Review
The Motorola V3C is an amazing phone. There are many reviews on the web which went into my selection of this phone in the first place. This is my own review and the trials and tribulations with Bluetooth and Motorola Phone Tools (MPT).
I picked the RAZR because it was the best phone that Verizon offers in terms of light, thin, loud and clear voice on both ends of the call, speakerphone, reception and the Bluetooth feature. I am also surprised at the battery life. For such a small and thin phone it has longer battery life than many others.
One of the features I really wanted was Bluetooth. This allows handsfree, wireless headsets as well as wireless file transfers and wireless dialup modem internet access. Bluetooth allows wireless not only between the cell phone and the world but also wireless between the cell phone and the laptop. I have had no problems with the speaker independent voice recognition program, a must feature for handsfree operation. Simply answer or hangup the call by touching the call button on the Bluetooth wireless headset.
I Could care less about the camera. I have really good cameras for that job. I really wish the phone didn't have a camera to be honest, but it does. All the camera phones are pretty shoddy. This one is rated above average but trust me, that doesn't mean much. Cam pics are terrible compared to my Pentax *istDS or even my throw and go Olympus D550. But that's to be expected, its a phone.
All in all I am very satisfied so far. The phone is an odd combination of aluminum/magnesium and plastic. The feel is very good and so is the fit and finish. It looks and feels like quality. The voice quality is quite good and the audio is loud and clear. The speakerphone is fair. Output is loud but you still have to be fairly close to the microphone. Battery life is quite good and reception is very good. I can upload and download pictures for wallpaper and mp3 music files for ring tones. The ringer is very loud with mp3s. I can use it as a dialup modem (14.4kps) for internet access with the Verizon 450 plan which is fine as a backup capability for travel. The phone does have a class 10 Edge modem should I need to upgrade to the data plan.
I used standard LCD protective covers, just cut them out and apply them. Here are the template files.
I don't like the Motorola glove or holster but I do like the MyBat leather case. It has elastic sides with access to the mini-USB port and a magnetic closure button instead of a snap with a soft felt-like liner and leather encased steel belt clip.
Bluetooth & USB
It is to note that the functionality built into Windows XP and the HP Broadcom/WIDCOMM package is sufficient. You do not need the MPT. However, if you ever intend to connect your V3c to your laptop via USB cable, then you will need the Motorola drivers. You can find package deals of MPT and a USB cable on the web. While you can upload and download ring tones music files and pictures over either Bluetooth or the USB cable, the USB connection also serves to charge the V3c.
Bluetooth
The Bluetooth on the phone and the laptop works very well in of themselves. I had no problems with either discovering headsets for example or the Targus MOBT90UO mouse on the DV4000. The problem is the drivers between the two. I had great difficulty getting the built in HP Bluetooth Broadcom/WIDCOMM (Broadcom bought out WIDCOMM) drivers to work with RAZR as a dial up modem. The driver version on the DV4000 for the HP Integrated Module with Bluetooth 2.0 Wireless Technology is 4.0.1.2101 5/31/2005. The first time I used the Bluetooth discovery wizard it locked up causing me all kinds of problems. After rebooting the Motorola Phone V3c OBEX File Transfer and Motorola Phone V3c Handsfree Voice Gateway worked like a champ. But no matter what I did, the Motorola Phone V3c Dial-Up Networking Gateway would not function. This set me onto hours of reading and uninstalling and reinstalling.
It is to note that at this point my brain is a little frazzled. But hopefully in here you will find the advice you will need. All I can say is, don't give up. Keep trying. Uninstall and reinstall until you figure out what's going on. I fought this for days, probably 20 hours of uninstall and reinstall. But I do remember some of the key points.
First off is com ports. I really don't get this issue. I am of the opinion that the WIDCOMM drivers are simply bugged. At the very least it should work right automatically the first time and do what it needs too. In Any event, you need to add a local com port and then add client dialup networking (which will add another com port and a Bluetooth modem).
At this point if you go into device manager and uninstall com ports and Bluetooth modems then you are in for some fun. For example go back and add local com port or client anything and your com ports will double or triple. Run add hardware wizard and it will add them all back. Repeat this a couple times and the com port numbering and numbers grows continually. That part is bugged I just don't get it. But have no fear, the only thing that clears the comport numbering and the additional com ports escalation is to uninstall the HP Bluetooth. When you do this (and you may have to a couple times) you are back to Windows drivers. Now I am running XP Pro SP2 so your results may vary. But then you can start all over and reinstall the HP integrated drivers. What you want to do is go to local tab and click on properties, this will actually add a local com port. Then go to the client tab and click properties on dialup networking, this will add another com port and a Bluetooth modem. If this doesn't work then uninstall Bluetooth modem and go into modems in control panel and add one manually (don't auto-detect) by picking WIDCOMM and then Bluetooth modem. I never could get Bluetooth Fax Modem selection to work.
If the first time this doesn't work, just uninstall HP integrated and try again. You can try adding the V3c after HP integrated driver uninstall just using the basic Windows XP Bluetooth interface. I did this and actually got a dialup connection to work. But this really doesn't matter. I just did that to prove that it would work and was really a HP Broadcom Bluetooth driver issue. You can also try various combinations of adding modems and com ports manually and auto-detect through hardware wizard in control panel. You can add modems one at a time by picking different com ports, you can even select the option use all com ports. In the end, you will end up with one that does work. Then you can just delete the others. Once you have figured the process out, you can uninstall the HP drivers one final time and execute your process to get a fairly clean install.
To check the modem, go to properties diagnostics tab and click Query modem. If you get an error then its the old uninstall reinstall add com ports and dialup networking process.
Use this to reinstall the HP drivers:
Motorola Phone Tools
After tackling the Bluetooth problem above then I decided to install MPT. I had great difficulty getting the MPT installed and working properly via Bluetooth. Getting MPT to work with the USB cable was straightforward. The first time I installed MPT everything worked except the Bluetooth dialup networking using the cell phone as a modem. This caused me to go back and uninstall and reinstall the HP Broadcom Bluetooth as well as MPT several times. But each time I got the infamous "Com port installation failed" problem and the "missing Multimedia Studio icon" problem. The later is fairly straight forward to fix.
I purchased MPT Version 4.0 which patches via a small 9.3mb update to version 4.04b 12/01/2005. What is nasty about this install is it downloads the update while you go to configure it for a particular cell phone and if you set one up you'll have to do it again when the patch is really applied the next time you launch MPT and god forbid you cancel MPT the download stops and you have to start all over again.
The com port problem was particularly nasty. In order to get past this problem you essentially have to get your Bluetooth to see the dial-up cell phone modem. Sounds simple right? Yeah well good luck see above. Once that is accomplished then MPT is good to go. So essentially you think this is a MPT problem but it isn't. Its really a Bluetooth problem. The first clue is that you don't run into that problem with the USB cable.
After getting past the com port problem, the next problem was the infamous "missing Multimedia Studio icon" problem. Ultimately, this was corrected in MPT by going into MPT's SETUP menu -> General Setup -> Communication tab -> Change Modem -> click Next -> (select device screen, highlight your Moto USB modem) -> click Next -> check the box for "Do not automatically detect the driver -> click Next -> Select CDMA from the left column -> selecting V3cm. The basic problem here is that MPT installs the modem driver automatically and in this case...the wrong one.
So both the HP Broadcom Bluetooth drivers and Motorola Phone Tools had bugs. And if your not up to speed on Bluetooth, they seem related but they really are not. I think it is a matter of terminology and the slim documentation doesn't help much. But in the end I got it all working like a champ. Now I have the ability to transfer files and use the RAZR as a modem via Bluetooth and USB and I can synchronize with MPT.
In subsequent pages you will find solutions for both wired and wireless Bluetooth hands-free head-sets.
