Timeport 8167 - a good unit
Written: Mar 06 '00 (Updated Mar 21 '00)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: small, browses web, nice display
Cons: too many small buttons, expensive, big antenna
|
|
|
| bam's Full Review: Motorola Timeport P8167 Cell Phone |
I was looking for a smaller phone than my Nokia 6190 and the roaming charges from PacBell were pretty brutal, so Sprint was the only other reasonable choice (IMHO). I'll review the service in a seperate Epinion and just focus on the phone in this one.
The Timeport is very similar to the StarTac but it has a few new features. Compared to the StarTac available from Sprint, it is slightly smaller, grey/silver only, has 5 extra buttons, and a blue Indiglo-like backlight that works very well. It also comes with a PC-interface serial cable and TrueSync software. It can be used in place of a modem, given a direct digital connection to a PC if the service plan supports data. I haven't yet tried that feature. It also dual-band (CDMA/AMPSanalog).
The display has 4 text lines plus two icon/fixed-function rows at the top and bottom. It supports multi-sized fonts and, for the most part, does a good job of using the right font in the right situation.
The TrueSync software comes from Starfish and allows you to download phone numbers from your PIM (Outlook, Act...) to the phone. The phone can hold 99 people with 4 numbers each. The different numbers are represented by icons for mobile, home, work, fax (??), and other. From outlook, I created a new category, put the people I wanted in my phone into that category, specified how the Outlook numbers would get mapped into Timeport numbers and let 'er rip. It works very well with a couple of caveats: Outlook doesn't have a nice place to enter extension numbers so you end up tacking them into the same number field "785-555-1212 x13" but TrueSync doesn't understand non-numeric characters and there's no way to download a pause "o". [Update: if you enter a pause on the phone itself, sync back to the computer, and then cut-n-paste the result, it works fine ] Also, I used to use nicknames to help distinguish people on small displays and if you are syncing with your PIM, the only option is to take their full name. If you have two friends with the same first or last name (family) then the TimePort only shows one of the two for the first couple of seconds before toggling slowly between first/last name. Corrupt your PIM or wait two seconds...
Another advantage of TrueSync is the ability to set nearly all of the phone options from a menu before sync-ing, so all of the confusing configuration menus on the phone can be safely ignored. (Yes, even with the better display and a decent manual, it's still much easier to configure your phone with a dialog box on the PC).
The 3 side buttons for navigation are useful but even so, I find blind-dialing the Nokia much easier than the Timeport. Much of this is probably due to how easy it is to find the talk button on the 6190 and how hard it is on the Timeport. The 20 buttons on the face of the phone are only two sizes and the Pwr & End buttons are recessed slightly. This makes finding a particular button challenging.
Mechanically, the hinge feels slightly flimsier than on prior StarTacs, the antenna protrudes more and I'll be really unhappy if I find out that its bogus like some of the other cell phone antennas are (really). The phone is definitely smaller than the Nokia. It's much shorter, thinner, but wider. Battery life has not been a problem so far.
Web browsing with the phone also works and MyYahoo is set up by default so all you have to do is login. However it doesn't remember your password so re-logging in is annoying. [ Update: I'm not sure what caused it, but not I don't have to log in to MyYahoo, it just works... a big improvement ] You have only 4 lines of text but it seems to be doing the best job possible under the circumstances.
Overall, the coverage of the service is the biggest concern (and that's another review). The phone seems fine and has a long lineage that should make it reliable. I swore I would never buy another Moto phone after the 8000g (see my other review), but the combination of features and size drew me back.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
bam
|
|
Location: Bay Area, CA
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 24 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.