So many features, so little time! (Motorola Timeport 280)

Member Name: xalala

Product:	Motorola Timeport 280
Date:	17/02/04 (230 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Voice activated dialling, Plenty of ringtone options, and not the daft polyphonic ones either (may be a disadvantage for some!), Triband

Disadvantages: Green backlit screen - I preferred the blue screen the T250 had, Datebook fiddly to use - not like the Nokia alarm clock

The Motorola Timeport T280 is really a phone aimed at business users rather than the "yoof" market. It has many features that seem designed for this audience, and I (despite being a "business user") use hardly any of them, ingrate that I am. Since my company provided the phone for me to use, I really don’t know about its price or availability either. So, what can I tell you about then…?

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How does it feel?
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The phone is heavier than many that are newer to the market, but it is also larger. It feels remarkably sturdy and comfortable in the hand, and I have dropped mine a few times onto a laminate floor and so far there’s no damage...

The buttons are smooth and all are slightly raised except the 5, which is textured to help both the visually impaired and those of us who use our phones in the dark. The buttons around the edge of the phone (used for volume control and voice recording) are rubberised, making it more difficult for your fingers to slip while using.

In terms of weight and bulk, it seems find in a jacket pocket or clipped to the waistband of trousers, but I think it would be too heavy for a shirt pocket.

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How does it look?
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It looks like the one in the picture above! The phone is a funky matt silver colour with black printed numbers and letters on the buttons. It’s larger than many phones now available, at 12 cm long (14 cm including the aerial) and 5 cm wide. However I think that’s a positive thing, as I would struggle to use a phone that’s significantly smaller than this one – small isn’t always beautiful, you know.

Like most mobiles – the ones I’ve used at any rate – it uses the green and red phone buttons to start and end
calls and send text messages.

One of the reasons I was pleased to be given this phone – and call me shallow if you like... - was because I had seen a previous model (the T250) and really liked the electric blue backlit screen. Alas, for whatever reason, this version’s large screen lights up in a rather sickly green shade. Eurgh. Mind you, it is very easy to read the screen when lit, easier than with the electric blue colour, but I’d go for style over ease of use myself. I mean, since when did green and silver look good together?!

The size of the screen on this model is also something I like. It’s big enough to display six lines of text (or four if you’ve zoomed in), and is easy to read – I’d guess at it using around 10pt text size in a standard non-serif font.

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Using the Phone I: Making and Receiving Calls
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Despite what many phone manufacturers would have us believe, making and receiving voice calls is the fundamental function of any mobile phone. Ultimately, all the bells, whistles, downloadable ring tones, pretty covers, cameras and lights are no good if you can’t actually talk to anyone. Fortunately, with this phone it’s all pretty simple – just dial the number and press the green button (assuming that you haven’t locked your keypad).

If you press the green button without having entered a number, you’ll find yourself presented with a list of your 10 most recently dialled numbers. This is particularly useful if you have to redial someone – saves wear and tear on the fingers as well as preventing you screwing up the number when you redial.

It is possible to store numbers as speed dials, too. Personally I prefer just to use the phonebook (of whi
ch, more later), however if you do use this, you access your speed dial numbers simply by holding down the appropriate number for 1-2 seconds.

Call waiting, holding, forwarding and conference calling are all available, however I have never had cause to use any of these features, so can’t really comment on their effectiveness.

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Using the Phone II: Texting
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Unlike my previous phone (which was a Nokia, although I can’t remember the model), this has predictive text, or iTAP. It’s the first time I’ve tried to use predictive texting, and I’ve found it necessary to keep a close eye on what combination of letters it’s suggesting. It’s been relatively easy and quick to get used to though, and I don’t think I’d go back to using the non-predictive entry – although it is optional, and you can toggle it on or off according to preference.

I like the fact that you can send one text message to a group of people, again saving wear and tear on the old digits. I suspect that this is because texting is a pretty hit and miss affair for many business users (I’m thinking of my dad in particular, and many of my more senior colleagues and directors), so the less opportunity they have to stuff it up, the better. It’s a shame their secretaries can’t text on their behalf... ;o)

In the text message set up area, you can customise how long it takes a read message to expire, which can be useful. Or annoying, as I’ve just realised my phone has deleted my sister’s new number before I remembered to store it in the phonebook. Bah. Speaking of which...

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Using the Phonebook
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The built-in phone book allows you to store shed loads o
f contact details (accurate in equations where shed loads = 500). For each entry, you can add work, home, mobile, main, fax and pager numbers should you want to. Each is displayed separately in the phone book, the only way to tell them apart is the small icon to the right of the name, which is different for each type of number. Even without having looked at all the icons in detail, it’s easy enough to tell them apart with a little common sense.

Entries in the phone book can be given a voice key, so that you can then use the voice activated dialling feature. I tried this feature on an old phone and had problems with it, I’ve never gone back and tried again, although I’m assured by those in the know (the Other Half, aka Gadget Boy) that the facility has improved in the last three years.

Accessing the phone book is incredibly simple, since it’s one of the “soft key” functions – these are the two keys either side of the M (menu) button. It can also be accessed by pressing the joystick up or down, or through the traditional menu route.

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Battery Life
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I’ve been very impressed with the battery life on this phone. According to the specs, the thing has 253 hours (that’s 10 ½ days) standby, and up to 260 minutes (4 hours 20 minutes) talk time. These claims are actually pretty close to the performance that I get. One charge lasts me around 6 days in a standard week (that’s one where I’m mostly in the office and therefore not using it very much). I’ve used it for well over two hours talk in one day and made barely a dent in the battery life indicator.

Charging itself is relatively standard, it takes a few hours to fully charge a dead battery, and it says "Charge Complete" on the screen to let you know when it’s d
one. One thing I don’t like is the charger itself. The connection with the phone doesn’t appear very robust, and I’m convinced that in a few months time I’ll have to get a new charger because the current one has bent and no longer works.

It’s sometimes awkward to get the charger connected properly, so it’s important to make sure that the phone is actually charging before you leave it. If the charger doesn’t seem to be working, jiggling it about or removing and reconnecting it has worked for me so far.

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Using the Datebook
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The datebook on the T280 I’ve never really got to grips with. I think if I spent consistently more time travelling and out of the office rather than it being in concentrated periods I would be much more likely to make use of this feature. It allows you to essentially run an appointment diary through your phone. When you enter a meeting, you can also choose to make a few notes about it – rough agenda, points to raise, reasons for holding it and so on.

One of the problems with the datebook as far as I’m concerned is that, having included it, there is no need for a separate alarm clock function like the one available on a Nokia. Maybe it’s just me, but whenever I’m staying in a hotel on business, I prefer to use my own alarm. Yes, it’s because I don’t trust the hotel to get it right :o) It was very handy being able to set an alarm so easily on my old Nokia, and it’s much less intuitive now as it has to be done through the datebook as a standard calendar entry.

Why they called it a datebook and not a calendar is beyond me, too – perhaps it’s a more commonly used term in the States, or perhaps it just "goes with" phonebook. It took me so
me time to figure out what it meant at any rate – I even had to resort to reading the instructions!

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Other features
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The amount of stuff this phone can do is awesome. The amount of stuff on the phone that I use is, in comparison, miniscule. Other features include WAP, computer connectivity, radio, games (a measly selection of Blackjack, Mindblaster and Paddleball), voice notes where you can use the phone as a Dictaphone to record short notes and memos, calculator and other standard phone features like security levels, ringtones etc.

One thing that I have found particularly useful is the fact that you can customise the menu to suit your own needs, moving things up and down the list as necessary. You can also change the soft key links to the menu item of your choice. For example, since I don’t use the browser on my phone (why bother, it’s pants!) I’ve changed it to give me instant access to messages (text and voicemail). Also, I’ve changed the menu so that the items I access most frequently are at the top of the list, so I don’t have to scroll through those I don’t use to get to the useful ones.

The final feature that I think deserves a special mention is the small joystick key that Motorola has introduced. It’s used for navigating around the menus and moving through text messages and the phonebook, and is a very useful thing to have. It’s certainly much easier to use than the more traditional up and down keys that most mobiles have.

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Conclusion
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This is a very good phone, with many features that make it particularly suitable for business users. How many of those features any one person would use on a regular basis is up for debate, but they’re nice to have.

&
#84;he good: Nice look and feel, plenty of ringtone options, personalisation of the menu options, long battery life, backlit screen, voice activated dialling, triband so you can use it in the States and most of the rest of the world, joystick to navigate menu with.

The bad: Poor range of games (well, it’s meant to be a business phone), can’t download ringtones, charger seems prone to bending or breaking.

The ugly: The green backlit screen instead of the nice blue one the T250 had. :op

Summary: