Best BT Phone out there now??

Ok, this topic has probably been covered numerous times. However, I'm a Verizon customer and like the service overall, although I think it is too expensive. Nevertheless, I'm considering investing in the Motorola V710 but have seen various posts about issues with no ring while in BT mode and inability to transfer phone book to car and vice versa. I'd consider switching service if the phone is more compatible and enables all the BT features between the car and the phone.

What phones regardless of service are currently considered fully integrated with the BT feature of the Prius? Has the V710 been patched yet? Any suggestions...

Motorola's Bluetooth support has been known to be spotty; they also have issues synchronizing their address book with computers via Bluetooth.

My favorite phones are the Sony Ericsson line; Ericsson invented Bluetooth and tends to have the best support for BT stuff all around. john1701a.com indicates that the T68i, T608/T610/T616, and T637 are all known to work with a Prius. Given that, it's all but certain the T630 does too (it's the same as the T637 but for different providers), and it's pretty darn likely the K700, Z600, Z1010, S700/S710, P800, and P900/P910 do, too. The coolest SE phones sometimes take awhile to make it to US carriers, but you can buy them "unlocked" online and use them with T-mobile.

I can confirm that SonyEricsson Z600 works with the Prius. The only thing that is not good is if you have multiple numbers for a contact, only the first number is transfered to the car. But that is a general problem, can't blame the phone for that.

/Paj

It's not OUT yet but this phone looks pretty bad ass. Kinda out of star trek almost...

Didn;t see a mention of who will carry, but most carriers seem to stick with certain brands, so if you have verizon and verizon tends to carry motorolas, you might be in luck (expect a higher price, but... may prevent you needing to replace a cell phone for a VERY long time.)

http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=491

Unless Verizon has a change of heart, no Bluetooth phone will ever work as well as it aught to.

Too bad Verizon has the best coverage here...

Don't forget the Siemens S56. It has worked in my Prius like a dream. Connectivity always within 3 seconds, signal strength good, no problem with number transfer, free from Cingular.

OMG this is so cool!!!!!

Over the weekend switched service from Verizon to T-mobile and not only saved money on the service, got a cool BT V600 Phone. The service is actually better in my house (dead area) than Verizon and the phone is fully compatible and integrated with the BT capabilities of the Prius. Also, got a $50 rebate on the phone plus a BT headset.

Just the BT phone capabilities alone of this remarkable car is enough to satisfy the Geek in me. BTW, my wife thinks I'm nuts. However, the only apparent psychological effects is when your driving down the road and people think your talking to yourself... I may have to upgrade my wireless plan now that I'm BT enabled. More excuses to talk. Anyway, I urge anyone to get a BT phone and take advantage of this capability. Note that in DC, you must use handsfree system. Take care and I hope everyone had a nice Labor Day weekend.

Moto V600

Never in my life did I think I would spend hours reading manuals to figure out how to use a car! I have a Moto V600 and it works great with the bluetooth system in the Prius. I actually bought the phone in anticipation of buying my Prius. It was a bit of a hassle transferring my phonebook to the car. I only could figure out how to do 1 phonebook entry at a time! The system works wonderfully and it is by far the safest way to talk using a cell phone while driving. I did experience a bit of a problem transferring data to the car--the Moto V600 gave me an error message that the bluetooth connection was busy. Any ideas why this happens? Now I need to figure out the nav system!

Moto V600

I had the same problem figuring out how to upload the phone numbers to the Prius. Finally realized I had to do it one at a time and can't remember the exact steps, :wink: since it was late last night. Someone should write an easy to follow step-by-step for uploading phone numbers to the car.

I am having a problem with the Moto 710 and answering the phone. The Verizon system is kicking people to the voice mail before I can answer the phone. I don't see a way to fix it. It appears that it takes a few rings before the bluetooth connection between the phone and the car click. I then look at the phone and call the person back. Totaly defeats having a bluetooth phone and hands free system. I don't use the phone much in the car unless my wife is with me to operate the phone. I usually limit my use to emergencies but I do get calls from the kids, usually something they think is urgent and is prefaced with "Dad how do I..." or "Have you made the deposit into my account yet". Does anyone have suggestions. I am going to email Verizon and Motorola today.

When you first get in the car with the phone powered on, are you seeing "bluetooth connection successful", or some similar message? If the phone is staying connected via bluetooth, then (I think) you should be able to answer it through a "touch" display icon which should pop up (along with the audio dropping out) on the display. I may not be remembering all this exactly right, but it's worked OK both times someone has tried to call me.

My phone (Nokia 6820) has a way to redefine one of the control keys as a bluetooth on/off key, which I turn "off" when I'm not in the car, and "on" when in (or heading towards) the car... If I get in and the phone is not bluetooth-ready (powered off or bluetooth not enabled), I get a message on the display "Bluetooth connection failed" (or similar), which reminds me to enable it.

The only function that doesn't seem to work with the 6820 is you don't see the signal level on the car's display, but I think (if I'm remembering right) that we do see something indicating that I'm on my home system, and "D" for digital.

If the 710 phone is waiting until it rings to "connect" to the car, that might be a problem. (The word may be 'pair' rather than 'connect', but I'm just figuring out how all this works too).

I keep reading everything people post to find things to try to improve the whole bluetooth experience.

Amusing note... when we picked up the car and was waiting for someone to come so we could sign papers, I got the phone to link up, and nobody around us in the dealership had seen it work before... and wanted to see what it did. We called my daughter and talked to her over the speakers. Way cool!

The Nokia 6620 on the Cingular website looks good, but I'd have to hear good things about Cingular before dropping Verizon...

I have had only excellent luck with cingular - I love their service and I have rollover included in my plan (900 minutes) for $39.00 per month including Rollover, so whatever I don't use I keep. In California, Cingular works everywhere. I not experienced and dead spots.

I have the Sony-Ericsson T616 Bluetooth Phone which works perfectly with the Prius. None of the problems experienced with Motorola. I just went with Sony and I have been glad I did. Bluetooth works great. Phone Numbers sync just fine too - no problems whatsoever.

Cingular and Sony-Ericsson will always have my vote,

-Robbie L.

Moto V600+AT&T= bluetooth heaven

I live in SoCal and use AT&T with my moto V600. Only able to download 1 phone entry at a time (took quite some time). The moto uses GSM and the coverage is great. Unbelievable to me, no one at the dealership in Temecula, CA. has heard of anyone using the bluetooth feature! As with many of the features on the Prius, bluetooth connectivity will probably be standard on cars someday. Incoming calls and 1 touch dialing work great. If you use a cell phone in your car and it doesn't have bluetooth, trade it in immediately! Bluetooth is the only way to have hands free operation. I actually bought the phone in anticipation of getting my Prius! Again, very pleased with the Moto V600/AT&T combo.

silver 04 package 9

I just got my Siemens S56 BT phone last week with Cingular and I love it. I leave the BT on all the time. I have two questions.

1. Does leaving BT on shorten the standby time? My battery only lasts one day with the BT on.

2. Does leaving BT on when you get a call outside the car cause a BT connection error?

Thanks in advance for the replies.

Bluetooth always on

Having BT powered up on my Moto V600 really cuts into my standby time. I am in the habit now of turning on BT on the phone when I get in the car and turning it off when I leave the car. No problem with bluetooth on all the time--shouldn't be a problem(except for shortened standby times). It is also possible for another BT enabled device to "see" what is on your phone if you have BT on all the time. This includes pictures, phonebook, etc. BT works up to 10 meters away. When I downloaded my phonebook into the Prius I did need to type in a code so the car could recognize the phone. That may not be the case, though with other devices.

If your willing to wait a month or two, the Nokia 9500 will be the best, plain and simple.

When they 9290 came out 4 years ago it was the greatest cell phone ever made. It's still one of the best phone on the market today. Unfortunately, it came out before blue tooth was around. The 9500 has everything the 92XX did with more power, storage space, and a bit smaller. Est. Ship times from Nokia are 4th quarter of 04 in the US.

They added things like a Camera, and Color Screen on the Front. Ext...

I get the Bluetooth successful message but about half the time I am not getting a "connection" in my car the other half of the time when I hit the pick up button the person has been shunted off to voice mail. This is a pain.

There was a site that has some information about the compatability of various phones with the prius.

http://www.prius-forum.org/tech/bluetooth_...mpatability.htm

But it seems like it's outdated now (plus it's been down for a few days. check the Google cache.)

It would be great if we could get people with working BT phones to sound off in here -- tell us exactly which functions do and don't work with the Prius for your particular phone.

1-Set up difficulty.

2-Speed connecting with car.

3-Sound quality.

4-Transfer of phone book.

5-Display of signal strength/roaming/caller id/etc.

6-Does the prius RING for incoming calls.

7-Transfer from phone to car/car to phone on already established calls.


Did I miss anything?