I'm considering adding the MCS-integrated portable cellular telephone to a 2001 ML 430. Looking for comments good or bad.
Thanks

The new Motorola V60c Mercedes branded phone will be available for retail sales next week. The V60c is a good phone and you can't beat the integration into the factory MCS. The price however is on the hefty side. However, if integration is what you want, this is the only option. The Voice Recognition is also pretty handy and a great option to show off.

Adam-

Weren't you working on a group buy of that phone? How did that work out?

I've been trying to do the same for the Navigation unit. Did you work with anyone you feel you could recommend?

We held the buy up so we could wait for the v60c next week !!! I do not know of anyone that deals in the factory nav units. Let me shoot off some emails and ill try to locate someone that can get them at below dealer's MSRP.

Have the Timeport phone in my ML500. Good option, easy and safe to use while driving. Had the older MB analog phone in my 98 ML320 and while it was a bit more unwieldy to use it was OK. The older analog phones seem to have a bit better reception and greater range from the cell sires.

As a follow up to my last post: I began to notice that reception when phone was installed in car was not as good as it was when used as a hand held in the same geographical area. Noted this to my dealer suspecting an antenna problem with the car antenna. Dealer found a loose or bad connection in the antennuator (booster) and corrected it. Now its teriffic and as good as the analog phone was in my old 98 ML320.

Sosh,
It should be better. In all of the various models I've found the digital/analog phones to be superior in reception to the analog only '99 and earlier phones, at least in this part of the country. If you hadn't made your last post I was all set to recommend a trip to the dealer. Loose antenna connections are fairly common.

Additionally some phone companies only give their best rates to the current bidigital (nothing dirty there. They have 2 digital bands plus an analog band) kinds of phones. Current Mercedes have multiple antennas, since they operate the Tele-Aid, and it's kind of considered desirable for the Tele-Aid to work when the car's upside down in a ditch due to Jack Daniels overwhelming ESP and Michelin. Thus there's one in each bumper in case the car's resting on the one on the roof.

Thanks for the input. I am quite familiar with RF characteristics. Reason for push to digital is purely economic. Carriers can get more users on an assigned frequency with digital than analog. Digital cell sites are also less expensive. In a marginal area digital will cut off almost instatly when analog would give a longer warning (fading) of impending cut off. This allowed you to stop the vehicle to continue the conversation if you so desired

We bought our 2000 ML with the Motorola StarTac that was available that year. Both good news & bad news.

Good News:

1. Reception is fine, sound quality is good

Bad News:

1. The StarTac model that MB uses is only a dual-mode (digital/analog) vs the tri-mode (digital/analog/PCS) that was common by then. In other words, the MB version is ineligle for the special nationwide plans.

2. The MB system is not capable of using the full address book built into the phone. The phone holds 400 numbers, but the screen only shows 100. It truncates all entries past the first entry for any given name.

3. The screen truncates what address book info it does show; 1 line + 1 character from 2nd line. Dumb.

4. The system doesn't use any of the voice mail features built into the phone. None. Zip. Beyond dumb, all the way to stupid.

Bottom line? The phone works OK, but the integration--the part that Mercedes is responsible for--is pathetic.

Do it again? I doubt it. I like my aftermarket StarTac 7868 with the Motorola car kit installation and the Alpine DVD-based NAV unit better in my W140.

When you state "Additionally some phone companies only give their best rates to the current bidigital (nothing dirty there. They have 2 digital bands plus an analog band) kinds of phones." What is that in reference to? Are you saying that the mbnz phone is only a dual-band not a tri-mode? My timeport for my 2001 ml is a cdma tri-mode! Just Wondering!

The Timeport in my 02 ML500 is a triband. Integration is OK but it should have the voice mail indication on the MCS which it does not.