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MOBILE EXTRAS
INTRO
Wondering what to do with all that spare cash
you’ve got left over from Christmas? Spend it on your mobile phone of course,
here’s a few more accessory ideas
COPY
ORA Vibraring, £35
If you want to become an instant social
pariah then try leaving your mobile
phone switched on in meetings, at the cinema, theatre or in a restaurant, it
works best with the ringer on its
loudest, most raucous setting...
The trouble is, if you switch your phone off when
you don’t want to make a nuisance of yourself you’ll miss potentially important
calls. Of course you could sign up to a voice mail service, if your network
supports one, but that will involve a delay in you getting the message. Turning
the ringer off could be a solution, but you’ll have to keep your eyes glued to
the display panel, which might be difficult, or inconvenient. There’s always the
low volume setting. True, but that can be just as annoying as a loud ringer in
quiet surroundings; on the other hand if there’s any background noise you might
miss it, which once again defeats the object.
A handful of phones have a silent vibrating
call-alert facility built-in, which is great for the owners of those models,
but not much use to anyone else. Now those with a Ericsson 237, 238 or 337 can
stay discreet with Ora’s clip-on Vibraring module; they tell us they’re
developing them for other models as well, though they will probably be incorporated
into replacement batteries.
Vibraring for the Ericsson is very small. It
clips onto the base of the phone, it has the same cross-sectional shape, and
adds a couple of centimetres to the length. It weighs next to nothing, well a
maybe just a few grams, and it costs £35. Fitting one takes only a few moments,
there are a pair of springy grippers on the side, that latch onto slots on the underside
of the phone, a row of contacts mates with the mobile’s accessory connector.
All you have to do is switch off the phone’s ringer, and it’s ready to go. There’s
only two small points to watch out for, first the added length will probably
mean the phone won’t fit inside most carry cases, and second, the module
obscures the contact panel on the underside of the phone, so it can’t be used
with any other accessories, or re-charged.
In case you were wondering how it works, inside
the Vibraring there’s a tiny electric motor with a small unbalanced weight attached
to the shaft. When it spins -- in response to the ‘phones ringer -- it vibrates.
It’s as simple as that. For such a small motor the vibration is surprisingly
intense, strong enough to be felt through several layers of clothing, though it
might not make it’s presence felt through a thick coat or jacket and the phone is
best placed so that it is close to the users body, in a shirt pocket, for
example. Trouser pockets are also very popular, so we’re told.
It’s a bit of a shock when it goes off the
first few times, so it’s well worth having a few practice runs first, before
you use it in that important meeting, or your reaction to an incoming call could
be every bit as embarrassing as a loud ringer...
THE FACTS
Typical price: £35
Features: silent vibrating ‘ringer’
To fit: Ericsson 237/8 and 337
Telephone: ORA, telephone (01296) 415445
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 85%
Aico Turbocharger, £60
We still see more leather cases and holsters
than any other cellphone accessory, but battery care products are catching up
fast. This month it’s the turn of the Aico Turbocharger, designed to keep your
phone battery in tip-top condition by warding off the dreaded memory effect. It’s
something most cellphone users will be familiar with. Sooner or later most
nickel cadmium batteries (and to a much lesser extent, nickel metal hydride packs
as well), suffer from reduced capacity; after just a few months batteries which
used last all day, give up the ghost mid-afternoon. The most common cause is
cell imbalance, where varying charge levels in the cells that make up the
battery, prevent the charger from operating effectively. Fortunately it is usually
curable, by carefully discharging all the cells in the battery every so often,
so they all end up receiving an equal charge.
Aico’s Turbocharger has this useful facility.
We’ve been looking at the version designed to work with Motorola Micro TAC battery
packs. First some vital statistics: it costs £50, it’s roughly two-thirds the
size of a VHS video tape, and it comes with a mains power supply and car power
cord. As soon as the battery is attached
it starts charging. The state of the battery is shown by four LEDs, indicating
25%, 50%, 75% and 100% charge. It works fast, with a charge current of 1 amp it
only takes forty minutes or so to zap a standard capacity (600mA) battery pack.
When the battery reaches full charge the unit starts bleeping, flashes the ‘100%’
LED and switches to a gentle trickle charge. The discharger circuit is engaged
by pressing the button next to the display panel; it will drain a 600mA battery
to a safe level in around 3-hours, after which it switches automatically to the
fast charge mode. The instructions recommended running batteries through a
complete, charge/discharge cycle every couple of weeks. That sounds like harsh treatment
but cell imbalance can build up quickly in packs that are subjected to frequent
top-up charges.
The measured voltages and current on our
sample were all within spec and safe limits for nicads. The capacity level
indicators were a bit optimistic, however, we suspect this has more to do with
the characteristics of nicad batteries,
than any inherent design flaws. This is one of the few charger/dischargers to come
with a car power cord, the price seems fair, it could easily pay for itself by
reclaiming a couple of tired packs, or prolonging their useful lives. Recommended .
THE FACTS
Typical price: £60
Features: automatic fast charger/discharger,
capacity indicator, audible alarm, car cord and mains adaptor supplied
To fit: Most popular makes/models
Telephone: AICO INTERNATIONAL, telephone (01635) 49797
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 85%
Ora Facelift Fun Collection, £13
Fed up with the appearance of your phone,
maybe it’s had a few scrapes and is now looking a bit the worse for wear? For
just £13 you can smarten it up with the Ora Facelift Fun Collection. It’s a
pack of three brightly coloured self-adhesive covers, designed to fit over the
front panel and keyboard of your phone. Simply peel the covers from the backing
sheet and stick them into position, all the cut-outs for the display and
buttons stay behind, so it’s very easy to fit. Easy to remove too, and it doesn’t
leave any gungy deposits behind, though once a cover has been peeled off it can’t
be re-used. The covers come in three
colours, turquoise, magenta and a sort of pinky red. It’s a clever idea, they
look good, they’re easy to use and they should last for a few months, before
the corners start curling, but thirteen quid seems an awful lot to pay for just
three small stickers
THE FACTS
Typical price: £13
Features: mobile phone decoration
To fit: Motorola Flare, Ericsson 237,237,
337, Nokia 2110, Nokia Orange, others to follow
Telephone: ORA, telephone (01296) 415445
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 65%
Vivanco Hands-Free Set, £200
If you use your mobile phone in the car
without a hands-free adaptor you really are asking for trouble. Apart from
being extremely dangerous to drive one-handed, and trying to hold a telephone
conversation, it is illegal. If you’re caught at it the best you can hope for
is a ticking off and a roadside MOT, and you could be fined and receive penalty
points for driving without due care and attention, and woe betide anyone involved
in an accident whilst they’re on the phone!
Okay, safety lecture over, you’ve probably
guessed by now that this is leading up to a review of a hands-free car kit, and
you’re right. It comes from Vivanco, and one of the key features is that it’s
DIY installable.
The kit is the TKN-2110, designed to fit the
Nokia 2110, it costs just under £200, and most people who can tell one end of a
screwdriver from the other should be able to fit it in an hour or two. The outfit
contains a dashboard bracket and phone holder, amplifier box, microphone,
speaker, cables and fixing kit. It can be permanently wired in to the car’s
electrical system, or powered from the cigar lighter socket, both types of
supply cable are included. The first job is to fit the bracket to the
dashboard, it comes with a set of screws. If you don’t fancy drilling holes in
your car it can be held in place using one of Vivanco’s Fixmount angle brackets.
Next fit the amplifier box. It’s quite small, about the size of a pack of
cigarettes, so it can be easily tucked away, behind panelling, under seats or
consoles, just make sure the phone holder, which plugs into the box, is in easy
reach of the cradle. Finally mount the loudspeaker and clip the microphone to
the sun visor, or door surround; routing the cables out of sight is probably
the most time consuming job of all. You can use the phone’s own aerial, though there’s
provision for an external antenna, which should improve range and performance
considerably.
The simplest way to get it up and running is
to use the cigar-lighter power plug option, which is fine, unless you happen to
need it, in which case it makes sense to wire it in permanently. This takes a little longer but it is worth
the effort as it can be wired into the ignition circuit, and your radio’s mute
switch, if it has one.
If everything is wired up properly when the
phone is connected the LED indicator on the phone holder lights up, showing the
system is working, and the battery is being charged. Incidentally, the instructions
say the power light is green, the one on our sample was red. If the unit is wired
into the ignition circuit it only comes on when the ignition is on. The phone
operates normally, dialling and answering are the same, except you don’t have
to pick it up, just talk, You can still hand-hold the phone if you want to,
removing it from its mounting bracket switches off the hands-free facility. This
works using a tiny reed-relay, built into the phone holder, and is triggered by
a small but powerful magnet in the dashboard holder.
Sound quality from the speaker is okay, a bit
tinny maybe but there’s a fair amount of volume and it should be able to make
itself heard, even in a noisy car. The microphone is quite directional, and
sensitivity is just about right, so it doesn’t pick up too much road noise, and
you don’t have to shout. Unusually the treble response is not as sharp as we
would have expected but it handles speech well and received audio quality is
good. This car kit is generally well designed, and very easy to install, the
instructions are rather brief though, and could have been a lot more helpful.
We would have liked to have seen a few more diagrams, with some advice about where to locate the
various components, and a few safety tips wouldn’t have gone amiss. Whilst it’s
not quite a beginners project most averagely competent DIYers shouldn’t have
any problems with it. It works well and although the price is a little steep
the components are tough, quality items.
Typical price: £200
Features: hands-free car kit with separate
amplifier, speaker and microphone. Optional car ignition or cigar-lighter power
supply, automatic radio mute (where applicable).
To fit: Nokia 2110
Telephone: VIVANCO, telephone (01442) 231616
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 85%
ANDREW SIMPLE CAR KIT
The popularity of the little Ericsson 237/337
is clearly evident from the number of new accessories specifically designed for
that phone. The Andrew Simple Car Kit is a case in point. The name says it all,
it comes in two parts, a dashboard mounting bracket and clip, and the phone
holder with its power cord. The phone slips into the holder, a set of
spring-loaded connectors on the underside supply power to the phone and battery.
A small RF plug near the top of the holder carries the aerial connection. This
emerges on a flying socket at the end of the curly lead, near the cigar-lighter
plug/voltage regulator module.
The charger module is the same type as that
used on their regular car power cords. It’s an unusual design, the actual plug has
a clever gripper mechanism that ensures it stays firmly attached to the cigar
lighter socket, by expanding once it’s inside. The charger circuit is
remarkably sophisticated, it supplies a relatively large current and will
charge the battery on the phone to around 85% capacity in one hour, after which
it switches to a trickle charge. The charger circuit closely monitors and
controls power consumption, preventing the battery from over charging, and when
necessary switching to high current mode, when the phone is in use.
The kit is very easy to fit, the dashboard
bracket fits on a hinged mounting plate that screws to the fascia -- screws are
supplied -- other forms of mouting hardware could also be used, if you don’t
want to make any holes in the dash. The phone holder simply clips to the
bracket, it is released by pressing a button on the left side of the cradle;
that’s the right side for right-hand drive vehicles, if you see what we mean.
The aerial lead connection means it can be used with an external antenna, that
will definitely yield improvments in reception and range, and reduce the number
of dropped calls. All in all it is a very well designed kit, that more than
lives up to its name. It’s sturdy and simple to fit, the only small
dissapointment is that it’s only available for the Ericsson models at the
moment.
Typical price: £tba
Features: car kit, including dash-mount
cradle, phone holder and charger cord
To fit: Ericsson 237/337
Telephone: ANDREW Ltd., telephone
(01734)776886
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 95%
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Ó R. Maybury 1995 0612
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