Review of the Motorola MOTOROKR T505 Bluetooth In-Car Speakerphone w/ Digital FM Transmitter
Motorola MotoRokr T505 Review
October 9, 2009 by tsowen, PPCGeeks
Motorola's T505 is easy to use while your eyes are on the road.
All too often we have all witnessed that driver who has been talking on their cell phone and driving at the same time. It is something that has become a habit especially here in the United States but with an in-car speaker system such as the MotoRokr T505 it’s a habit that can be broken.
I was given the opportunity to take one of these for a test drive and I have to admit it was love at first site. The device is slightly bigger that a garage-door opener and has a nice clip that attaches to your car’s visor. Not to be confused with a Bluetooth headset, the device is a speakerphone so you probably wouldn’t want to walk around with it strapped around your waist. The device pairs easy with any Bluetooth cell phone and is very easy to set up. The instructions that come with the device were easy to follow and in a couple of steps you are ready to cruise down the road and chat hands-free. With the T505 you are not limited to just phone calls either; if your device supports stereo Bluetooth you can stream music to the device or to your car’s stereo via the built-in FM transmitter.
Motorola has put a lot of thought into this device making it a breeze to use. While streaming music through the FM transmitter, you can shuffle through tracks by using the volume controls. Another nice feature was while streaming music through the FM transmitter if a call was received the music was paused automatically so you could receive the incoming call. Calls sounded great playing across my FM stereo. If your device supports it, you can make a call with voice commands.
Setting up the FM transmitter function was a breeze. Simply hold the FM button on the back of the T505 and it will search for the clearest channel in your area. Once the channel is found the device will tell you which channel to tune your radio to.
The device comes with a car charger that plugs into your cigarette lighter. It would have been nice to see the device come with a storage case when not in use. The device does not come with a wall charger but you can pick one up for $20.
The bottom line: Even though the T505 is not a full duplex speakerphone Motorola has packed some nice features into the device such as how A2DP Bluetooth works with the FM transmitter and making the device simple to use. Motorola also claims the device can provide up to 18 hours of talk time when using the FM transmitter.
Note: For those users worried about privacy should know that when operating in FM mode, their conversations can be picked up by any FM radio in the area, but the transmitter is relatively low power and has a short range.
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I’ve had the T505 for a while now and so far its pretty good. I wish the FM transmitter was a little bit stronger so that it would overcome radio stations, but that would just make conversations…not so private if someone else were to tune into the same FM station. Also, the device has great battery life.
While this is a very cheap solution and does not require much in the way of installation, the best way to do speakerphone in the car is to integrate it into the radio aux port that can interrupt the radio when a call comes in.
My motorola bluetooth car install system did it this way and you could listen to any radio station, play music from the phone and even have the GPS alerts interrupt when giving direction info.
In this day and age it should be standard in every car!
I’ve had this device for well over three months and absolutely love it. So long as I stay within the same 50-70 mile radius, I never have to change the radio channel. Callers always comment on how clear I sound (although they have commented that I sound a bit like I’m in a tin can). It’s gotten the best reviews from my callers out of any hands free device I’ve used.
My only gripes about it? Well, music transmitted from it to my stereo aren’t of stellar quality, but that’s to be expected, I’d think. And when receiving a call, I haven’t figured out how to have Voice Command announce the call over the device instead of it’s built-in caller id. The number, not name, is always read off by a woman’s voice with a British accent.
Overall, I give it a 9.
Asphyx, what kind of system did you have that was integrated into your radio?
I have this too and it is great. The quality of my voice is exceptional and works better than any BT I have used.
The added features like being able to play the audio from my PPC applications (slingbox, radio apps) adds a lot of functionality.
Almost all new cars come with this feature and this inexpensive tool make my old car feel tech new
hello…. i’ve had this T505 for about a year now…worked excellent with my wing….btw…clocked @288mhz, pandora, youtube, winvibe, tcpmp, google maps, cleanRAM, weatherbug direct….runs gr8. now that i have the tmobile touch pro2…. the T505 tends to sound distorted only through the fm transmitting portion of the device….not the on board speaker…also i have the Plantronics590 headphones no sweat… i don’t get it.