To make Bluetooth even easier to use in cars, most new luxury cars and some standard cars are sold with optional built-in Bluetooth speakerphone technology which doesn’t even require an earpiece. Some cars also come with built-in iPod integration, displaying song titles on the dashboard and controlling the iPod using buttons on the steering wheel, again to minimize distractions. One new built-in product, SYNC, the voice-activated system created by Ford Motor Co. and Microsoft Corp., lets users do both things hands-free: play music or make phone calls using simple voice commands.

The $120 Parrot PMK5800 uses voice recognition for a more hands-free experience.

This week, I tested two devices that bring Bluetooth technology to older cars in hopes of integrating hands-free phone calls and music with a car’s stereo system. I tried the $130 Venturi Mini from NextGen Venturi Ltd. (www.myventuri.com) and $120 Parrot PMK5800 from Parrot Inc. (www.parrot.com) on three cars made in 2000 and 2005.

Neither device offers a surefire solution; each is limited by your particular car and cellphone. But the Parrot sails ahead of the Venturi Mini by using voice activation for phone calls, something the Venturi Mini can’t do. Venturi’s version of “hands-free calling” requires initiating a call on the cellphone itself or by looking down at a tiny, grayscale screen and painstakingly scrolling through names of contacts. Furthermore, the Parrot worked after only a few steps, while the Venturi took much longer to set up and get going.

Both of these are one-piece black gadgets that plug into your car’s cigarette lighter and use FM transmitters to play on unused FM radio stations. Each has a tiny screen, though the Parrot screen is used solely to display the current station so as to match it with the radio. The idea is that after initially “pairing” a Bluetooth cellphone with one of these devices, the phone and device will automatically find each other whenever both are in the car and on, making calls easier and music a bit more hands-free.

The Parrot and Venturi Mini will only play music via Bluetooth using cellphones that have a technology called A2DP, which enables music streaming. More and more new cellphones have this technology, such as the Nokia 6555 that I used, but many — including Apple’s iPhone — don’t. Most people will play music by attaching an iPod or other portable music player to these devices using cables that come with them.

The $130 Venturi Mini doesn’t work with voice commands.

Neither the Venturi Mini nor the Parrot PMK5800 enable voice commands with music: songs streamed via Bluetooth are controlled using buttons on the devices, and music coming from a wired-attached player can only be operated using buttons on that player.

The Parrot isn’t as compact or as stylish as the Venturi Mini, but its best feature is unseen: built-in voice recognition software that guides you while using this device. If your cellphone has built-in voice-recognition software, which many do, you can plug in the Parrot and get started. Otherwise, contacts must be loaded on to the Parrot and assigned a voice tag. Large green and red buttons initiate or end phone calls, but speaking commands also works. A knob turns to different stations or can be pressed and turned for audible descriptions of menus. Three glowing Play/Pause, Skip Ahead and Skip Back buttons are easy to find without looking down so as to navigate through music.

While I was listening to music coming from one paired cellphone, my sister called me on another paired cellphone that I had forgotten I had in my purse. The music automatically paused, and the sound of a ringing phone came from the car speakers until I answered it by pressing the Parrot’s green button (speaking the word “phone” also works).

If voice tags are assigned to contacts in your phone, the name of the person calling can be announced over the speakers, like caller ID. Music automatically re-starts after a call ends.

I made calls on the Parrot by pressing its green button and speaking directions like “Call Allison Mobile” to call the correct number from my phone’s contact list. The voice recognition sounded a bit robotic, but almost always found the right number.

Most voice calls sounded rather clear to the people with whom I spoke, but in the car, calls suffered when stations were interrupted with static as I drove around the Washington, D.C., area. One major issue with relying on FM transmitters in major cities is the small number of unused radio stations. Static also affected streamed music, making it sound scratchy at times. Music playing from a cord-connected iPod had no trouble.

The same static problems arose with Bluetooth calls and music on the Venturi Mini. This device’s rectangular face has a scroll button in its center, which seems like it would be a useful addition. But this can’t be pressed down to select anything on the screen, which is maddening. Instead, selecting anything from the Venturi screen must be done using a separate button, as if it wasn’t even designed to be a hands-free device.

To set up the Mini, a paired phone’s contacts must be copied from the phone onto the device. Once these contacts are added, calls can be initiated through the device by finding the correct name on the screen using the scroll wheel and pressing more buttons to select that name and place the call. None of this involves voice recognition, and it’s all supposed to be done while you’re driving.

For all its faults, the Venturi does have a few features that the Parrot doesn’t, including the ability to display Bluetooth data — like the name or number of an incoming caller and a song title and artist — on your radio display if your car has this ability. But most older cars don’t allow this, and I couldn’t quickly figure out how it worked even while driving in a 2005 car. You can also charge devices through the Mini using a built-in USB port.

The position of a car’s cigarette lighter matters to the Venturi Mini and the Parrot. This plug is often positioned near the gear shift, and in my manual car, it would’ve been difficult to operate these gadgets while in fifth gear (I didn’t try). The location of this plug also determines how loud or soft your voice sound to callers. So as to not sound so far away during calls I tried to lean closer to the devices, but this isn’t safe while driving.

The Venturi Mini looks like a hip device, but without voice recognition software and a smart interface, it’s frustrating and dangerous to use. Parrot’s PMK5800 plugs in and works and its voice-recognition software makes it a true hands-free device that will improve the way you use Bluetooth in your car. Just look out for static, especially in big cities.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

VTech Communications wants to put an end to this mad phone dash with its new $150 Expandable Cordless Phone System with Bluetooth, the LS5145. This device synchronizes with your cellphone and redirects incoming cell calls to ring wherever the VTech phones are placed in the house. It works with your landline and up to two Bluetooth-linked cellphones, and can be expanded using additional handsets that cost $80 each.

The $150 Expandable Cordless Phone System with Bluetooth from VTech Communications Inc.

The concept of a cellphone extender isn’t new, but not many of them have caught on. Another popular add-on to cellphones at home is the repeater, which focuses on boosting a phone’s signal in a place with poor coverage. The VTech 5145 could work as a repeater, assuming you put it and the finicky cellphone in a place with good coverage. But if your entire house has lousy cell coverage, it won’t work as a repeater.

AT&T licenses its corded and cordless phones through VTech, which sells a less-expensive product similar to the 5145 called the AT&T EP5632. It costs $100 and has the same basic functions as the 5145, but is clunky and much less stylish. Its additional handhelds cost $60 each.

This week, I put my feet up and tried the VTech 5145 and one of its accessory handsets, the LS5105. These phones are stylishly thin and have bright color display screens, which can be set to one of 27 still color wallpaper images or four animated designs. It took me only a minute to pair cellphones with the system using Bluetooth, a wireless technology that connects devices that are within about 30 feet of one another. And the VTech’s primary function — extending the cellphone throughout a house to make it more convenient to answer — worked well, ringing much louder than my cellphone.

But the 5145 didn’t display the numerous names and numbers stored on my cellphone’s contact list. Unless I wanted to painstakingly enter the data into the VTech, incoming calls were only identified with phone numbers, so I rarely knew who was calling. And I could only call the handful of numbers that I know by heart.

Bluetooth technology isn’t incapable of transmitting data: My BlackBerry Curve even tried to transfer its contacts to the 5145, but couldn’t. VTech chose to use headset Bluetooth synchronization on the 5145 rather than hands-free synchronization. Hands-free is the same technology used in most Bluetooth-equipped cars; it provides more access to the Bluetooth device, such as phone-book integration.

I also missed other features on my cellphone when it wasn’t by my side, such as text messaging and voice mail. Incoming text messages were sent to my cellphone unbeknownst to me since I wasn’t near it, and when I didn’t answer incoming calls through the VTech, I had no way of knowing if the caller left a voice mail on my cellphone.

The 5145 includes a base station and primary phone; the 5105 additional handset includes a small stand just big enough to hold it upright. I set up the base station near where I drop my work bag after coming home each night. After the initial pairing during setup, phones automatically link to the VTech, meaning I never had to take my cellphone out of my bag.

I paired the 5145 with two phones at once: a Motorola Razr using Verizon and a BlackBerry Curve with AT&T service. I also tested pairing a third phone with the system, the HTC Pocket PC 6800 from Sprint, though only two cellphones can be paired simultaneously. Just one of the Bluetooth phones can be used at a time, in addition to the landline. As long as the two paired phones stayed within about 30 feet of the base station, they automatically started routing calls through the VTech.

Call waiting worked like using my actual cellphone, except I pressed different buttons on the 5145 to “swap” calls. If you’re chatting on a landline call, you can answer an incoming cellphone call by placing the landline call on hold. If each line — landline and cellular — has call waiting, a total of four callers could potentially be linked to the VTech system at once.

In my house, we gave up our landline years ago, so I tested the system using only cellphones. I saved myself a few trips racing up and down the stairs to find where I had left my cellphone, instead placing the base station on one floor and the additional handset on the other. Using cordless phones for the first time in years reminded me of the issues that accompany this system. The line became fuzzy when I moved too far away from a phone’s base station, though VTech says a connection can stay clear for up to about 900 feet.

I almost forgot that cordless phones can’t be taken out of the house. While on a phone call, I had to stop myself from heading out the front door and continuing my chat as I walked to the corner store. Cellular calls that are in progress on VTech handsets can be continued on the cell by adjusting a setting on the cellphone, or by walking far enough away from the base station to receive a cellphone prompt to disconnect from the system.

I made calls from the handsets by first choosing which of the paired cellphones to use. My calls were received by friends and family just as if I was calling on my cellphone, though a couple of people told me that the connection didn’t sound quite as good.

Each handset is equipped with a speakerphone, and missed calls are noted on the color screen and in a call log, along with the date and time. A built-in intercom system lets handsets communicate with the other or the base station. Users can choose from one of 23 ringtone-like melodies; I chose a steel drum tune for one handset.

If you’re looking for an easier way to answer your cellphone whenever and wherever it rings, VTech’s system might be a good solution for you. But if you rely on your cellphone’s address book to identify callers and aren’t up for inputting these data again, it might be worth waiting for a Bluetooth cordless phone system that will automatically copy data from your cellphone.

Edited By Walter S. Mossberg

• Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Some devices, like Treos and full-size BlackBerrys, opt for the larger size and the keyboard, while others assume you’ll peck out email or Web addresses on a phone keypad.

I’ve been testing a new $295 smart phone from Helio, an upstart company based in Los Angeles, that provides an elegant solution to this design problem. It’s called the Helio Ocean and it can look like either a standard voice phone or a keyboard-equipped email and Web device, depending on which way you open its unusual two-way sliding mechanism.

The Ocean also has some very nice software touches to complement this clever hardware design.

It isn’t as slender as some of its competitors and it has a few downsides, but the Ocean is an innovative, thoughtfully designed smart phone that advances the state of the art. It goes on sale over the next week or so at helio.com and in some retail stores later this month.

Helio not only designed the Ocean, but the phone works on Helio’s own cellphone service, which runs on Sprint’s network at broadband speeds. It lacks Wi-Fi wireless networking.

Plans with unlimited data access range from $65 to $135 a month, depending on the number of voice minutes. For $145 a month, you can get unlimited data and minutes.

When closed, the Ocean is just a roomy screen with some buttons at the top and bottom of a black rectangular body with rounded corners. If you hold it vertically with the screen in portrait mode and slide the screen up, a standard phone keypad is revealed that you can hold to your ear when making calls, just as on a standard voice phone.

If you turn the Ocean horizontally so its screen is in landscape mode and slide it up, a full typing keyboard is revealed that puts you in a comfortable position to compose messages and surf the Web. All the main functions are available in both modes and you can use a headset in either mode.

The software is smart, too. When you physically switch the Ocean from one orientation to the other, the screen display switches between portrait and landscape modes automatically. If you answer the phone while in horizontal landscape mode and you aren’t using a headset, the call automatically is placed in speakerphone mode, because it would be clumsy to hold the Ocean to your ear in that configuration. If you slide the keyboard closed and switch to vertical mode, the call continues and the speakerphone is automatically turned off.

When closed, the Ocean looks a bit stubby but it’s actually slightly smaller in every dimension than a Treo 700 — although it gets larger when the keyboard is exposed.

Voice calls were clear and crisp, and the speakerphone function worked well. It was easy to add numbers to the address book.

From the main screen, you can just start typing anything and the Ocean will either search your address book for the characters you type or initiate a Web search. Web-search results are presented in multiple search engines, including Google and Yahoo, Amazon and Wikipedia, which are arrayed in tabs.

I found the keyboard easy to use and was able to attain good accuracy on it while typing with my thumbs. However, the space between the top row of keys and the bottom edge of the screen is a bit cramped; it took some adjustment to thumb-type well on that row of keys.

The Ocean comes preconfigured for all the major consumer email services, including Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail and Gmail. You can manually add others. The Ocean also supports Microsoft Exchange email.

Unlike a Treo or a Windows Mobile phone, the Ocean doesn’t allow editing of Microsoft Office documents. You can only view them as text files and, in my tests, even that didn’t work. Helio plans new software that would allow the documents to display properly.

Similarly, the Ocean works out of the box with a variety of instant messaging services, including AIM, Yahoo and Windows Live Messenger. It also has multiple media functions. It sports a two-megapixel camera with flash and decent built-in software for displaying photos, and playing music and videos. It also accepts memory cards for expanded storage.

You can simply plug the Ocean into a Windows or Macintosh computer and drag photos, songs and videos onto its internal memory or memory card, if they are in a supported format. But in my tests of this, some photos wouldn’t display properly and none of the album art showed up in my MP3 songs. Helio says the album art will show up if you use synchronization software on Windows, instead of simply dragging the files over.

Despite some limitations, the Helio Ocean is an impressive device that’s fun to use.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20070510/helios-new-ocean-has-a-clever-design-for-phone-and-email/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20060622/find-treo-speakerphone/ http://allthingsd.com/20060622/find-treo-speakerphone/#comments Thu, 22 Jun 2006 23:59:00 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20060622/finding-the-speakerphone-on-a-treo/ (See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)

There’s no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about using the speakerphone on a Treo, making a BCC address line appear in email and running the Parallels desktop on a Mac.

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I recently bought a Treo 700w smartphone, which runs Windows Mobile software. But I can’t figure out how to use the speakerphone feature. How do I do that?

While you are in the Treo 700w’s phone mode, you must hit the Menu soft key and then select Speakerphone, which is the top item on the menu. This is a good example of why I prefer the 700w’s nearly identical cousin, the Treo 700p, which uses the Palm operating system. On the 700p, while you are on a call, there is a big “Speakerphone” button on the screen. Just tap it with a finger and it turns on — no menus required. The need to open menus and take other extra steps is endemic in the Windows Mobile software. On some other Windows-based phones, like the Motorola Q, it is worse. On the Q, turning on the speakerphone requires you to bring up a screen listing “Profiles,” one of which is “Speakerphone.”

I know people can use a “BCC” address line when composing an email to copy the message to other people without the main recipient knowing. But in my email program, there is no BCC line. How do I make it appear?

In many email programs, you have to manually turn on the BCC address field in the email composition menu. This is usually done by selecting an option in a menu. Generally, you have to do this only once, and after that, the BCC field will appear every time you start composing an email.

You didn’t say which email program you use, but here are some examples. In Microsoft Outlook, when you are in the new-message window, go to the View menu and select “Bcc Field.” In Microsoft Outlook Express, in the new-message window, go to the View menu and select “All Headers.” In Apple Mail, while in the new-message window, go to the View menu and select “Bcc Address Field.” In Google’s Gmail, in the “Compose Mail” window, just click on “Add Bcc,” which appears above the Subject line.

Last week, you recommended a product called Parallels Desktop, which allows Windows to run on a Macintosh. I have two questions: Will it run on older, pre-Intel Macs? And will it expose my Mac files to Windows viruses?

First, I should have made it clear that Parallels Desktop (www.parallels.com) requires a newer Mac that uses Intel processors, like the iMac, the Mac mini, the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. It won’t run on older, pre-Intel Macs — any model sold before this year and some that are still for sale. Parallels takes advantage of a special feature in the Intel chips that allows its “virtual” Windows computer to run as fast as a standard Windows PC, even though it is operating inside a window on the Mac operating system. Older Macs can use a similar product, Virtual PC for Mac, from Microsoft, but it runs much more slowly.

As for viruses, the faux Windows PC created by Parallels is just as susceptible to the vast quantity of Windows viruses and spyware as any real Windows computer. So, if you use Parallels, you must install Windows security software on its virtual Windows PC. However, any viruses you get are unlikely to harm your Mac files unless you turn on a feature that allows Parallels to share folders and files in the Mac OS. That feature is turned off by default.

* * *

Because of the volume of email I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by email, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications:

The speakerphone function on Motorola’s Q phone can be turned on and off with a button on the keyboard. This column described a more complicated alternate method for turning on the speakerphone, but omitted mention of the keyboard button.

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