Cell Phone Reviews

Life Technology
1

What kind of cell phone do you use? Is it reliable? Are you generally happy with it? Would you recommend it to someone?

After less than 2 years of use, my Ericsson T29 is on the fritz. Personally, I don’t recommend the T29. The screen is too small. (Bought it more for its design and small size than function.) But now that Ericsson has merged with Sony, I wonder if they make better phones now. I have no interest in getting the newfangled camera phone, but would favor one with low radiation (Is there any way to find out about this?) Basically I’m looking for something reliable that I won’t need to replace after the warranty runs out. Your thoughts?

2

My Nokia 8210 has been running for about 4 years and only needed a screen replaced. Has been dropped and has flown across the road in a motorcycle accident without coming a cropper (wish I could say the same for me).

3

after 3 years of going from free phone to 400RMB phone, I went out and splurged on the Nokia 6100. (although I was really looking for a T68.

Pros:

  1. Phonebook - the is the best part. I can have a contact name with 5 different inputs: work, fax, home, general, mobile, plus email and address. before on my primitive nokia, i had to put in separate entries like
    Jack - H
    Jack - cell
    Jack - W

Needless to say very annoying
2. Light and small
3. low radiation (I could literally feel the side of my head ‘wobble’ using other phones
4. crisp screen (some people have complained about the passive 4096 colour screen. but 6100: I’m a phone, not a doctor! i mean 17" CRT monitor or a digicam display. if you want a cam-phone, get the panasonic gd88. nokia cam-phones suck ass)

Cons:

  1. in lock mode, I would like the screen to light up when i press a button just so i can see the time or the screen or the buttons. this is very inconvenient in the dark. the old nokia, or mine rather, does this.
  2. the screensaver should be customizable (small fix)
    the menu buttons should be customizable!!! (big for me) it can get annoying scrolling past menu options you would never use. can’t i either change the order or delete options altogether
  3. other have complained about the battery. right now, it lasts about 3 days which is adequate, but nokia says 7 days which is a bunch of turd. get it right.
  4. price point bites.
4

I’ll say! I looked up the prices of these models. Your 6100 is nearly twice as expensive as the T68. What made you pick the Nokia over the Ericsson?

5

I’ll say! I looked up the prices of these models. Your 6100 is nearly twice as expensive as the T68. What made you pick the Nokia over the Ericsson?[/quote]

well i got a relatively good deal from a store where my friend buys all her phones (she bought the GD88 for 25k NTD!!!)

why the nokia? i needed a phone right away. and the t68 is discontinued, harder to find, though I’m sure u can find it, i’m just lazy. plus, i guess i;m just used to nokias. and i figure this phone has everything i need for the next few years (it’s also triband which is great unless the entire state of CA goes CDMA and drops GSM in which case i’m screwed. damn those telecom companies. You suck MCI!)

6

NT$25,000 for… for… a TELEPHONE??? Are you shitting us here? Phones are really that expensive? My Nokia cost (I think) NT$1,000 about three years ago and it still works just fine.
No colour screen, but surprisingly, I’ve been able to live quite comfortably with that. I can make and receive calls, which is what a phone is for, isn’t it? Or am I missing something?

7

[quote=“sandman”]NT$25,000 for… for… a TELEPHONE??? Are you shitting us here? Phones are really that expensive? My Nokia cost (I think) NT$1,000 about three years ago and it still works just fine.
No colour screen, but surprisingly, I’ve been able to live quite comfortably with that. I can make and receive calls, which is what a phone is for, isn’t it? Or am I missing something?[/quote]

yah, it’s cheaper than a taser and a beating of a boor. :wink:

8

Click… THUNK!.. BZZZzzzzzZZZZZZzT!

Cheaper than a Tazer? I think not :wink: .

9

[quote=“sandman”]Click… THUNK!.. BZZZzzzzzZZZZZZzT!

Cheaper than a Tazer? I think not :wink: .[/quote]

Yah, AND the beating of a boor. that will cost you plenty. And since you’re caucasian I forgive you cuz you clearly didn’t understand what I was saying. :wink:

10

By the way things are going, it’s more a camera, PDA, video game, radio, calculator, necklace, with a phone added on as an afterthought. :unamused:

11

Sony Ericsson phone have better interfaces and functionality than the Ericsson phones but SE phones tend to be worst in RF reception. It comes to play in places like US and Canada where the cell towers are not as dense and the 1900mhz frequency is not good in penetrating walls.

I have the T68i in the US and the reception can be poor in some areas. It’s widely known for poor RF. This should not be a problem in Taiwan. If you like the T68i, I would recommend the T610. It’s the replacement for the T68 and looks a lot cooler. It has the same functionality as the T68i with phonebook, calendar, bluetooth, infrared, GPRS, color screen, tri-mode, and other features. The addressbook for the T68i allows four phone entry per name. I expect it to be the same in the T610. The T610 has a better screen than the T68i and more colors. T610 also has a built in camera and an attachment for a flash. The RF is better on the T610 also. Bluetooth headset is a very useful thing to have and also reduces the time the phone is next to your head. Nokia phones tend to dislike BT headset from other companies.

Most SE phones tend to be on the high end and have a lot of functionality built in. I have not seen any Nokia phone that is tri-mode, color screen, bluetooth, and compact. If you don’t need all the functionality of the SE phones, then get a Nokia. Nokias are pretty good but given a choice, I would rather replace my T68i with a T610 instead of a Nokia phone.

Mark

[quote=“Incubus”]What kind of cell phone do you use? Is it reliable? Are you generally happy with it? Would you recommend it to someone?

After less than 2 years of use, my Ericsson T29 is on the fritz. Personally, I don’t recommend the T29. The screen is too small. (Bought it more for its design and small size than function.) But now that Ericsson has merged with Sony, I wonder if they make better phones now. I have no interest in getting the newfangled camera phone, but would favor one with low radiation (Is there any way to find out about this?) Basically I’m looking for something reliable that I won’t need to replace after the warranty runs out. Your thoughts?[/quote]

12

[quote=“markshih”]Sony Ericsson phone have better interfaces and functionality than the Ericsson phones but SE phones tend to be worst in RF reception. It comes to play in places like US and Canada where the cell towers are not as dense and the 1900mhz frequency is not good in penetrating walls.

I have the T68i in the US and the reception can be poor in some areas. It’s widely known for poor RF. This should not be a problem in Taiwan. If you like the T68i, I would recommend the T610. It’s the replacement for the T68 and looks a lot cooler. It has the same functionality as the T68i with phonebook, calendar, bluetooth, infrared, GPRS, color screen, tri-mode, and other features. The addressbook for the T68i allows four phone entry per name. I expect it to be the same in the T610. The T610 has a better screen than the T68i and more colors. T610 also has a built in camera and an attachment for a flash. The RF is better on the T610 also. Bluetooth headset is a very useful thing to have and also reduces the time the phone is next to your head. Nokia phones tend to dislike BT headset from other companies.

Most SE phones tend to be on the high end and have a lot of functionality built in. I have not seen any Nokia phone that is tri-mode, color screen, bluetooth, and compact. If you don’t need all the functionality of the SE phones, then get a Nokia. Nokias are pretty good but given a choice, I would rather replace my T68i with a T610 instead of a Nokia phone.

Mark

[quote=“Incubus”]What kind of cell phone do you use? Is it reliable? Are you generally happy with it? Would you recommend it to someone?

After less than 2 years of use, my Ericsson T29 is on the fritz. Personally, I don’t recommend the T29. The screen is too small. (Bought it more for its design and small size than function.) But now that Ericsson has merged with Sony, I wonder if they make better phones now. I have no interest in getting the newfangled camera phone, but would favor one with low radiation (Is there any way to find out about this?) Basically I’m looking for something reliable that I won’t need to replace after the warranty runs out. Your thoughts?[/quote][/quote]

My friend just bought the t610. the only thing she doesn’t like is she feels the menu interface is slow and scrolling the name list is slow (cf to nokia i think). all in all, i have seen very few camera phones that take good pics. samsung and panasonic probably have the best ones. nokia’s is a joke. IMO, i would hold off buying a camera phone if you want to save money. it’s just an added trinket that isn’t that great YET.
the nice thing i noticed about my nokia was that, before i mentioned 5 types of phone inputs (cell, home, etc), now i noticed it’s not limited to 1 number per type. eg i can have 2 or 3 cell numbers for the same name entry. not sure what the max is though. but this is a nice feature overall.

13

Everyone who’s responded to my post has something positive to say about Nokia. I find it incomprehensible, given the myriad of phones available out there. Is it really that good a brand? Or have you all fallen prey to its subliminal sexual message, “Connecting people”? :?

14

My Sony Ericsson T100 (the billboard ad with the Cameron Diaz lookalike-or maybe that is her) has been a disappointment.

The 7 key needs to be pressed really hard and the battery’s a bit wonky.

Small, lightweight, cheap (NT$2500 with contract) and looks good.

15

I think we’ve mentioned plenty of negative and positive things about Nokia. probably you have that impression because you happen to hear from Nokia users and Nokia users are just used to Nokia.
i would also recommend some of the Samsung and Panasonic phones. Some of the newer ones are much better than anything Nokia can offer or so I’m told.

16

I have a MOTO V66 but I wish I had a Nokia. Nokia has everything you want in an easy to find and use way.

NOKIA

17

I have a Sony Erricson T200 and it’s great. Not a whole lot of fancy features but it’s reliable as hell, and the buttons work very very well (a major irritation on my old Motorola). I have the impression that SE is beating the RF problem. Oh, and you have to load the SIM card into memory for fast scrolling of the address book.

Avoid the BenQ ones. They die fast. Nokias are fine but AVOID the cheap 33xx models as they are terrible, with bad connections and annoying recharging and the whole bit. The Panasonics have a reputation for bad reception. The Samsungs look very nice but I am told that all the Korean ones have much higher RF output. Of course this may simply be local anti-Korean sentiment.

18

I have a Nokia 5210 and it’s a piece of crap. Lousy reception, people think I’m calling from inside a garbage can buried in an arctic snowstorm, and it loses signal constantly.

19

Nokia phone are divided into different functions for each series. 3000 series tend to be the cheap phones. 5000 series are the sports phones. 6000 series is more business style and somewhat more bulky. 8000 series tend to be more high end consumers and compact . 9000 series are more mobile computing. Nokias have pretty good menu functions and UI designs but the problem is that with the new functionality being incorporated into the phones, the older UI doesn’t work as well with it. Once you get used to a phone UI, it’s hard to change phones.

SE phones have improved in RF area but not by much. It’s still worst than the Nokias and Samsungs. Based on posting on some phone sites, the T610 RF is a bit better than the T68i but still less than Nokia 3650 and Samsung S105. I heard that the new Siemens phones have good RF also.

I would not recommend using a cell phone camera as a replacement for a digital/film camera. It’s all about how much quality you need for your photography needs. phone cameras are about 1 megapixals so the size and resolution is not that great. I still have my digital camera for use indoors like taking pictures at weddings and such. I still use my film SLR for outdoor scenery. Phone cameras are just for convenience. For those who would carry pen cams around with them, phone cameras are just replacements for them.

Mark

20

I have a Ericsson T39 (tri band, great battery life ) and a Killing machine Nokia 9210 :laughing:

Nokia is good but heavy and does not work US.

If you do a lot of SMS I will recommend 9210.