The Jabra Freeway is very sleek and comes with a free and optional one-year subscription to VoiceAssist.
Setting the unit up was easy.
1. Before I could use the Jabra Freeway, I charged it for two hours using the supplied USB cable with car charger.
2. Next I made sure the cell phone was Bluetooth-enabled and turned on the Jabra unit.
3. It immediately went into pairing mode. As it is pairing with the phone device, the prompts on the phone needed to be followed and the supplied security code had to be entered (not everyone will have to enter a security code; it depends on the phone)
4. After this I began making and answering calls using voice commands, checking the battery power of the unit, etc. To make a call, I had to press the Voice button to wake up the unit and say "phone commands." If I was unsure of how to speak to the unit I would say "What can I say?" and it would give me options.
What I found very frustrating was:
1. Once I was done with a call, ending the call is not hands free. I couldn't say "hang-up, or cancel, or end" because that doesn't work. Instead I had to press the "answer end button" (which is the "phone icon" on the Jabra device) or end the call via the phone end button.
2. I also disliked having to press the Voice button every time I wanted to make a call because this meant it was not totally hands free. The only hands free part is if someone is calling you, the unit then automatically awakes and you can tell it to "answer" or "ignore" the incoming call.
3. Many times I asked the unit to make a call. Twice it brought up the EZ tip calculator, once it brought up the one-minute beep "application," and another time it brought up some other application on the phone that I didn't ask for. Another time I tried to call someone and instead it brought up the address book and rambled off both the mobile and work number without giving me the option to dial either one.
What I really loved was the optional VoiceAssist package even though I had difficulty getting this set up because the code to redeem the free one-year subscription was hidden underneath a sticker either Amazon or the manufacturer put on the box. However, VoiceAssist has the best live customer service around. In fact we called each other almost five times to get this situation resolved in a few hours. Hopefully, new purchasers won't have this experience where the offer code is hidden between stickers and impossible to read even after being held up to the light.
Below are the steps I took to get VoiceAssist to work:
1. I had to first redeem the free offer code on the box by going to [....].
2. Once signed in online to [....], I imported all my Gmail contacts into the VoiceAssist application and also set up a connection to my review_maven twitter account ([....]).
3. Once registered and after I cleaned up the Gmail import which had about an 85% accuracy rate, I then needed to program the number of 949-257-0923 under the name of VoiceAssist into the Bluetooth phone.
4. After this I had a lot of fun:
- I used the Jabra unit to call VoiceAssist.
- Once connected I used another set of VoiceAssist commands to "call" people in my contact list (they had to have a phone # in the Gmail contact listed that was imported), to "post to Twitter," to "read my e-mail" on Gmail--which it read very well (except it said it couldn't read the pictures), and to send an email, which it sent okay though some of my message was garbled. However, since an MP3 was attached to the email, the person receiving it could play that to get the full message.
- The two posts to my Twitter account were okay, buy it got VoiceAssist wrong and typed voices instead and it typed Jabra as Java. You can look on the review_maven account to see the posts for May 28. 2011.
I didn't have the phone functionality to try the FM Transmitter or play music features of the Jabra device.
Below are some of the key features that I liked and some things I disliked:
PROS:
1. The Jabra unit is pretty easy to set up
2. The Jabra Freeway has a long battery life (about 14 to 17 hours)
3. You can pair two Bluetooth phones to the device with the last phone paired being the primary one
4. Jabra Freeway comes with a car charger for charging in your vehicle or with a 12Volt Battery Pack; the USB cable that is used to plug in the car adapter can be used without the adapter for charging with your PC
5. A free one-year subscription to VoiceAssist is supplied with purchase
6. Voice Assist understands commands better than the Jabra unit itself
7. I could check and send email and post to Twitter with VoiceAssist (Posting to Facebook is also possible.)
8. VoiceAssist provides SUPERB customer service.
CONS:
1. VoiceAssist setup was difficult and the instructions that came with the device did not tell you to program in the telephone number to VoiceAssist. Instead the Jabra instructions tell you to call VoiceAssist making you assume it's already pre-programed in the device.
2. Managing your contacts online in the VoiceAssist web site is somewhat cumbersome as the tool is in its infancy. For instance, every time I edited one of my 100+ contacts it kept going back to the first one after I saved the edit--then I had to scroll through the entire list again to go back to where I wanted to in the contact list.
3. Answer/End button is not intuitive on the Jabra unit (it's the phone icon on the Jabra Freeway); although the instructions do tell you where it's located.
4. The Jabra Freeway did not always understand my voice commands Voice Assist understood my commands much better but that still was not perfect)
5. Jabra is from the UK and only an automated help line is provided along with a website. Other than this you can send an email and wait for a response--no live support here
In summary, although Jabra will work with any Bluetooth phone, I did not feel I could get it to work exceptionally well with the Verizon LG phone I tried it with. I cannot be sure whether it was because of my or my boyfriend's voices (as we both tried it), the phone, or just the functionality of the device. Despite this, the Jabra Freeway is a very sleek unit and I felt that it responded better the more familiar I got with the device. In addition, the other reviewers are raving about the Freeway. Although VoiceAssist was not perfect, I absolutely loved that optional add-on.
Updated May 30, 2011 - I sent an email to Jabra with two simple questions to see how responsive their email support was and I can tell you it's great. I sent it over the weekend and got a response this morning. The only thing that wasn't great was that one of my simple questions was answered wrong. I had asked where the answer/end button was and according to the manual it is the phone icon on the Jabra device; however the reponse I got was to "Slide the On/Off power switch to turn the speakerphone on or off" so the question was either misunderstood or the tech did not know the answer. I think it's the former.
Updated November 7, 2011 - I recommended this to a former colleague and this is what he said about the device verbatim. "Regarding the Jabra device, it has worked very well. I will admit, I have not used any of the advanced features much (other than initially playing with them) as honestly I have not needed them. It has strictly been used as a straight bluetooth device and for that purpose it has worked extremely well. The speaker quality is above and beyond competing devices and the functionality (recognizing bluetooth connections regularly, turning off when it doesn't detect a device, etc) are features that are useful and allow it to stick out from the pack of competing devices. Overall, it has proven useful when I needed it."