Motorola Timeport L7089

It's called the TimePort L7089, and it comes in a fetching Sea Blue colour. Being a tri-band phone rather than a dual-band means that it will function on 165 networks in 85 countries including the USA, Africa and Asia, as well as in the UK and the rest of Europe.There are a surprising number of other features packed in to this slim handset too. VibraCall alert is one of them. In our view, any handset that doesn't have a vibrate mode is missing an important feature. Not only is VibraCall handy in quiet environments like meetings, but also in noisy places where you otherwise wouldn't hear the phone ring. In addition to this, the TimePort has 11 ring types and one programmable tone.The Optimax screen deserves a mention too, as not only does it have a full graphical display, but in the right lighting it almost glows, making text amazingly clear. Voice activated dialling is also a neat feature. This lets you simply speak one of 25 stored names, numbers or functions and the TimePort calls it for you, hands-free.

VoiceNotes mean your phone is also a personal dictaphone, providing up to three minutes of memos or even phone conversations. With up to 150 hours of standby time, and 210 minutes of talk time, the L7089's Lithium-Ion battery lasts an impressive time: during our tests, we found it only needed to be charged about once a week.

Although you can't personalise the look of this handset by changing covers, you can personalise the menus and quick access list by creating shortcut icons for those frequently used options. Motorola has even managed to include an infrared modem in the TimePort which enables wireless communication between the phone and your PC's email and the internet. TrueSync software lets you create, edit and synchronise phonebook entries with your PC or other compatible handheld device.

The L7089 is roughly the same size as the Nokia 3210, but slightly narrower and taller because of the external aerial. It is lighter than the 3210, weighing just 110 grammes. Because the TimePort is EFR capable, call quality is very good on networks that support it. It goes without saying that SMS Text Messaging is supported, and there is one-touch access to voicemail.

Not everything is perfect, though. We didn't like the automatic setup of quick-dial numbers, where each number on the keypad is assigned to a stored number, as a button could accidentally be pressed in, inadvertently calling someone. The keypad lock solves this problem, but when you turn this feature on, you can't answer a call without keying in the unlock code first - a time-consuming process.

See also:

Orange plans high-speed alternative to GPRS

Orange today dismissed hype surrounding next generation 'data only' wireless networks, as it launched its own alternative mobile data service that runs on top of its existing voice network.  29 Nov 1999

Technology advances help Internet reach your handset

Wireless technology that will bring Internet-type services to mobile phones is gradually coming to market, and one Swedish company claims to have overcome several limitations that were slowing progress.  24 Nov 1999

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