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These Cellular Phones Will Help You Keep Your Business Moving Even When You Are on the Road

Even more than a notebook PC, a cellular phone is perhaps your most important ally for conducting business when you're on the road. Not only are you always reachable, but a cell phone in your pocket saves you endless amounts of time by letting you do two crucial things simultaneously: talk and move. And where they might have been considered status items a few years ago, cell phones have become so commonplace that you now face a Byzantine array of choices at affordable prices.

In the first half of 1997, cell phone customers-long accustomed to having just two competing cell phone providers in most major metropolitan areas--will be asked to sort through as many as seven different companies. This increase in competition makes now a great time to consider buying.

There will be new services offered-- such as caller ID, voice messaging, and paging--and claims and counterclaims for service reach and pricing. "Welcome to telecom wars, 1997," says Ken Woo, spokesman for AT&T, a wireless cell phone service provider that was among the first out of the gate with a new system this past fall. "It's going to be a wild and woolly market for consumers."

Somewhere in this thicket lurk some real advantages. The newest generation of telephones, which employ digital technology, offers greater call security, the promise of better call quality, longer battery life (up to 60-plus hours on standby), and a plethora of features that render lugging both a phone and a belt full of pagers a thing of the past.

Digital service is not entirely new. The first generation of these phones came out earlier in the 1990s. But it was a bust, with customers complaining about high phone costs and tinny-sounding, hard-to-hear conversations. Now, service providers and phone manufacturers say they have worked out these bugs, and customers can take advantage of digital's promise. Compared with analog technology, which modulates radio signals to carry voices, digital technology breaks voice signals down into ones and zeroes and transmits these bits. Consumers benefit through more types of service because of the data-handling ability of digital service; service providers benefit because they can fit more calls into a system, reducing the need to erect new cell antennas.

But things can get complicated. For starters, those systems used by the biggest cell phone providers--the ones that traditionally compete in major markets-will likely be offering different services, with each making different claims. These services are based on technologies called TDMA (time division multiple access) and CDMA (code division multiple access). Both convert sound signals to bits and shoot them over the airwaves. TDMA does so by sending small groups of calls over a single channel, similar to allowing three cars at a time onto the interstate. AT&T the largest cell service provider with 6.5 million customers, has lined up behind the TDMA standard.

CDMA, on the other hand, breaks conversations into dozens of pieces that are each electronically tagged. These gab-chunks are sent over multiple channels, then reassembled at the user's phone by decoding the tags. If that all sounds Buck Rogersish, there's a reason. CDMA--developed by Qualcomm Inc. of San Diego--is easily encrypted, and it was originally designed for the military. It's being embraced by AirTouch, Sprint, and Nextel.

Will it matter which one is used? It's too early to tell. CDMA is just now hitting the market after several delays and occasional talk that it was too complicated to work. Its service providers say it will offer better sound quality and greater system capacity, whereas critics contend that its reliability is unproven.

Analog phones, on the other hand, still have voice quality that is as good as or better than the new digital generation, and manufacturers have perfected the technology to the point where analog phones are as compact and trouble-free as possible. By the year 2000, an estimated 35 million analog phones will still be in operation--about half the expected digital market, but still a formidable number.

How We Selected For our review, we picked a range of phones that reflect the features and prices that would appeal to small-business and home-office cellular phone users. We based our picks on whether these phones were industry leaders (Nokia, Motorola), 'new or cutting-edge (Sony), or presented a good combination of features and value (Panasonic, Audiovox).

Phones we hoped to include but couldn't were the new digital model 318 from Ericsson, which did not respond to our requests for a review model, and a new digital/analog dual-mode unit from Sony, the CM-D500, which was not available at press time.

One thing anyone shopping for a cellular phone will find is that pricing seems to make no sense. How can a telephone be free when its retail price is $250? That's because cellular providers pay a bounty to dealers for each phone sold; in the case of lower-priced models, the bounty is enough to cover the retail cost. Free is a misnomer, though--you get that deal only if you agree to a service contract of at least a year with a cell service provider, something that can run $300 and up. How We Tested Our field tests of the phones reflect real-world conditions. We used the phones indoors, outdoors, in a car, walking around--all the places you're apt to take a cell phone. Our judgment was based on call quality, the ability of a phone to make or hold a connection, ease of use, and features.

Audiovox MVX-406

RATING: ** 1/2

The Audiovox MVX-406 is well-suited for the user who doesn't need high-end features. Call quality on the MVX-406 is fair: It provides good voice tone but relatively poor signal strength. The result was that the MVX-406 dropped calls when other cell phones that we reviewed, such as the Nokia 232 or Motorola Micro TAC, held onto them.

One plus for the MVX-406 is its memory, which allows you to store 89 numbers under either numbered addresses or names. Other features include three-number recall, call timer, and memory dialing of multi-number sequences.

With the optional slim nickel-metal-hydride battery, it's no thicker (though still longer) than the minuscule StarTAC. We also liked its large, easy-to-reach buttons and slightly curving faceplate that made it fairly comfortable to use.

Overall, the MVX-406 has an array of attractive features, but its relatively poor call quality kept it out of the top tier.

Motorola Micro TAC

Lite Pro 2

RATING: ** 1/2

Motorola's flip-phones retain their distinctive look and feel and remain high-quality, easy-to-use analog devices. Still, newer technology in other phones makes some of the Micro TAC's design quirks less appealing than they once were.

Call quality on the Micro TAC is decent--slightly scratchier than its chief competitor, the Nokia 232. The two phones are roughly comparable in size, although the tapered profile of the Micro TAC makes it seem smaller, and it's also several ounces lighter.

The Micro TAC's styling makes it the most comfortable phone in the group. It cradles almost like a land-line phone, and although the microphone is in the same location as on the Nokia or NEC, the little panel in front of your mouth makes you feel as if you're talking into a real mouthpiece. Flipping open the phone also answers incoming calls, eliminating the need to press Send.

The Micro TAC is not quite the latest and greatest anymore, but it's still a top-quality phone that will keep you in touch when out of the office.

Motorola StarTAC

RATING: *** 1/2

Based on its enormous gee-whiz quotient alone, the Motorola StarTAC very nearly justifies its exorbitant price. The StarTAC is a conversation piece, even when you're not making a phone call. It's also one of the best cell phones--analog or digital--on the market: It's easy to use, flexible, and well-made.

Any discussion of the StarTAC must begin with its size. Simply put, it's the smallest cell phone on the planet. Its dimensions are just 3 3/4 by 2 by 3/4 inches (with the slimmest of its four optional batteries)--so it literally fits inside your palm. And it weighs 3.1 ounces (again with the slim battery). We lost our StarTAC once and had to call ourselves to find it.

But that minuscule size doesn't result in any compromise of performance. The StarTAC had the best reception and voice quality of any phone we tested.

The StarTAC also is a bit easier than average to manage when storing or retrieving phone numbers. Names must be keyed in on the numbered pad, but the process is straight-forward enough that we had a dozen numbers entered in about five minutes (it takes up to 99). And recall is a snap--just press a small flash button on the side of the StarTAC, then use buttons above and below it to scroll through the numbers.