Poor quality of speech on the Prius' phone system

Get the nokia 6820. Sony Ericcison T616 is known to be bad quality on voice communication over bluetooth. I tested both and there is a big difference on with my nokia 6820. They are some limitations like not being able to transfer the whole Phonebook at once. Good luck.

 

Cingular uses GSM which Tmobile and AT&T also use. Since GSM is pretty much a "world standard" you can buy any GSM phone, pop your SIM into it, and it'll work with your phone number.

Also of note, pretty much all of Nokia's newer phones have excellent bluetooth capability/quality. So just head to some online store and buy a GSM version. If you're using Cingular, it *will* work.

If you're curious, the best place to get info on cingular is probably over at http://www.howardforums.com

Also, if you're looking to buy a new phone, check out http://www.just-talk.com/ (they tend to sell the top-of-the-line phones, but I think they have basic ones as well).

 

I really don't think popping your SIM card into "any" GSM phone will work. GSM phones need to be "unlocked" in order to switch dedicated GSM networks. It's not just the SIM card. You can, however, get the unlock codes for most standard production GSM phones off the Internet, most for a small fee.

As I've commented in other threads, you have to remember that voice transfer over Bluetooth is half-duplex, meaning sound is only transferred in one direction at one time. If both of you try talking at the same time, or if either side has excessive background noise, the signal will most definitely cut out on you. That produces much fo the choppiness that your listeners hear. It doesn't mean that hte background noise is necessarily from your side, since you've indicated that the windows are up, the fan is down low and there are no other background noises. It could well be their side. I've run tests will talking to someone on a mobile phone, on a land line, under various noise conditions and it correlates directly. These facts are also documented in the Prius manuals.

I was just commenting on what appears to be a signal gain adjustment setting for the Bluetooth connection in the "Hidden Tests/Settings" screens. Perhaps you can experiment with cranking the gain up a few db.

 

Actually, you're wrong. Under Bluetooth 1.0 and 1.1, the Hands Free Profile and Headset Profile (which was new to 1.1) are both defined as being full-duplex, meaning that sound is transferred in both directions simultaneously. I know of no headsets that are only half-duplex, although it is possible (but unlikely) that some of the first generation headsets may have been. Any such device should never have carried the Bluetooth symbol or logo.

The Prius' built-in hands free system is in fact full-duplex. Some simple experimentation will prove this to you. The system does, however, feature a rather agressive microphone/speaker gain contoller that attempts to eliminate feedback, echo, and ambient noise. Under certain conditions, this system could yield behavior similar to a half-duplex system, where the speaker is muted during microphone reception.

 

The SE T616 won't allow you to switch off hands-free operation once the Bluetooth connection has been established. Perhaps it's just with my phone, but I can't turn bluetooth of once the connection has been established.

 

It's a frustrating problem, since the T616 user's manual actually says there's supposed to be a 'transfer call' function available during a connected call. I haven't seen it and wonder if it's not in the present software for the phone.

If the vehicle isn't moving, you can always go into Phone->Settings->Select Phone and choose a different device. That should disable the activated BT link. It's not possible to disconnect the BT link from the phone side once it has been connected.