Customer Reviews

Motorola Roadster Bluetooth In-Car Speakerphone (Retail Packaging)

5 star:		(103)
4 star:		(73)
3 star:		(31)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(37)

 

 

I own the newer Motorola Roadster and the slightly older Motorola T505. So it made sense to do a head-to-head comparison to see which unit is better.

Design: Both units are compact. The Roadster's layout is somewhat more appealing to my eye. The Roadster's controls are labeled and easy to find. They are also illuminated. The T505's controls are not as well labeled or illuminated, but it is easy to use nonetheless.

The T505 has a reversible mounting clip, so it can work with cars like my Audi, which have sun visors that swing from front-to-rear rather than the usual rear-to-front. Roadster's mounting clip is not reversible, so I must mount it backwards in order to use it. Once the unit is mounted backwards, throw those easy-to-read labels and icons out the window. The T505 is made from plastic. So is the Roadster, but it also is partially covered by a nylon or poly cloth material that could prove to be less durable. While the Roadster features a more updated look, the lack of a reversible mounting clip gives a slight advantage to the T505, as the Roadster is hard to use when mounted backward.

Pairing. Both bluetooth units pair very easily, but the advantage goes to the Roadster, which announces that it is ready to pair and then does so quickly. Things couldn't be much easier then that. But the T505 is also easy to pair, just not quite as easy as Roadster. Also, the Roadster turns itself on when you enter the car, which is nice. The T505 must be turned on manually.

I paired both units with a newer Palm Pixi Plus and a slightly older Palm Treo 755p. While Roadster initially paired with this somewhat older 755p, after a couple of days it would no longer pair. I tried everything I could think of and got to pair eventually, but it later developed the same problem, dropping pairing and then refusing to pair. The T-505 paired and remained connected without issues. While the Roadster pairs easier than the T505, I had no issues with the T505 and I had several problems with Roadster's pairing. Advantage: T505.

Streaming Music: Both units can stream MP3s from your cell phone through your car stereo. When advancing from one track to the next, Roadster required me to hold down the advance button for much longer than I'd like to, creating a distraction while driving. A single touch on that key pauses the music but it must be held down for awhile to advance the track. I had to hold the button down to the point where it was annoying. Also, the advance takes longer than I'd like and is accompanied by a very loud beep and then a clicking sound. Also, with Roadster, I cannot revert to the previously played track. With the T505, I simply click on the right side button to advance and the left side button to go back. Changes from track to track only require a short touch, the change is immediate and it is not accompanied by the obnoxious beep tone or clicking noise. Advantage T505.

Speakerphone: The Roadster's built in speakerphone is louder and clearer than the T505's. If you are using the speakerphone and not streaming to FM stereo, the advantage goes to the Roadster.

Output to FM stereo: Both units have similar output strength to FM. It could be better but both units are much better than a Jabra unit that I tested earlier. I'd consider the output to FM on both units to be on the better side of acceptable. Roadster can select a specific FM frequency that you'd like for the unit to broadcast on each time. The T505 cannot do this. T505 will automatically scan for a frequency and you can select a preferred frequency, but it will generally select whatever it likes. I'd probably call this a draw, although I do prefer Roadster's frequency-selecting ability.

Call quality: I spoke with my mother on the Roadster first and then with the T505. I was driving a convertible with the top up. The car is not noisy but is slightly more so than a hardtop vehicle. The Roadster's microphone was so sensitive that it was picking up much of the background noise and forcing the duplex to me even when I wasn't speaking. That meant that I couldn't hear much of what mom said because Roadster picked up the road noise and shut off mom's conversation. The T505 didn't have this problem. Big advantage T505.

Incoming calls: When an incoming call arrives, both units announce the caller's name and number, if available. Roadster allows you to say "answer" or "ignore". With the T505, you simply tap the telephone icon to answer. Slight advantage Roadster.

Texting: It's my understanding that Roadster can read back texts and allow you to reply to them. I did not test this function, but assuming it works properly, it seems like that would be an attractive feature for someone who texts a lot. Advantage Roadster.

The Winner: Of the two units, I prefer the T505. It's less fussy than Roadster. While Roadster's pairing failed several times, the T505 was always rock solid. Music streaming track advances were much quicker and smoother on the T505. The microphone was way too sensitive on Roadster, although this might not be a problem for those with a very quiet car.

Both are decent units, but I'm using the T505 daily while Roadster sits in its box. Roadster isn't bad, but I can't give it more than 3 stars based on my experiences.

Before getting this I did quite a bit of searching on the web, and couldn't find anything that explains exactly how well this speakerphone works with iPhones. Several other reviews outline its main features, and a few mention that they use it with their iPhones but don't discuss the limitations of that mode, so what follows is intended just for those who hope to use it with an iPhone. (I've got the iPhone 3G, but I can't see any reason it would work differently with the iPhone 3GS or 4).

It's clearly designed for droid phones, and on those phones you can download the MotoSpeak app and have it read texts out loud - and even allows you to compose texts hands free. Still, the basic and most essential functions appear to work with any Bluetooth enabled phone, and certainly with my iPhone 3G.

It hooks easily to the sun visor of the car, and the charger plugs into the cigarette lighter. It links easily with the iPhone, once you go into the settings and enable Bluetooth. After it's linked, the Roadster recognizes your phone, and turns itself on automatically, apparently triggered by the sound of an opening or closing car door. Once on, it speaks out loud that it recognizes your phone, and even says the name of the phone it's linked to. It also tells you whether it's fully charged or not.

If you receive a call, it tells you there's an incoming call and if your phone recognizes the caller it tells you who's calling. You can then say either "Answer" or "Ignore" and it will either pick up the call or drop it. You hear the call either through a speaker built in to the Roadster or you can set it up so it transmits directly to your car stereo through an unused FM frequency. The onboard microphone picks up your voice - all you have to do is speak at an ordinary level and it works fine. My wife reported that it sounds just like it does when I'm calling her directly through the iPhone.

Pressing the call icon on the Roadster will redial your most recent call. Another feature built in to it is that you're supposed to be able to click on the dial tone button and speak a phone number - but when I press that button the Roadster tells me that the feature is unsupported by my phone. It strikes me a bit odd that the Roadster can control my iPhone enough to dial the most recent call, but not to dial a different number, but that's the way it is.

You can also play music from your phone through the Roadster - it sounds awful if you try to do it through the speaker on the Roadster, but when you've got it on the FM transmitting mode, and assuming you've got it set on a clear station the music sounds pretty decent, about as good as you'd get it from a decent but not perfect signal on a regular FM station. In my case I hook the iPhone directly to my stereo with a USB cable, so I wouldn't ever bother with this.

So what this is really useful for on my iPhone is answering calls hands free - and in my case that's the main thing I wanted it for so it works pretty well for me. If you want to make phone calls a lot while driving, or want to receive and send text with voice commands, you'll need a different kind of phone, with Android 2.2 or higher. Having said that, those features would make this an excellent device for owners of Android phones; the more basic features still make it quite useful for iPhone users like me.

I am really not sure what is up with the bad reviews(1 star). Regardless of the bad reviews, I still purchased the product and to be honest I think it is great. People seem to complain for absolutely no reason. Don't compare a device to another device. This is not a comparison review. The product delivers as advertised.

This is my first motorola product I purchased from amazon.
-Quick delivery +

-Easy pairing. What a breeze for any non techies out there. +

-Speaker phone works great. + Everyone I spoke to so far had no clue I was on speaker phone. Its loud too except if the volume is on full blast it can be slightly distorted. Simple fix(don't put it on full volume)

-FM transmitter works fine. + Here is where I don't get some of the reviews. What do you expect? Dolby Digital, THX certified sound coming out of your car speaker from this device? You don't even get that from your handheld phone. If you find a clear FM channel and play around a bit, it will come in fine. Not 100% clear but what do you expect? Its a FM transmitter people. I think its perfectly fine and once again, nobody said they heard anything strange on the other line.

-Synch multiple devices. + This was really cool. I had two cellphones in my car and the device knew to switch back and forth between the two when I hit a button on either phone. I remember my old BMW which had bluetooth couldn't do this. I had to manually switch back and forth. So annoying while driving. This device did it no problem.

-Not sure about battery life since i've only had for a week but its seems fine. It would have been nice using mini USB charger instead of some strange connector from motorola.

-Haven't tried motospeak(speech to text) yet sorry.

Only Con: The buttons on the device aren't the best. I hit a button and doesn't seem like i'm even hitting it. FM, +, - buttons in particular. No big deal. You shouldn't have to hit buttons often anyway. I changed from 4 stars to 5 because this is just being too picky. If I could do 4.5 stars then I would but I can't so 5 stars it is.

If I were you, I would definitely purchase it. Its a sleek little device and not bad for under $80 bucks. Works like a charm. Don't listen to the rest of these people that gave 1 star reviews cause they are used to their old devices or are just whiners by nature. LOL. Works as advertised.

The Roadster is a lightweight unit roughly the size of a cellphone but molded to fit properly on an automobile sun visor. It comes with a car recharger and small instructional booklet. I unpacked mine and turned it on. It immediately "spoke" through the built-in speaker, indicating that its battery level was low and that it needed to be connected via Bluetooth to my cellphone. I have an iPhone 4; I turned that on and selected the Settings app so that I could set up the Bluetooth connection. Following the instructions I'd just heard on the Roadster, I accomplished that within a few seconds. The Roadster then indicated that it was connected to my iPhone, using my iPhone's personal name through the speaker.

The next day, I put the Roadster in my car, plugging it into the lighter socket to recharge the battery. A blue LED on the lighter plug indicates that power is being received and the unit announces that it is being charged. A little while later, I received a phone call. The ring tone that I'd normally hear on my phone came through on the Roadster's speaker and I was quickly able to answer the call. While driving on the highway with some interior noise in the car, the unit had excellent clarity and my caller indicated that he had no trouble understanding the conversation.

While I can send the Roadster's speaker output to the FM radio band instead, I rarely have the radio on and so have not used that function.

I left the car at the airport, leaving the Roadster turned on and unplugging the lighter plug, and taking my iPhone with me. Four days later, returning to the car, as I opened the door I heard the Roadster announce that it had detected my iPhone and was setting up the Bluetooth connection. This required no action on my part. Battery level was announced as being high, so clearly the unit had turned off appropriately during my and my phone's absence. I initiated a call this time and the input/output was automatically directed to the Roadster's mic/speaker setup without any additional action on my part.

As you've read in other reviews, the Roadster has other capabilities, such as streaming music, voice response to certain commands, and so forth. I haven't utilized these capabilities yet, but the strength of this product is in the straightforward and easy setup, the clarity of the speaker and microphone, and the ease and speed with which it links to the Bluetooth connection of my phone each time I return to the car. I've observed no errors or problems in this regard over the first 10 days of use and am looking forward to a long relationship between my phone and the Roadster.

You might already know that the Motorola Roadster is a bluetooth hands-free device for your cell phone. A product like this is not so new to us. However, I would like like to emphasize that the specialty of the Roadster compared to other bluetooth speakerphones. I love the Roadster for its special features.

If you want to use the Roadster as a traditional bluetooth speakerphone, the Roadster is a pretty good one. My wife has never used an in-car speakerphone like this, and she loves the clarity of the sound and the convenience of the Roadster. I have more than several bluetooth headsets now (probably 5 or 6), and my wife never used any of them, due to the poor sound quality and the hassle she had to go through to use the headsets. The Roadster was installed on the visor in her car and did the work it was designed to do without bothering my wife, so she had no reason to hate it. Once my wife closes the car door to drive out, the little shock made by the door wakes the Roadster up and automatically pairs itself to her cell phone. When there is a call, the Roadster says the name of the caller if the name is in the address book or reads a phone number if there is no entry in the address book of the paired phone. And by saying "Answer" or "Ignore", the call is connected or not. The voice recognition worked pretty well. What a convenient feature for my wife who does not like to operate electronic devices in the car.

What I liked most about the Roadster is that it transmits all the sounds from your phone to the FM radio in your car. I have a smart phone (Samsung Galaxy S) and frequently listen to internet radio. And I do not have any auxilary audio inputs in my Prius. The Roadster serves as a great bluetooth-to-FM transmitter. I would not say the quality of the sound is top-notch, however, the clarity was pretty good. I have been using a FM transmitter from Monster Cable that got great reviews here on Amazon, however, I prefer the Roadster for its signal strength.

The added benefit of the Roadster is that everything is voice-guided. Even if you have never paired a cell phone with a bluetooth device before, you can follow the voice directions which are very clear and loud. You should be warned that sometimes the passengers are surprised by the greeting sound of the Roadster when you get in your car with them. Once you get in the car, the Roadster wakes up and tells you the connection status and the battery level and this might surprise your guests.

Selecting FM frequency for the sound transmission is easy and straightforward. You can change the FM frequency by increments of 0.2MHz manually or the Roadster can automatically find the best frequency for you if you push a scan/seek button. And the voice tells you which frequency was set for the Roadster and the radio. The battery life is pretty decent. I charge it only once a week. If you attach the Roaster on a visor like me, then you should take the Roadster out for a charge, since the length of the included car charger is too short.

The one thing that I am still not sure is the battery status that is told by the Roadster. I thought that it was the battery level of the Roadster, however, it might be the battery level of your phone. I tested several times and am still not sure which one is right. Sometimes the Roadster says the battery level is low right after a full charge and my cell phone's battery level happened to be low. That's why I suspect that the Roadster was telling me the battery level of my phone connected to it.

Overall, the Roadster is a great motion-sensing bluetooth-to-FM transmitter, and I absolutely love it. I might buy one more for my other car pretty soon.

Was excited to learn about this new product from Motorola - I previously had the Motorola T505 and liked it (but it broke), so decided to try the Roadster thinking it was the top of the line. I was quite disappointed however.

Without writing a whole chapter on here, I tried 2 different Roadsters. The first time I got it, I noticed one strange thing about the unit. According to the features and the instruction manual, the device is supposed to auto power off and on depending on if it senses your connection. I tried this, but it did not work. It would auto power off if I left the car, but when I returned, the device would remain off. Further more, the device would not power on EVEN if i manually turned it back on. It would basically just be "dead" - no response whatsoever regardless of what I did, even if I turned off my phone's bluetooth and back on, or unpaired and repaired. It seemed as long as the Roadster was listed as a pairing device in the phone, it would not work - the only way to wake it back up was to tell my phone to "forget this device" (i have an iphone), and to completely begin the pairing all over. It's not a big issue per say, since I could easily get around it by just turning it on and off manually. I just thought if this was an advertised feature, then it should work that way. Plus, for the times I forgot to manually turn the device off before leaving the car, everytime I came back I'd have to go through the tedious process of resetting the device (different from unpairing reguarly).

I thought this might've been a defect with this unit, so I went back to Bestbuy and exchanged it for another unit. This one, even worse - I didn't get the chance to try to the auto on/off because I immediately noticed another issue. With this unit I just exchanged it for, FM transmitter mode would NOT work if the battery cable was plugged in. If I unplugged the battery cable, then FM mode would work fine. I tried resetting the device to factory settings but to no avail. Since bluetooth was successfully synced, this tells me it's not a compatibility issue but a defect in the device.

It's a pity because I really think the Roadster is a great product, just marred from design or build defects.

Needless to say, I ultimately returned it for a full refund.

On the side though, when the device worked, I noticed these pros and cons:
Pros:
- Speaker volume is sufficiently loud and clear even when driving on the highway or on rough pavement. However, there's a slight "boom" if the volume is set at the highest point
- Pairing is really fast, and the voice guidance is helpful. The female voice is also not as robotic sounding as my previous T505
- Very easy to scan FM channels - allows not only auto scanning but manual selection as well (via +/- keys), which makes it easier to get a channel.
- Illuminated keys - very helpful at night
- displays battery level on your iphone
- while on the phone, people on the other end have reported pretty clear quality, albeit sounding a bit "distant"

Cons:
- Quality and potential defects I mentioned above
- I found the FM transmission quality in my old T505 to be clearer than the Roadster. The Roadster's transmission always seemed to have a little static (same channels I used as my T505 on same roads), and sometimes faded in the background or did not sound as crisp
- Status lights (i.e. paired, unpaired, audio streaming, etc.) are very tiny LEDs on the side of the unit - impossible to see while driving

Call quality was decent according to callers on the other end of the line. Each person I spoke with said they could tell I was on speakerphone, and there was obvious background noise that was tolerable. I was frequently asked to repeat myself several times during every conversations, though. And, as much as I was asked to repeat myself, I think I had more difficulty hearing people on my end. The speaker on the Roadster was not the best for phone calls as voices sounded muffled. Audio quality was better when I used FM to transmit through my car speakers, but there was some interference now and then which resulted in me changing the station a few times.

I listened to some youtube videos, a bit of an audiobook, and I played a few songs from Pandora - it all sounded fine through the Roadster itself and even better through FM. There wasn't much bass on the Roadster, though, and audio was a little tinny but still comfortable to listen to through its tiny speaker.

The buttons felt a little soft and mushy. It was frequently hard to tell if I'd actually pressed one hard enough to prompt a response. The icons on the buttons are raised for better distinction so you don't have to take your eyes off the road to know what you are pressing so that is helpful.

One of the selling points of this speakerphone for me was being able to use the Motospeak app, which actually works with other non-Motorola bluetooth speakerphones as well. Well, I found that using Motospeak was mostly useless. It only understood me about half the time I spoke messages, and I discovered that I actually find it more annoying than helpful having text messages announced when they arrive. It's rather frustrating when you're trying to talk to another passenger in the car or place an order at a drive-thru and the automated voice interrupts with her big text announcement. I gave it a shot, but that app is not something I'm interested in anymore. I'll just check my texts at red lights or when I'm not driving.

Can't say anything about battery life as I didn't keep the Roadster long enough to need to charge it again. I returned it for something that functions with better clarity on calls and hardly any interference on FM aka the Motorola T505 Bluetooth Portable In-Car Speakerphone, which I highly recommend. It's still a 4-star product after 650+ reviews, and it's cheaper and just plain works. Motorola still has quite a good thing going with the T505. Try it...this Roadster may be a newer model, but newer doesn't always mean better.

Please click yes if you think this review was helpful, and I hope it was. Good luck with your purchase!

I am surprised that The reviews here are not good but I don't agree with them.
This is the best speaker speaker. I also bought the Jabra cruiser2 few weeks back. I would say this thing beats the crap out of it. Best thing is the connect and disconnect of phone when I get in/out of car. Jabra used to be connected all the time when I parked my car in garage. This one disconnect right after I get out of the car and connects back. Very cool, It has some motion sensor to it. Battery is excellent too. I was able to stream music from my phone to my car speakers thru FM very clear (interms of FM).

Pairing - Easiest ever. I don't have to remember which button to hold down for three seconds. If you have a toddler he/she can pair their phone easily. ;-)

Size - Nice size in a small car. I don't feel like I have to look around it to see the road. Pretty low profile

FM Band functionality - I didn't buy it for this so I haven't used it

Battery life - Good for me. I don't keep it plugged in. With my use I don't have to charge it more than once a week.

Speaker/Listening to a caller - Clear. Doesn't sound like they are calling from a barrel.

Microphone/A caller hearing me - I've read others who had difficulty. I have an iPhone 4 and I've heard no complaints. I've even left messages for myself with just my iPhone and the Roadster. I can't tell a difference except a little more road noise when using the Roadster...but not enough that it bothers me.

Detecting my presence - It listens for a door slam. I've had it disconnect me once when I hit a big, loud bump. Other than that it's like having a friend welcome you to the car and say good-bye as you leave. ;-)

Voice commands - It works very well. I've even played with accents just for fun.

Pushing music through the Roadster speaking? Don't bother. It's not why I bought it but there are too many other ways to play music on my iPhone that sound much better.

Would I buy it again? In a shot.

Like many folks I've used a number of Bluetooth accessories over the years. The feature most important to me is audio/speech quality, since that's the primary purpose of these devices. Motorola makes many products in this space. Some are good/excellent, and some are not so good. I purchased this device from Amazon a week ago. It does many things well but fails in transmit voice quality (the quality of my voice as heard by the person I'm calling). Transmit speech is very muffled, to the point of being unacceptable for most conversations. Receive speech quality is good for this type of device. Duplexness -- the ability of both parties to speak and be heard at the same time -- is also good for this type of device, but the transmit voice quality is so poor that duplexness is of little help. I will be returning this item to Motorola.

Just to point out I'm not bashing Motorola, I own a Motorola Oasis Bluetooth headset, and in my opinion the audio/speech quality of this headset is the finest I've heard. If you like the physical design of the Oasis, get one.