SMALL, SMART & SEXY! (Ericsson T20s)

Member Name: Parsley

Product:	Ericsson T20s
Date:	23/05/01 (670 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: SMALL, LIGHT, STYLISH, (SEE OPINION)

Disadvantages: NONE

I found myself in the unfortunate position of needing a new mobile phone, thanks to the low-life who stole my mobile along with my purse & house keys etc. I was left stranded with my little son in his buggy without any way of getting home or into my flat! Anyway after a lift home from a friendly policeman and my husband coming home from work to let me in and change the locks (they got my home address as well as the keys!) I had to start on the long boring task of sorting out all the replacement bankcards etc. and get my mobile phone’s SIM card blocked.
During the call to One to One to cancel my SIM card, I discovered that as I had had the contract for longer than one year, I was due for an upgrade on my handset, which I had no idea about. (They never tell you these things!) It was a great relief to discover that it wasn’t going to cost me a ridiculous sum to replace my existing one! I could keep my telephone number and One to One would send me a new SIM card. All I had to do was to go down to the shop with a form of ID (i.e. passport – which was the only bit of ID that wasn’t stolen!) and choose a new handset. The fee payable if any would be dependent on the handset chosen.

I have to sing One to One’s praises here for being super efficient at issuing me with a new SIM card. I cancelled my existing card at around 1.30pm on Thursday and I got a new one the next day (Friday) in the post! I was really surprised. All in all, I was only offline for a day!

SO WHY DID I CHOOSE THE ERICSSON T20?
I have had 2 Ericsson phones in the last few years and both have been fantastic, very reliable and no problems at all. Unlike the Amstrad phone I had in 1996 & the Motorola flare, both of which were a dead loss and kept turning themselves off! Anyway, my last Ericsson although good, it was a bit of a brick, so this time I decided that I would get something smaller, sexier, different and with more interesting features. I wasnR
17;t entirely sure what I would get when I went to look.
I had a choice of 2 different Nokia phones for free, but they were not particularly interesting. I didn’t like the style and I wasn’t very taken with them. Then I saw the Ericsson T20 for only £20. I had a good look at it and decided it was for me. I have to admit that the shape, weight and style of the phone was a huge deciding factor. It also had a lot of extra features that the Nokia phones didn’t have including being WAP compatible.

WHAT DOES IT LOOK & FEEL LIKE?
The Ericsson T20 is really different, it’s small and it looks like a little gadget off Star trek. It has a flip down lid which I prefer, as my last phone kept getting the “9” button knocked while in my bag. It always worried me that it would dial “999” one day and get me in trouble with the Police!
It’s also much easier to start & finish calls with a flip lid as you don’t have to keep unlocking the keypad all the time!

It’s a very comfortable shape to hold, fitting nicely into the palm of your hand. The body is dark grey with a silver-grey front and it has a strong silver-grey hand strap. I would give it 10 out of 10 for being a very stylish, light little phone, it’s only 113g and fits neatly into a small pocket or handbag easily.
(There is a pale blue version available on some networks. I think that that is the one dooyoo have pictured, but the silver one is much smarter!)

It has a nice display, the screen & buttons light up in a pleasant turquoise blue, which is much nicer than the usual green!

I couldn’t find the standby or talk time in the handbook to quote it accurately, however, it is excellent. Something like 172 hours standby and several hours talk time which means that you don’t have to keep charging it up. It’s a far cry from the house brick sized phone that I first carried in 1995 with a battery t
hat only lasted for about an hour talk time. I always had to carry a huge spare battery in my pocket which frequently also went flat!

EASE OF USE
It’s very easy to use, you scroll through the menus by using the arrow keys. It’s all very easy & self explanatory.
The main menus are:- Phone book, Messages, Call Info, Settings, Extras, WAP services & My shortcuts. If you are already familiar with previous Ericsson models then using this phone will be a doddle for you, but it’s so easy that anyone can use it whatever your previous phone!

Finding & adding numbers is really simple and you can also store e-mail addresses. There are some very nice features on this phone. I like the fact that when I finish typing a text message, I can scroll back to the address book to find the number to send it to, a feature that my last phone was sadly lacking. It also stores unsent messages if a text message fails during sending. On my last phone I used to lose any failed messages, which was infuriating!


IN A NUT SHELL THE MAIN FEATURES OF THIS PHONE ARE:-

That it is WAP compatible – i.e. it is able to be connected to the mobile Internet (although this has a long way to go before it’s as good as from a home phone!) Although the mobile Internet is an interesting concept, it will probably be a while and a new generation of handsets before it becomes really good! (I’m not going into this in detail because I don’t use it regularly due to its limitations at present.)

A really useful feature is that if you hover over a menu option for long enough, you get a “help” type box come up with scrolling information about the item that you are hovering over. This is automatic and very useful.

If you call an unrecognised number, or one calls you, the phone holds the number in a list and you can retrieve it and add it into your phone book at a later date.

You can select personal
ring tones for different people - although I haven’t bothered with this! I’ve just set it to the loudest ring so that I can hear it over the London traffic!

You can compose your own melodies – I think you can store up to 5 on your phone.

You can have a vibrating alert, which can be on all the time or on only when the phone is set to silent.

You can set your own shortcuts so your phone can be easier for you to use.

You can choose your own greeting or start up / shut down show with animations (but you need an Ericsson infa red modem to create & download your own start up show from your PC – so I’m not sure that it is worth the money or effort!)

Text messaging (SMS) you can send or receive up to 160 characters. You can send texts or e-mails. You can set the default to “text” or “e-mail” or even get it to ask you which you want each time you finish composing a message.
You can send a request for a reply to your text messages.

You can set your phone with a number of profiles. A profile = a group of settings which are set to suit a certain environment. So you can set your phone to have different settings / rings etc. for different circumstances.
There are six available profiles that you can set your phone to:-
Normal, Meeting, In Car, Outdoors, Port-H (portable handsfree) & Home.

Voice control – you can set the phone to voice dial someone simply by saying their name. You need to put voice labels on the phone book entries for this to work, but it’s easy!

Call waiting is available and you can even make a conference call with up to five people! (I think that this would get really confusing!)

You can send and receive fax & data calls but you need to connect the phone to a computer with the right software program!

EXTRAS:- Alarm clock, Calculator, Stopwatch, Timer & Games.

GAMES:– There are 4:-
E-maze, Tetris, Erix & Ballpop – unfortunately I haven’t read the instructions or got round to playing these yet. (so watch this space for an update!)


This list doesn’t name everything, but it should give anyone a good idea what to expect from this phone.

I am really pleased with my new phone, it is by far the best phone I’ve ever had by a very long way. It has far more useful features and it’s the smallest, lightest and most stylish little phone that I’ve had. I got mine for £20 after renewing my contract for another year with One to One. (Having been a customer since 1995, renewing my contract is not a problem!) If you are interested in this phone, then I would shop around for the best price. I noticed that on the Orange network in Argos the same phone was over £60 and I only paid £20 – that is a huge difference! There are differences between the networks and there are differences between different shop, so it pays to look round before buying.

Anyway, if you need a stylish, lightweight phone, then this one comes very highly recommended. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed!

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