mgrant@MIMSY.UMD.EDU (Michael Grant) (10/05/86)
I recently had the chance to use a Radio Shack cellular phone for a few weeks. This is the transportable, (read: luggable), phone which, with the proper mounting hardware, (included), can be installed in your car. It looks like a lunch pail, (filled with bricks), with a rubber antenna on top and a handset on the side. There is a coil cord going from the handset to the unit which is a detachable DB-25. The original manufacturer is Mobira. (Nokia-Kinex; Mobira division, 2300 Tall Pines Dr., suite 100, Largo, FL 33540, (813)-536-5553) The phone has very clear voice quality, but if you put the handset volume up to high clipping occurs. I liked the squishy rubber buttons, it's too bad they weren't a bit more recessed. This fact, and because they were on the back of the handset made it impossible to rest the phone on your shoulder. I did like the fact that it had a delete key so that you could somewhat edit your phone number before sending it. The unit has a 4 digit factory settable lock code, a call timer, recall last number, and a 16 character LCD display. On the display the * and # keys displayed as A and P. You can enter up to a 32 digit phone number, the display rolls. The unit can be switched to either carrier. (In each area there are up to 2 carriers, a wire-line carrier, and a non-wire-line carrier. The wire-line carrier is usually run by the local telco, or subsidiary there of, and the non-wire-line carrier is run by some other company. System A is the non-wire-line carrier, and system B is the wire-line carrier. This function is known as an A/B switch.) I also liked that it was a full 3 watts, I was hardly ever without service. On the handset, the ear piece wasn't cupped as much as a real Western Electric telephone making it a bit uncomfortable for long conversations. The microphone was placed in such a way that I almost always covered it with my hand. I found the 4 hour standby time / 10 minute talk time on one battery to be completely unacceptable. Also, one cannot use the phone when the battery is being charged. I'm told that the battery life can be extended by getting more expensive batteries. When the battery life gets too low, the phone beeps about every 10 seconds. There is apparently no way to stop these beeps. If one wants to drain the battery, one must put up with about an hour of incessant beeping, (for certain types of batteries, draining the battery before you recharge it is supposed to extend the life of your battery). The phone was constructed primarily of plastic, which in this phone creeked when it was carried. (It made me wonder if it was about to fall apart). When buttons were pressed, the phone produces an annoying beep. This can be turned off from the keyboard, but comes back on again when the phone is next powered up. I also experienced the antenna base becoming loose which I had to tighten with an alan wrench. It isn't by any means the best phone I've ever seen or played with. I would suggest that one look around before purchasing this thing, there are several other transportables out there. There are even some real portables around like the Motorola 8000, the Walker, and the GE Mini which are slightly larger than your average trim-line telephone handset. Let me tell you, after lugging this thing around in a back pack for a day, I really wish this thing was all in the handset! Other transportable manufacturers that deserve looking into are NEC, DiamondTel by Mitsubishi, and Panasonic. The price of the Radio Shack phone is $1199.00, and the battery back runs 119.95, but you need to purchase 2 batteries at $9.95 each. The battery pack comes with the rubber antenna, a wall charger, and a car adapter for a cigarette lighter. -Mike Grant