Best only for Stateside travelers (Motorola Timeport L7089)

Member Name: TominDC

Product:	Motorola Timeport L7089
Date:	29/09/00 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Light in weight -- can carry in shirt pocket.

Disadvantages: Light on features too

Phone has many nice features, but for EU folks, I agree with "Jamied" that Nokia or Siemens would seem to be a better buy. For we Yanks – it is the only game in town.

World travelers, L7089 is the only all-GSM tri-band you can use in the US, and VoiceStream is the only all-GSM provider. US service fees are better than NEXTEL's.

Advantages of the Motorola L7089:

Weight - v. light -- can carry in shirt pocket.
Menu – handy quick-menu button will engage major functions.
Sound quality - v.good in & out.
Battery – v. good (48 hours with normal business use).
Dial by voice – single-hand calling (impress strangers).
Voice mail – dedicated button calls for v-mail.
Belt clip – snap on/off swivel is convenient fewer impalements when sitting.
Vibrate – easy on/off; can be programmed to ring after vibrating a bit.

Disadvantages of the Motorola L7089:

Manual – poor layout, lacks info on half the phone’s features. E.g., provides instructions for keyboard locking, but none for unlocking.
Battery meter – actual % strength is buried in menus.
Shape – Non-retracting aerial can be a nuisance.
Features - no alarm clock, calculator, predictive text input, calendar.

Dopey features:

IR Modem – does anybody surf the net @ 14.4kpbs anymore?

Compared to the guppy size of the L7089, other US-capable multi-band “world phones” like those from Bosch and Nokia seem like whales. An instructional video should accompany such a pricey phone with such a poor manual. I can see how Jamied missed the quick-menu button in the fine print. Technical support is very spotty, because the product was released in the States only in September. Phone-to-phone SMS is not possible to EU phones via VoiceStream. Internet originated SMS capability is provided, but it is not reliable. Mike will pick
up voice @ 6 feet, but there is no hands-free speaker like the aging Motorola i1000 I replaced (just a plug-in earpiece). This is a nice state-of-the-art option for frequent US visitors until the arrival of 2001's Motorola with the Palm Pilot built in.

Summary: