*REWRITTEN* Motorola - Could do better! (Motorola Timeport L7089)

Member Name: Epiphany

Product:	Motorola Timeport L7089
Date:	19/01/01 (213 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Light, nice looking, Tri-band

Disadvantages: Menu system, ring tones

I purchased this phone back in June 2000 for a mere £23.99 on an Orange tariff AND with all the accessories... that was an absolute steal as at the time the phones were retailing at about £99 as I recall! Currently I have seen it retailing online for £29.99, despite Motorola discontinuing it’s manufacture, and I have been offered £20-25 for my second hand one, by a local shopkeeper. I kept this phone for a year, but as soon as my contract was over, I purchased a Nokia 3310. I have a great affection for the phone, but at the end of the day there are too many drawbacks for me to consider using it, or any other Motorola phone again.

~* Style *~

I like the way the phone looks, it's light (108g as compared to my new phone which is 133g) and it isn't too big to carry around. Its dimensions are 130 x 46 x 24.5 mm and today it looks quite long compared to other phones, but it is fairly slim. The rounded shape adds to its appeal, along with the petrol green dull metallic finish. The aerial also adds to the ‘lengthy look’, but unlike the Nokia aerials, this one shows no sign of cracking or breaking.

It has a large, bright green, light reflective Optimax TM high contrast display, which makes the display very easy to see, even when the back light is off, and is definitely a plus side of this phone. If you can’t see the display properly, you can adjust the contrast.

When the battery saving mode is off, a light flashes on the top left rounded corner of the phone. If there is no network it flashes red, but when everything is OK the light is green. This is of no use whatsoever and is just gimmicky. If you want to know if you have a signal or not, you can simply do what everyone else does and look at the screen. The only other use it could have would be finding it in the dark, for example at the bottom of a bag! I always had battery saving mode on so the light didn’t flash, unless I was trying to run the b
atteries down!

~* Calling Information *~

Signal quality is good, even in Australia, and as it is a tri-band, that is it can use the GSM 900, 1800 and 1900 networks, the phone can be used anywhere in the world with a GSM network. This includes North America, which cannot be reached by a dual band phone. The L7089 was the first tri-band phone in the UK, and there haven’t been many since. It employs FR/EFR/HR Enhanced Voice Quality technology to get the best from the signal, which shows!

Talk time is quoted at being up to 210 minutes, whilst standby time can be up to 150 hours. I found that I wouldn’t need to charge this phone more than once a week if I turned it off at night a few times, which I tend to do anyway. It seems to have a greater lasting power than the Nokias, so that is another thing in its favour.

It also seems to take much less time to charge, my new Nokia takes 4 hours 20 minutes (I timed it) but the Motorola seemed to take more like 3 hours (approximately). Whether the battery is charging or fully charged, a very handy message can be seen commenting on its status. This ensures that you know the difference between when you plug it in and leave it over night only to find it hasn’t charged because you never turned the power on, and when it has fully charged. This can happen with a Nokia; If you don’t stay and wait for the little battery icon to appear, the next time you look at your phone (say, in the morning), you might be mistaken to think that it has been fully charged as the battery icon has gone, when in actual fact it never appeared. So this is another feature I think is handy and very helpful for the user.

This phone, like the Nokia 3310, also has voice activated dialling. I never used this, so I cannot comment on how effective it was or wasn’t. Apparently there are 25 phone book voice tags and 9 quick access voice tags for you to use, very handy indeed for hands free
access!

The volume is very easy to change, as the buttons are located on the left-hand side of the phone. They are within easy reach, unlike the ones on the Nokia, which I find difficult to reach whilst in-call. With the Nokia I have to use my other hand and risk cutting my caller off which is not a good thing!

When you miss a call, trying to find out who phoned you is also a long-winded process. The phone tells you that you missed a call, and when you acknowledge this fact it then takes you back to the normal phone display. It is up to you to navigate your way through the menu screen to find out who the mystery caller was, or set up the handy little short cut button (described below) to make the process a little easier.

~* Phone Book *~

The phone itself has the capability of storing 100 names and numbers within it’s own memory. Then you can store a further 90 (in my case) names on your SIM card. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that many numbers I wish to store, so this is more than adequate for my needs!

~* Menu Style *~

The menus are a problem. In fact the menus are a huge problem, and one of the biggest reasons for Motorola to consider revising their phone’s software. There are lots of options to scroll through and not all of them can be added to the shortcut menu.

The shortcut menu is a facility that enables nine menu options to be assigned numbers, which can be activated by pressing the shortcut button (an arrow pointing straight up) and either the number or by scrolling through and selecting the option you want. This is a handy little feature which I used to access my inbox, out box, read message facility and also to turn my vibrate function on and off (repeatedly whilst I was running down the battery so I could recharge fully!!!).

~* Text Messaging *~

The size of the screen enables you to see up to 5 lines of SMS text at a time, and that i
s about the only useful feature of this function.

When text messages come through, you don't know whom they are from until you get to the end of the message, and even then you have to know the phone number of the person who sent it to you. This is most unhelpful and annoying. Also, the notification that you have received a text message only remains on your screen for 20 seconds, after that you can only see the little envelope icon in the top left corner of your screen. This means that when you come to read the message, you either have to trawl your way through all the menu options to get to it, or set up your shortcut menu to make the process quicker (which is what I did).

Writing the text messages themselves is also a problem. Unlike Nokia phones whose cursor automatically moves across so you can type a new letter only a few seconds after you have finishing selecting the previous letter (does that make sense), Motorola require you to move the cursor yourself. If you forget to do this then you press the key for whatever letter you are trying to get to until you come across it again. This is not a huge problem once you get used to it and it is rather nice to be able to control when you move to the next letter, rather than find you have taken too long and your phone has chosen the wrong letter for you!

MOST annoying however, is the punctuation part of the set up. You press number one over and over again until you reach the punctuator you require. If you miss it however, you have to start all over again – I’ve often had to do this a number of times before finally selecting the ‘ or whatever it was I was looking for. Also, there are other symbols are located under a different key so instead of pressing ‘1’ you have to press ‘0’, to find and use symbols such as ‘*’ and ‘-‘. The only problem is, I often forget where I have to look for each symbol I want to use and end up hav
ing to go through the options on both keys!

Once you have finished your message there is an equally long process when you come to try and send it. First you have to find ‘Send’ in the first set of menus, then you have to select ‘Enter Number by hand’, or ‘Find entry in the phonebook’ from within the next set of menus which requires even more key presses. Then you have to search for the entry by entering up to three characters of the name you are looking for. Eventually, the message manages to get sent and you have to retire for a snooze it took so long. And don’t expect Nokia style reports on the status of your message! If you want a receipt you have to type RCT (this also appears in the Nokia handbook for some reason – who wants two reports?!) at the start of your message, and even then don’t bank on it telling you the truth about whether the recipient has the message or not. I remember one day I sent my boyfriend lots of messages and I got lots of reports but no replies. It turns out that his phone was actually in my handbag in my room and he hadn’t read any of them… so it lies!

~* Ringtones *~

Motorola ringtones stand out from the crowd. They are the single most awful set of tones on the planet, and I pity the poor person who chose the set. I often wonder if someone did it on purpose; “I am going to find the 11 most annoying ringtones in the universe and put them all on this phone… all except two, one for the text messages and one for the telephone, which everyone will use so that they do not know who’s phone is ringing… yes, that should be fun”. Motorola owners dread their phone ringing and get seriously frustrated, as you cannot download tones for this model. I have tried, and failed! One of the chaps I work with has broken the mould though. He hasn’t gone for the ringtone everyone chooses (I can’t recall what it is right now
but I know it isn’t German ring, English ring, French ring or the imaginatively entitled ring ring) and he has chosen a tone that sounds like a funeral march. It is depressing, highly annoying and has provoked my highly strung colleague to threaten to throw it out of the window and ask the owner, not so politely, to take it with him when he leaves his desk!

You have several options once you have chosen the tone. You can let your phone ring, ring then vibrate, ring and vibrate at the same time (ooooh, clever), or just vibrate. So that makes it alright then. NOT.
The vibrate mechanism is fairly strong (which is why I used it to run the battery down) so you are likely to feel it in a pocket or hear it quietly vibrating on a table. It is very useful for when you want your phone to let you know when you have a call or a text message, but not make too much fuss about it. This option is another one that can be added to the shortcut menu for easy access, which is incredibly useful, as the number of menu screens you have to go through to get to this option to change it is phenomenal!

~* Security *~

There are all the normal security features you would expect to find including; Phone Lock (Manual/automatic), SIM Card Lock - SIM PIN and SIM PIN 2, Keypad Lock and Restrict Access to Phone Directories. Nothing revolutionary to point out here then!

~* Other Features *~

Aside from those mentioned above, the L7089 has an infrared device inside enabling Infra Red connectivity between your phone and compatible PC. My laptop and subsequent computer didn’t have infrared ports so this was another feature that was completely lost on me. However, I can see it’s uses in a business situation, although I’m not sure how good the data transfer rate is across an infrared link! Presumably, once you have the link established, you can then utilise the TrueSync software to edit your phonebook on the PC or handheld you are
using. This, I can now tell you, comes with the phone, or at least it did with mine but perhaps that is only for new contract phones rather than upgrades.

There is also a Voicenotes facility so you can record reminders for yourself. This is easy to do (even when you don’t want to), as there is a little button on the right hand side of the phone that starts and stops the recording (at least I suppose that how my accidental recording finishes!). You can store up to 3 minutes of speech, and you can stop and start recording and each one will be stored as a different memo with a total of 99 possible. To listen to these messages you have to go through the multitude of menu screens once again and you will find it somewhere in the “Messages” section.

Another set of screens let you view the last 10 calls made, received and missed. I think this is one of the few occasions when the Motorola actually refers to your phone book to see if it can recognise any of the numbers! You might actually find out who it was who called without having to look up the number yourself, or phone it just to find out, how useful!!!

Other call features identified are as follows:

· Call diverting (to answer phone or other number and with the option to change how long it rings for before diverting)
· Call Barring
· Hold Call
· Call Waiting
· Calling Line Identification (name displayed if in Phone Book)
· User Call Rejection
· Conference Calling
· Call Transfer
· Mute Call
· Automatic Redial - on busy
· Call Cost Control
- Advice of Charge (Charging and information)
- Programmable Audible Call Timers (to let you know when you have spent too long on the phone already)
- Display Call Timers or charge meters (i.e how long you have spent on the phone in total, for the last call etc.)

Most of these are common to most mobiles, and most of the features that aren’t I haven
217;t used anyway. Still, it’s nice to know they are there if you need them!

~* In Conclusion *~

I have fond memories of using this phone, and do love it’s sleek style, but there are far too many factors that annoy me and that are un-user friendly for me to consider purchasing another Motorola. I will miss my old phone as I am attached to it in a funny kind of way, despite all the problems. In the future I will stick with Nokia, it is the overall better performer! I do think both manufacturers could learn from each other however!

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