Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I've had the Schsche solCHAT for about 2 months now. I've never charged it. As other reviewers have said the battery life is fantastic and the solar option works well for me. High usage folks may need to charge it but so far it works for me. I leave it on for about 30 minutes in the morning driving to work and 30 minutes at night on the return trip home. I don't get many phone calls so at least for the ocassional user battery life is more than adequate and Scosche includes charging cables so you are still covered. Recently I took a 300 mile trip that was 8 hours of driving and had it on the entire time with no need to charge even though I used it a few times.
I am using a BlackBerry Bold 9000 with OS 4.6 with the unit. I find voice dialing isn't working well for me but I don't necessarily blame the unit. I have it located very high on my windshield behind my rear view mirror and I suspect if I had it lower on the windshield voice dialing would work better. I keep it high as to avoid obstructing my field of view and to hide it. When it is that high on the windshield the edge of tinting near the roof line is dark enough you can't see the Scosche from the outside of the car. Even with the tinting the speakerphone is charging fine so to me the compromise is well worth it.
Call quality appears to be fairly good. I am driving a 2009 Honda Accord EX-L V6 Coupe which is not a quiet car on the inside and most people can hear me well. I can hear others well too. Volume is more than adequate. I have hear my home answering machine record me from the car and I can understand everything I'm saying without problems so the microphone appears to have good quality. I would suggest to other reviewers that are having trouble hearing someone using this unit to try repositioning it to better aim the microphone.
What I was unable to get to work is the ability for the unit to download my phone address book. You have the option of sending one or the entire address book to the speakerphone unit using Bluetooth. The unit is supposed to match the incoming phone number to the address book name and announce the name. If you can't load any addresses the unit will announce the incoming phone number which is the way I use it. My BlackBerry can only send the entire address book unless you load a third party piece of software that allows you to transfer individual contacts. When I tried to send my entire address book the Scosche timed out. When I tried to send individual addresses the Sosche wasn't communicating with the BlackBerry.
Other nice features of the product are that when you start it the unit announces "power on". When your phone is connected by bluetooth the unit announced "phone is ready for use" and "phone is disconnected" when you lose connection to your phone. There is also a message when you hang up a call. Turning the unit off announces "power off". you can change the unit to multiple languages which isn't something I use but is a nice feature for many people.
The unit has only a handful of buttons and most of the time you are holding one in to turn it on and holding the same one in later to turn it off. You use that same large button to answer phone calls by pressing it once. Press it again to hang up. If your phone loses connection to the unit the Scosche turns itself off after 10 minutes which is another great feature so if I leave my car I don't have to worry about turning off the unit. Lastly there is a blue ring that pulses around that one command button when the Scosche is connected to your phone so you can see it at night to press it when you get a call.
I think the Scosche is well worth the money. It's simple interface, unmatched battery life and excellent voice annouce features which keep your eyes on the road for maximum safety while being informative are very worthwhile. I'd easily give it 5 stars if I could get the address book functionality to work with my BlackBerry.
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