Motorola Roadster 2

No, Motorola isn't selling a car. The Roadster 2 ($99.99 direct) is a hands-free Bluetooth speaker with an interesting, asymmetrical design and solid all-around performance. Thanks to good overall sound quality and some truly innovative features, the Roadster 2 is our Editors' Choice for hands-free Bluetooth speakerphones.

Design, Controls, and Performance
The Roadster 2 measures 3.5 by 2.8 by 0.6 inches (HWD) and weighs 3.5 ounces. It feels well built, with a taught mesh speaker grille, and front and back edges that angle upwards and downwards, respectively?ideal for mounting on a car visor. Once you mount the Roadster 2 you can just leave it there and be assured it won't go flying when you take a curved exit ramp off of a highway.

The front edge contains a Mute button, a multi-function Call button, and a Voice Dial button. The rear edge, which is angled down slightly and a little tough to see, holds four additional buttons: Play/Pause, Volume Up/FM Tune Up, Volume Down/FM Tune Down, and FM/Speaker (more on these later). On the right edge, you'll find a sliding two-position power switch and a micro USB charger jack. Motorola includes its standard DC charger, which plugs into your car's interior power jack. The charger has a coiled cable and a status LED.

The first time you power up the Roadster 2, it automatically enters pairing mode. The instructions tell you about entering a PIN, but you usually won't have to. I had no problem pairing the Roadster 2 with an iPhone 4. From there, controlling the Roadster 2 is simple. You can answer or ignore incoming calls with your voice, just by saying either of those two words. The Roadster 2 will speak the name of the person calling if it's in your phone's address book, or just recite the phone number if not. Otherwise, the Roadster 2 works as a standard A2DP streaming device, so you can pump music, voice prompts from GPS apps, audiobooks, or other audio data through it.

Motorola claims the Roadster 2 offers 8.5dB of noise reduction thanks to its dual-mic design, and the two-watt speaker provides plenty of gain. You won't fool anyone into thinking you're talking from a desk phone, but the Roadster 2 works quite well on the road nonetheless. In a voice mail test, transmissions through the microphone were easily intelligible, though I heard a touch of static around my voice. Turning up the air conditioning didn't affect the transmissions much; I heard very faint noise in the background but my voice sounded the same. With the windows open at a steady 75 miles per hour on the highway, I heard considerably more background noise, but even then, you could easily make out what I was saying, which is an impressive achievement.

Other Features and Conclusions
Whenever the Roadster 2 detects you've moved away from the car for more than a minute, it automatically powers down to conserve the battery. When you return and open the car door, it hears that, switches back on, and reconnects to the phone. Motorola also makes available its MotoSpeak app, which reads aloud incoming text messages, and lets you respond with your own voice. Unfortunately, there's no iOS version; just Android and BlackBerry.

The built-in FM transmitter is a novel idea, as it lets you transmit the current call, streaming music, or GPS navigation prompts from your phone to the car stereo speakers. I've never seen that before on a Bluetooth speakerphone; all you have to do is select an unused frequency once using the plus and minus buttons, tune your car stereo tuner to that frequency, and then press the FM button to toggle between streaming to the radio and to the Roadster 2.

Standard Bluetooth range is 33 feet, which usually works out to about 15 feet in practice. But since the Roadster 2 is primarily designed for in-car use, it'll never be a problem. The Roadster 2 is a multipoint device, so you can pair two phones to it simultaneously. As far as battery life is concerned, it lasts for up to 20 hours of talk time or three weeks of standby time on a single charge.

All told, the Motorola Roadster 2 is a winner. Our previous Editors' Choice, the SuperTooth HD ($129, 4 stars), offers a longer, slimmer design with a nifty magnetic clip, which is more convenient if you plan to use it on a desk indoors as well as in the car. The SuperTooth HD also sounds great, gets very loud, and also works with a companion iOS as well as Android app. But its voice prompt-based interface can get in the way of your conversations, it lacks an FM transmitter and auto on and off feature, and it costs $30 more.

Meanwhile, if you want to save money and just need a Bluetooth speaker for occasional calls, the SuperTooth Crystal ($69, 3 stars) will do the job, though it lacks the Roadster 2's clearer mic transmissions and extra features. The BlueAnt S4 ($129, 4 stars) is a little older, but still around, and easily found at a discount; it sounds great, but is a little buggy in comparison.

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