A useful brick. (Ericsson R380s)

Member Name: grantnaylor

Product:	Ericsson R380s
Date:	21/06/02 (265 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Has PDA like functions, Excellent build quality

Disadvantages: Very heavy, Stylus is flimsy, Battery life

This phone is too ahead of its time.

I used to own an R380s. I have since upgraded my phone to a Nokia 8310. Why?

Ok the R380 is a great phone, don't expect me to tell you all about it (I never see the point). You can read all about the phone by downloading the on-line manual from the Ericsson web site. However, there are a number of issues with the phone that really let it down.

1. Weight : this is a heavy phone. Don't expect to be able to slip it in your pocket.
2. Speed : the applications can take a while to load and the hand writing recognition can be slow at times.
3. You can't SMS using the keypad in the closed position. You have to use the SMS application with the flip open and the stylus. I can't even begin to tell you how annoying this is!
4. Synchronisation to a PC can be temperamental.
5. Short battery life.

That's about it for bad points. No there are not many. On the whole I found the phone to be excellent. Build quality is very high, and it does do what it says on the box; act like a PDA.

Very much a business phone that needs a briefcase, a job requiring the occasional email out of the office and a quick calendar check during lunch.

Overall I think the phone suffers from being too over ambitious for the technology at the time of its development. If you want a phone with PDA functionality there are better products available thanks to GPRS and soon to be 3G.

Summary: