Bluetooth Phone - SE T637, Motorola V551 or Treo 650?

I'd like to know what you decide on as I'm going to have to make the same choice. I had planned to start doing research tomorrow...

Randi

 

For what it's worth, we decided on the Motorola V551 from what I've read. Haven't received it in the mail, so can't comment personally. If you currently have AT@T wireless, it's $100 to upgrade after the $50 rebate. You can also get it through Amazon with new service it's free after rebates.

 

From what I've read from numerous sources, there is an explosion of cell phones coming on the market in the next 6 months.

I heard that Samsung has one (on the way) that has bluetooth and has a 4 (FOUR) megapixal camera with a 3x zoom and brief video capacity. Now that's a REAL camera.

When I read about that camera phone, I decided I'll be waiting until at least June. If it turns put to just be a vicious rumor, I'll try something else.

 

I have a Treo 600 not a 650, so I can't tell you how it is with the bluetooth... but I can tell you it's pretty nice to have a PDA/phone combo. I'm not familar with the other phones you mentioned, so I have no idea if they're smart phones as well, but while the 650 is bigger than a standard cell phone, if you're carrying both a cell and PDA, the 650 will ultimately be less weight. I was in a Sprint store tonight, and the 650 looks really nice--much better screen and camera than the 600, etc. One thing to maybe watch out for is that in the past, Treos have been a little bit buggy. My boyfriend is an original Treo adopter--he had the 300 flip Treo and the speaker went bad. It was replaced with the 600, that after a year has developed a new problem where it loses its network connection with low battery when you try to answer or make a call. This is a documented problem with a subset of serial numbers, so Sprint is replacing the phone but only because we are within the 1 year warranty period (today was the 1 year anniversy of our activation with Sprint). In fact, they tested my phone and claim it has the same problem, so I'm having it replaced as well though I haven't had any real problems because outside of warranty, Sprint refuses to replace the phone even though it is a known problem with a certain range of phones. Despite all this, I really like the Treo--having the keyboard is so much easier for entering text than using graffiti or numeric keypads on a regular cell phone and the phone syncs easily with your computer, so you don't have to manually type in all your phone numbers, etc. Plus, you can use the Treo to surf the web and check email (the 650 email program has IMAP as well as POP).

 

I have a treo 650 that works quite well with the car -- part from the fact that my phone book transfer garbled the phone numbers of people for whom I had multiple numbers. Call reception works fine, muting the audio. There was no problem with noice in the car.

I just had to enter some phone numbers into the address book manually.

Manoj

 

I just purchased two V551s on 12/31/2004 (last day for rebate). One had a broken Bluetooth and I had to exchange it. Other than that here is the pros and cons.

Pros:
- Most popular features (speaker phone, web browser, bluetooth-HFP/OPP/OBEX, camera, video (5M built-in memory), etc...)
- Bluetooth HFP works easily with Prius. The connection has been stable. Clear voice.
- Bluetooth OPP works well but you have to transfer contact ONE by ONE.
This function is not placed anywhere near Bluetooth menu, it is located at a sub-menu of EACH contact. Be sure you find this there. It took me a while.
- I got two V551s free (with $50 rebate overall as bonus) with Cingular
- Fine display

Cons:
- Poorly written manual. A thick menual with two languages (English and Spanish). Not enough contents to explain all functions. The Bluetooth section DOES NOT explain how to transfer contacts. It was hidden in Phone Book section. I found it through the index at the end.
- Key response is slow but not terrible
- Limited ring tones, skins and wallpapers (you may purchase thru download)
- Picture quality is average

I only own it for less than 10 days now. I might discover more pros and cons later. Without knowing much about Treo or T637, I would recommend V551 for being nearly free. Hope this help.

 

I got a V551 last night. Took me about a minute to get it synced with the car. I've made several calls and it works just as advertised.

I had a Erricsson T610 before, which also worked fine, and already had my phone numbers in the car. I hear that the V551 can only send one number at a time while the T610 could send the whol address book.

 

I received my v551 today. I can connect, although I cannot download any contacts into the Prius. The phone says it isn't supported. My service is Cingular. Anyone have any ideas?

Matthew

 

[font=Arial:7860ed43c6]I recently got a Motorola V551 and am vey happy with it, although I don't know anything about the other two phones you're considering. It works beautifully with the Prius... get in with the phone on, power up the Prius, and within 15 seconds the message "Bluetooth Connection Successful" pops up on the screen. The only drawback I've come across is that you can't transfer your entire phone book all at once... you have to send one name at a time. Other than that, it's great![/font:7860ed43c6]

 

I had a SE T616 from Cingular, which gave me all kinds of trouble. The sound quality over BT was never quite usable, though it was fine using the phone alone. I tried hard to make that phone work, since it was recommended on the website as being compatible with the Prius. After having replaced my first handset when it locked up, making it totally useless, I spent a morning at my local dealer with the tech trying to improve the quality of the new replacement to be usable, without success. It was suggested that the radio interfered with the phone, and to keep the two separated as far as possible. I then complained again to Cingular about my phone. To their credit, they exchanged it for a Motorola V551, which has worked perfectly from the first try.

 

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Instructions for using your v551 with your Prius:

http://toyota.letstalk.com/bluetooth/toyot...ota/v551_bt.pdf

 

Thanks for the pdf tip. I was able to get the contacts downloaded. Of course, it was pretty tedious. I wish that Motorola supported OBEX so that we can download the entire phone book in one fell swoop.

M

 

My wife has a Sprint Treo 650 which works well in the Prius. Pairs well and consistently and call quality is good. Only problems I know of is that the signal strength does not show in the MFD and an incoming call may cause an on going call to drop if you don't disable call waiting. We were able to transfer an entire phone book without too much difficulty. Due to the limitations of the Prius, we created a subgroup (category) of shortened names and single phone numbers which transferred easily.