Samsung A950 Bluetooth Phone

I'm interested in this as well, but can't find any info on it. I'm thinking I'm going to go with the Motorola V710 or E815 which people have working successfully with the Prius.

 

The only thing I could find was, well, not much of anything. Verizon officially lists interoperability with many OEM car kits as "pending":

http://dts.vzw.com/pdf/Samsung_carkit_a950.pdf

One thing that I found somewhat troubling was the paucity of profiles listed for this handset on the Bluetooth Qualification Program web site:

http://qualweb.bluetooth.org/Template2.cfm...&ProductID=2324

 

I am interested in this as well. I actually came back here looking for info because the Verizon site just says "pending" everywhere. Unfortunately, it appears no one here has tried it either. Maybe this is where Verizon gets its info.

I'm also interested in anyone who has tried a Samsung a970.

Obviously, I don't expect phone book transfers on a Verizon product, but before I figure out how I will get around that, I'd like a product that does everything else.

Right now the Verizon Motorola v710 and the e815 don't do caller ID on the Prius MFD, which I really want.

The LG VX8100 doesn't do battery meter, signal strength, or roaming status on the Prius MFD, but does do caller ID.

The LG VX9800 does everything (except of course the infamous Verizon phone book transfer), but it's more phone than I need by far, and costs $350. The a950 is much more affordable at $150 after rebate, so if it does everything, I will go for that.

At the moment I'm simply waiting for a reasonably priced Verizon phone that does everything but the phone book transfer, which I really want, but am not willing to leave Verizon for.

Anyway, anyone with a950 or a970 experience, we want to hear from you!

Can you hear me now?

 

Just to clarify:

The V710 and E815 don't do Caller ID on the MFD with name. The telephone number is displayed on the MFD, however.

Further, as best as I have been able to determine, NO PHONE will do Caller ID on the MFD while the car is in motion. I mean, unless you just happen to receive a call when you're parked (with the car ON, of course) or stopped at a stop sign or traffic light, you'll see the incoming call screen but no information will be displayed. IMHO, that renders the Caller ID on the MFD issue almost a non-issue.

 

Wow, is this true??? That would change my view of caller ID considerably, as the only Bluetooth motion override I know of (the switch) I wouldn't want enabled 24/7.

Damn Toyota. With all the other things there are to look at/play with on the MFD, I question their logic in blocking things like caller ID and radio messages!

Okay, so it is starting to sound like the Motorola e815 may have just won the "Most compatible Verizon phone for the Prius" award...

 

Well, best case is you might see the name on an incoming call BUT ONLY IF you have that contact in your Prius' phonebook.

 

Also, I have a V710 (still) and, frankly, I've found it a whole lot more effective just to assign specific ringtones to specific numbers (or groups thereof). Whenever I get a call, my first clue is the ringtone through the handset's speaker anyway.

 

I just got my Samsung a970 from Verizon. The phone is amazing - I watched The Daily Show on it! Crazy. Anyway, I am having problems getting it to work with the Prius, though. The Prius and the phone detect each other and I can dial people using the phone and talk with them over the car system BUT I can't get the car to dial anyone. When I hit the little phone button the screen reads either, "Out of Range" or "Check Phone." Weird. I'll try and mess with it more later but so far no good. I haven't tried transferring numbers into the PB yet since I already did this with my last phone so the numbers are already there...

Any advice?

 

My advice is not to send in the rebate panels from the boxes until you know you will be staying with this phone. I think Verizon gives you 15 days to decide.

The Verizon Motorola e815 works fine... That's what I got when there was no info on the Samsungs.

However, if you stay with the a970, we'd appreciate further reports, good or bad!

 

Rebate? There's a rebate? I better look into that... Thanks

 

Well, there may not be one for that phone (there was for the e815), but that's what usually compels people to give up their 15-day trial period... Just send in any rebates after you're sure you have what you want!

 

Erick,

It almost sounds as if the phone isn't really paired with the car. Don't know for sure.

The only thing I can suggest is to delete your old phone (your phonebook should remain intact) and go through the pairing procedure again with your a970.

 

I'll try that. I spent a while trying to get it to work but no dice. Same problem I listed above. And I just noticed that I can't find any option that lets me send a contact from the phone via bluetooth, but I will double check the manual for that.

I know Verizon disables the phones so you can't send stuff to them via Bluetooth (they want you to pay for all those ringtones and pictures). I wonder if this function is needed to have the Prius send the phone numbers to it to make calls...

I am able to receive phone calls in the car via the phone/Prius pairing, though. I just can't dial using the car....

 

Erick,

The following is from the Bluetooth SIG Qualification Program web site:

Spec version : 1.2
Product ID : SCH-A970

Qualified profile :
- GAP
- HandsFree-AG
- Headset-AG
- SDAP
- Serial-DevA
- Serial-DevB


Two things:

1) OPP does not appear under qualified profiles for the a970. Verizon typically disables OPP on their non-PDA handsets, anyway, so no big deal. However, without OPP, phonebook transfers from your a970 to your Prius aren't going to happen.

2) The Bluetooth spec version on the a970 is 1.2. The Toyota/Denso BT spec version is 1.1. According to the Bluetooth SIG, version 1.2 is "fully backwards compatible with version 1.1" so, theoretically, the different spec versions shouldn't be problematic.......or so they say. Just thought I'd mention that because this is coming from the same BT SIG that qualifies phones with certain profiles (e.g. OPP), allows firms (e.g. Verizon) to cripple those profiles, and then STILL allows those firms to use the BT logo. FWIW.

 

Wow - thanks for doing the research.

I tried deleting the other phones and re-pairing the 970 to my Prius but I am still having the same problem, "Out of Range." I am going to call Verizon to see what they say, but I doubt I will get anywhere. I'm going to keep the phone, though. I mostly only receive calls in the car and when I do make calls, it's only to a few different people that I can speed dial from the phone... It would be nice, however, if I could get it to work!

 

Update: I just spoke to Verizon tech. He claims the phone should work with the car and then he told me that they have gotten a couple other complaints about this. He then told me to contact Samsung.

I called Samsung and the person there was very confused and had no idea what I was talking about. He told me to call back tomorrow to talk to a "Level 2" tech. Wow, I feel special. I wonder how many levels I will have to go up before I talk to someone who can help me. I'll keep my fingers crosed, though!

More tomorrrow!

 

I'd tell that rep you'll be right down to swap it for another one...

 

You might want to post your, well for the lack of a better term, anomaly on the Verizon/Samsung forum at HoFo, Erick.

http://www.howardforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=296

From what I've read, a lot of people have been getting some pretty goofy answers from both Verizon and Samsung.

 

I just spoke to a Samsung Level 2 tech and basically, this feature of the phone has been deactivated per the request of Verizon. Verizon asked to have the Dial-up Networking feature disabled which is what is needed in order to place calls through the phone... He did say that they've gotten a lot of calls about this and that Verizon may have this feature activated when the do a firmware update....

Until this feature is activated, I would avoid this phone if you want to use it in the Prius... I'm going to hang onto it and hope they do the update with this feature.