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Hands Free by July 1st or Jail

Plantronics Discovery 640

If you live in California, you should be aware that as of July 1, 2008, if you drive and talk on your cell phone without a hands-free device, you can get a ticket.  I’ve pretty much ignored this law change until recently.

Last year, I bought this Plantronics Discovery 640 from Best Buy, I think for about $80 but I’m not sure.  Assuming you know how big a casino chip is, you can see that this bluetooth cell phone headset is very small.  The sound quality from this unit is excellent.  That’s the good news.

The bad news is, the ear piece keeps coming off, and the charger plug keeps falling out during charging.  I also just didn’t like having something in my ear for a long time.  I guess I could never live in a Star Trek world where you have to have one in your ear all the time.  Actually, I see a lot of wannabe deal makers wearing these things all day, and all night.  They even wear it when they go out clubbing.  Yeah, so cool.

As the July 1st deadline comes closer, I decided I’d better get something else pronto.  So back to Best Buy I went and found this Motorola Motorokr T505 hands-free bluetooth device for about $130.

Motorola Motorokr T505

It has a rechargeable battery, a built in speaker and microphone, but can also broadcast on FM to your stereo system in your car.  In reading the reviews by people, there seemed to be some complaints about the FM signal being marginal in Los Angeles.

When I tried it out, I didn’t have any problems with the quality of the sound coming from my FM stereo.  The bluetooth setup was a snap, and pretty much everything worked as advertised… except for one small problem.  My first test call receiver told me she heard a buzzing sound in the background.  I didn’t make much of it since it could just be the connection, her cell phone, or even something in my car.  So I made another call, with the same problem.

Finally, I took the unit out of my car and made yet another call and the buzzing was still there.  It couldn’t be the connection, or my car, or all those people’s cell phones.  The only constant was my cell phone and the hands-free device.  I’m not about to change my cell phone right now so I guess I’ll have to return this unit and try to find something else.

I hope I find something before July 1st.  I don’t want to go to jail.

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3 Comments

  1. Try the Bluetrek device. It doesn’t have the FM transmitter bit, but it works pretty well and no buzzing. Of course, you could just have a defective device from Moto… It may be worth to try another and see if has the same issue.

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