I have been looking for the best bluetooth phone for the LS430 and have had an opportunity to test several phones. My findings were as follows:
Motorola Razor V3: tested with Cingular; all functions work, including ring through speakers; singal bars display
Motorola V600: tested with Cingular; all functions work, including ring through speakers; signal bars display
Nokia 6820: tested with AT&T; many functions work, does not ring through speakers; signal bars do not display
SE T608: tested with SPRINT; most functions work, does not ring through speakers; signal bars do not display consistently, phone must be turned off then on for signal bars to display; about 10% of the time the phone does not place calls properly
SE T637: tested with Cingular; most functions work, including ring through speakers; signal bars do not display
Motorola V710; tested with Verizon; some functions work; does not ring through speakers, signal bars do not display

I should get my own V3 tomorrow

Anyone else have experience to add?

 

Blackberry 7290: Tested with Cingular. No ring thru speakers. Signal bars display,

 

Have been using the Sony T637 for about 2 weeks. Signal bars work however on outgoing calls if the party answers on the first ring I don't hear them say hello - there seems to a slight delay. Other than that very easy to use. Now using Cingular service.

No 1-touch dial on the T637 like I had on previous Nokia and Motorola phones. I miss that.

 

I've been wanting to switch to Verizon for a while and waited for their bluetooth Motorola phone. However my secretary said that the sound was not "customer quality". And enabling the bluetooth function cuts the phone battery life by 75%.

So I've disabled the bluetooth on the phone, I might consider the bluetooth earpiece 'cause it allows the voice dial.

In fact, that is the most awesome part of the Verizon Motorola phone, you can put in as many numbers as you want and access any one via the voice dial. Incredible voice recognition - funny, one hundred times better than the voice recognition in my new $64K car...ironic if you think about it.

 

I've heard that Bluetooth does use up the battery a bit faster - I haven't seen too much of a difference. I keep the car charger handy anyway. The Sony phone allows me to assign a voice dial to any of the numbers in the phonebook but I only use it occasionally. Most of the calls I make in the car are part of the 18 speed dials I can call up while in motion. Good luck with Verizon - I wanted to switch to them but could not get them to commit that Bluetooth would work. So far the AT&T-Cingular marriage seems to be working ok. Better signal in buildings where I previously had weak/no signal. Time will tell.

 

I have a Sony Ericcson 616 and AT&T Wireless service.

I get ring through speakers and signal bar display.

My issues are:

If after bluetooth pairing has completed, if I use the SE 616's keypad to dial a phone number, the LS doesn't catch exactly when the person answers the call. There is maybe a 1-2 second delay, so often the first thing I hear is the person repeating "hello?"

Similarly, sometimes when using the SE 616 keypad to dial, the LS side of the conversation is muted and the "MUTE" button on the display is opposite of the actual mute state.

I have my phone numbers stored in outlook and download the my contacts to the SE 616, where each contact has mutliple entries (home, work, mobile). When I do a download phone list from the SE 616 to the LS, the LS picks up *only 1* of the phone numbers per contact. As a result, the LS phone book is missing many important entries.

It appears that there is no way to edit the 18 1-touch dialing entries to give them names. I would like to be able to add a phone number to a 1-touch dialing entry and name it. Right now I figure out I can call that person once and add it as a "outgoing number" but on the 1-touch screen it shows only as the number and I can't put in a descriptive text label.

As far as battery life, on a full charge the SE 616 is more than capable of handling any reasonable amount of conversation I have on my 2-hour/day commute. Over Thanksgiving, I did two 5-6 hour trips over two days with only a couple of short telephone conversations and when I finally got home the phone was nearl out of power.

 

NOKIA 6600 =

 

I have a SE T616 as well. It's my secondary phone as I already have a Nextel phone for work so I only use the SE when I'm in the car. I have never tried using the key pad of the phone to dial a number while driving as most of my calls are made from the various one touch screens.

My one touch screens have the number and the name on them and have had them since I downloaded the phone book from the phone to the car and transferred the specific "Phone Book" numbers to the one touch locations. If the SE phone directory has the name as well as the number then both should transfer to the LS.

I did run into the same problem with multiple numbers under one name and had to re-enter them individually to get them all to transfer.

 

I have the Mot V600 and it does not ring through the speakers unless I dial directly from the console. Is there a setting on the phone that will enable it to ring through the speakers when dialing directly from the phone?