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MOBILE EXTRAS
INTRO
Are you missing something? Rick Maybury sifts
through this month’s selection of essential, and not so essential cellphone
accessories
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ORA COMPACT CAR KIT, £47
The biggest problem with most car kits is the
lack of provision for an external antenna. Whilst many hand-portables work
quite happily without one in cities and on motorways, range is compromised. Out
in the sticks this can make the difference between staying in contact and
dropped or lost calls. Pocket phones operate at very low power levels to begin
with and screening from a metal car body plays havoc with reception, mainly by
increasing directionality. One minute the phone’s signal strength meter is
showing a full set of bars, a hundred metres up the road and the reading can
drop to nothing.
However, fitting an outside aerial to a
cellphone is no easy matter, on some models it’s not possible to make a direct
connection, and many in-car adaptors have to rely on capacitive couplers, that
only work when the phone is seated in a cradle. That’s not a problem with
phones like the Nokia 2110/2140, and the Sony CM-DX1000, both of which have
aerial sockets next to their accessory connectors. Ora have seized upon this
useful facility with a new DIY car kit, designed specifically for those phones;
other models will follow.
The Compact car kit comes in three parts. The
first is a standard charge cord, that plugs into the car’s cigarette lighter
socket. This has a curly lead with a push-fit accessory connector, that plugs
into the base of the phone; out of that comes a second screened cable,
terminated with a screw-fit RF connector. Part two is a miniature mag-mount
antenna, with two whips (unity gain and 3dB gain). The aerial cable is around
3-metres long, that’s enough to route it under carpets or under the dash, so it
doesn’t get in the way. It’s also very thin and can safely pass between the car
door and the body, without damage. The third and final part is a simple hang-up
cup. Double sided fixing pads are included with the outfit, along with a cleaner
wipe, to make sure it gets a good grip on the dashboard or centre console. A second version is available without the
antenna, for just under £30.
It’s all very straightforward, the brief instructions are reasonably easy
to follow and an average handyperson should be able to install the kit in under
an hour. A few points emerged during the course of our tests. First, the sticky
pad fixing for the hang-up cup is not very satisfactory, unless the surface is
perfectly clean it will almost certainly fall off. We’re also mindful about
what might happen if the car’s interior heats up, the temperature can easily
reach 30 degrees or more on a sunny day, and that could well weaken the
adhesive. The solution is to fix it in place with screws, the holes are there,
but not the screws. The second point concerns the phone’s accessory plug. The
one on our sample came apart after a half dozen or so insertions, the grippers
on the side are very tenacious and unless the release catch is pressed fully
home, to release it, the connector block parts company with the rest of the
plug. Lastly, the two cables emerging from the plug (the curly lead and the
antenna cable) have a tendency to entwine themselves with each other and it
quickly develops into an untidy looking tangle. If they’re kept apart they can
get themselves wrapped around knobs and switches, either way it’s far from
ideal.
The outside aerial has a marked effect on
reception. A signal strength reading of three bars on our Nokia test phone
increased to four or five when the aerial was connected. The 3dB antenna seemed
to work marginally better than the unity gain whip. In both cases it managed to
iron out the sometimes quite sudden fluctuations in signal strength whilst
driving along, however, the most noticeable improvement was on one and two-bar
signals, which are prone to break-up. The extra bar or two provided by the
antenna made all the difference in poor signal conditions. It compares
reasonably well with a full car kit -- in terms of contact reliability --
though it doesn’t have any hands-free facilities so we have to add the usual
rider about using mobile phones on the move. Don’t do it!
THE FACTS
Typical Price £47
Features transportable
car kit with power-cord, hang-up cup
and mag-mount antenna
To fit Nokia
2110.2140, Sony CM-DX100
Contact Ora
Electronics, telephone (01296) 415445
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 80%
HAMA 3-WAY POWER ADAPTOR, £19.99
It’s amazing to think that many modern cars
have more computing power than the spacecraft that took the Americans to the
moon, yet most of are singularly ill-equipped to deal with the plethora of
electrical gadgets now available to the motorist. Cellphones are a case in
point. Installing a car kit can involve ripping out the dashboard and huge
chunks of interior trim, just to make a few simple electrical connections. It’s
not so bad if you use a DIY hands-free kit, most of them plug into the car’s
cigarette lighter socket, but what happens if you have other appliances in the
car, or you’re a smoker? One socket -- and often a pretty unreliable one at
that -- simply isn’t enough!
This 3-way adaptor from Hama should solve the
problem. It plugs into the adaptor socket, providing two spare outlets, plus
one other, that’s used for a cigarette lighter. The adaptor is supplied with a
quick-fix slide mount, that can be screwed to any reasonably rigid surface
using the two self-tapping screws supplied. The connecting cable is around a
metre long, so it can be tucked away under the dash, or on a centre console.
There’s no need to worry about the original cigar lighter, it comes with it’s
own one. The supply plug has a 10 amp fuse, more than enough to cope with a
couple of power-hungry accessories; an indicator LED shows the power is on.
It’s simply and solidly built and we found
the sockets were a good tight fit for the half-dozen or so charge-cords we
tried it with. Considering it comes with its own lighter plug, £20 doesn’t seem
like a bad price and it could save a lot of messing around.
THE FACTS
Typical Price £19.99
Features 3-way
cigar-lighter adaptor
To fit most
cars
Contact Hama
UK, telephone (01256) 708110
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 85%
OPTRONIX UPB-8000 BATTERY PACK, £180
Nokia are rightly proud of their new 1610
phone which can run for up to 100 hours on standby, but those of us with normal
handsets can only dream of getting a full day’s from a standard battery packs.
Normally it’s not a problem, heavy users can always carry a spare pack, and
putting the phone on an overnight charge is no big deal. But what happens if
you can’t get to a charger or power source for a day or two? Then there’s
heavy-duty users, who might need to use their phone for hours, rather than
minutes each day?
All things are possible, but if you need
serious power carrying a pocket-full of clip-on battery packs can seriously
ruin the line of your suit. Optronix -- purveyors of high-capacity packs for
things like camcorders and laptop computers -- have turned their attention to
cellphones and come up with a range of belt-worn batteries, culminating in the
UPB-8000 (we’ll be looking at a couple of other models next month). It’s a
little smaller than a fat paperback book, and it weighs in at just under 1.2
kg, but it packs one helluva punch. The 6 volt lead acid battery is rated at 8
ampere-hours, that’s ten times as much as most higher-capacity phone batteries!
It’s enough to keep some phones running for up to 220 hours -- more than 9 days -- on standby, or around 18 hours of talkative!
The pack connects to the phone using a dummy
battery or adaptor lead, a range is available that covers most makes and
models; they cost between £11 and £14 each. The battery pack is fitted inside a
black leather case, with a belt loop on the back, a shoulder strap loop on the
top and some rather over-the-top labelling on the front. The single DC
connector socket is also used for charging, a mains adaptor is not supplied but
-- depending on the model of phone -- the dummy battery may fit on to a phone’s
standard charger (check first, not all chargers will be suitable).
Our sample came without instructions but it
doesn’t take a genius to figure out how to use it. It took over 20 hours to
charge first time; we hooked it up to Motorola 7500, switched it on and noted
the time. Actually a calendar would have been more appropriate, five days later
the battery meter was still showing full, and that was after an hour or so’s
worth of calls. At that point, with deadlines looming we had to call it a
day, suffice it to say there was
probably at least another day or two’s worth of power left. It is rather heavy
-- a real trouser dropper -- and we could have done with the curly lead being a
few centimetres longer; the power plug came out a couple of times, some sort of
restraining clip might be a good idea, but the power is certainly there, in
abundance, for even the most demanding user. It looks quite pricey but if you
reckon that an ordinary battery pack costs around £30 to £40, this one starts
to look like quite good value, especially if you’re not going to be able to get
to a mains socket for several days.
THE FACTS
Typical Price £108
plus £11 to £14 for phone adaptor
Features 8Ah
battery pack
To fit most
popular makes and models
Contact Optronic,
telephone 0181-953 1688
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 88%
PAMA PREMIERE BATTERY PACK, £40
Nickel metal hydride battery packs have been
falling in price over the past year or so, to the point where in some cases
they’re only marginally more expensive than conventional nicad batteries. The
two main advantages are smaller size, for a given capacity, and a high degree
of immunity from the dreaded memory effect. This new battery from Pama score
well on all points, it’s rated at 1100mA, yet the one we’ve been evaluating --
designed for Motorola Micro TACs and Flips -- it’s smaller and lighter than
some 800mA nicads. The price is fair, just £40 or thereabouts. The styling is a
little softer too, so it sits a little more comfortably in the hand. An
internal examination revealed top-quality Toshiba cells.
Performance rates as average to good. After
running the battery in, we submitted the pack to our standard test routine.
This consists of two cycles, one simulating light to medium duty (two five
minute calls an hour), the other heavy use (four five minute calls an hour).
Our sample gave times of 4 hours 10 minutes and 7 hours respectively, which
compares well with the competition. Worth considering.
THE FACTS
Typical Price £40
Features lightweight
high-capacity NiMh battery
To fit most
popular makes and models
Contact Pama,
telephone (0161) 224 4444
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 80%
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Ó R. Maybury 1996 0306
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