Photo gallery: Motorola MOTOROKR T505 Bluetooth In-Car SpeakerphoneDesign
Compared to the garish and futuristic designs Motorola is known for, the T505 is surprisingly subdued. When clipped to the visor in your car, the body of the transmitter looks like a tiny beige spaceship from an old B-grade sci-fi flick. Out of the box the T505 might seem a touch too large, but in our experience, once it was attached to the visor it disappeared, blending out of sight against the stone-grey cloth covering our car's interior.
The front of the T505 features two buttons, one to receive calls and one to pause your music. On the back you find a further two buttons used for power and to activate the FM transmitter feature, volume keys are on either side. The simple design of the T505 belies the extent of its excellent functionality.
Performance
We tested the T505 with Samsung's recently released i560 and the iPhone 3G. Both phones discovered the T505 in record time and paired to it without hesitation. Once connected we tuned the T505 into a radio frequency by pressing and holding the dedicated button for a moment or two. Once it has tuned, a robotic voice tells you which station to tune your radio to. Motorola calls this technology StationFinder and it will commandeer the best frequency, based on static and reception, each time you ask it to refresh.
The steps we took to connect the T505 took a total of about 30 seconds and at no time did it seem like we were going to have any difficulty. Once we had made a connection we started to make calls, transmitting the audio received through our car's speaker system. The quality of the calls was good; the audio at both ends sounded hollow, but was always loud and clearly audible.
The other advantage to having the audio from your phone routed through the car's radio is being able to stream music stored on your media player handset and hearing it without wearing headphones. Playing music off the Samsung handset sounded great, but unfortunately, we couldn't use this feature with the iPhone 3G because it lacks the stereo Bluetooth profile.
Overall
The MOTOROKR T505 has an unobtrusive look that will suit most car interiors and offers functionality that people who drive will appreciate. It's certainly a better option than the wired hands-free option bundled with most handsets, and more comfortable than wearing most Bluetooth headsets. But the most attractive feature is its ease of use. Pairing the T505 and tuning into a radio frequency could not be any simpler.
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