for some odd reason. So I bought a leather holster. They are a little pricey at $30.00 a pop but that was an improvement over the plastic clip holster thing. Then I modified it further by having a guy who sews leather in a shoe-shop (a) SEW the belt-strap on the holster PERMANENTLY closed (it had a button-snap which again popped open some times with the seat-belt trick) so it would slide onto my belt and STAY there, then (b) I had the same guy add 2 snap-buttons where there was only a velcro closure before (velcro has a limited lifespan if you use it every day, sports fans.) These improvements cost $15.00. Now the $45.00 holster for the Star-Tac was perfect and still is. A lot of flip-phones will fit into a holster like this and it will stay there and be relatively theft-proof too. I know it sounds expensive but it is worth it if you wear a belt all the time like I do. Look at the uniforms cops wear- they have stuff like this- leather holsters with snaps-too, so the pros have had this figured out years ago. But back to the Timeport itself.
Before I moved to a big city I discovered that one of our fellow epinionators lived there, and as she was a pretty savvy lady I asked her which cellphone service she favored. She gave a cursory nod to PCS Sprint. So when I moved to the big city I checked out three cellphone services. I got less than perfect vibes from the sales personnel of the other two services and decided to go with PCS Sprint. I'll cover my experiences with PCS Sprint in another epinion. But here is where I did another small about-face. I had read in a magazine like Consumer's Report some time back that the Samsung fliphone was the best, so I was going to go that route. But the Sprint salesman I talked to had one and when I was looking at the Motorola Timeport in his display case (about the same price as the Samsung) he said,
"I wish I'd gotten a Timeport instead." Now when the salesman recommends a product costing the same AS his OVER his, my ears perk up.
Then I thought: I already have some of the stuff from my old Star-Tac that will work with the new Timeport. The custom holster works (BTW I have 4 of them now for various reasons). The wall and car chargers work for both. And the programming procedures are similar so I already had a small jump on the learning curve. So I paid out $200 for the Timeport.
After a month I have not lost a single call, as far as I know (HALLELUJAH!!!) The SOUND really is a gazillion times better with Timeport in digital (just like those weird Sprint TV advertisements with the guy who goes all over like the pied piper changing people from analog to digital says- HEY!-actual truth in advertising-what a revelation!). And the antenna, while still not wonderful, looks a lot more substantial than on the Star-Tac.
I also read not long back (again I think it was in Consumer Reports or maybe saw it on "Sixty Minutes" or something) that the Star-Tac was one of the "safest" cellphones as far as cellphone radio waves potentially giving you cancer of the brain (it's the angle of the antenna against your head or something), and the Timeport is just like an upgrade-clone of the Star-Tac, so you get that safety feature. [In my case, I have so few brain cells left after a life of misguided adventures it probably doesn't matter, but it's something to think about anyway.]
The Timeport itself has all the niceties of my old Star-tac, but more. It's silver, which is ok- techno-chic (ho-hum.) The letters and numbers on mine are in LCD which is fine (my wife got one a month after I did and hers has pretty and brilliantly-lit colored LEDs, the smarty-pants). And maybe it's just me, but it seems a lot easier to program in the numbers and names, even by hand. I LIKE the fact that you can enter a LOT more letters into it than on my old Star-Tac. Instead of putting in "LTL BRR 888-999" you can now put in "Little Brother Maxwell, 888-999" For persons like me who are over-acronymed [is that really a word?] this is a definite improvement.
Programming information into the Timeport is rendered even easier if you have a decent computer. You can set up the software on your comp, type in your information, and export it into the cellphone, thereby saving hours of work and a callous on your index finger too.
Another nice feature: Multiple numbers for every One Person. There is enough room in the phone book for 100 PERSONS, but you can give each PERSON 6 phone numbers (Home, Office, Cell, etc.) so potentially you COULD save 600 numbers in the little onboard phone book. Most of us only use about 3-5 of the "speed-dial" numbers (small memories plague the techno-age) but you get your standard 9 if you can remember them all. Maybe people younger with more neurons can do that. Beyond that you just scroll through your in-the-cellphone "phone book", find the number you want, press "talk", and voila! You are connected (if anyone's home.)
If you have voicemail in your Service you now can get a little beep when it comes in so the phone doubles as a voicemail beeper.
If you have caller ID in your Service and the caller is in your programmed-in phone book, you get their name and number shown to you on the display when they call.
You can set up tones, volumes, and all that stuff to your heart's content.
It has a vibrator mode (adjustable, too) as well as a ringer mode so you can turn off the sound when you are in church.
The battery life is fantastic compared to my old Star-Tac. It stays alive for 2-3 days, not just 10 hours.
To top all these things off, there is a whole 'nother area you can use the Timeport in: wireless WEB stuff. You can do email and other internet stuff. To be honest, I haven't gone exploring in that realm because (a) I'd rather mess with email on my computer, and (b) there are probably extra costs involved. Besides, I hear surfing with a phone is still in its primitive stages and I don't have to be a phone surfer to impress my friends; I just don't see it as activity effective yet when I can scurry around the screen on my PC with its cable-modem speeds. Maybe someday I'll rethink that one but for now that's one learning curve I'm avoiding.
So overall, it's a great phone. And the Sprint service, for the most part, up until now, is another reason why, but that will all come to revelation, as promised, in another epinion.
*****
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 +tax
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Epinions.com ID:
Ed.Williamson
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Member: Ed Williamson
Location: Way Out West, USA
Reviews written: 607
Trusted by: 315 members
About Me:
Fight 'em till Hell freezes over, then fight 'em on the ice!
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