This one wont snap in half! (Ericsson T20s)

Member Name: whitenet

Product:	Ericsson T20s
Date:	31/08/01 (228 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent battery life, Voice control, Customisable profiles

Disadvantages: Anttenna, Colours

I have owned a pre-pay T20s for about 5 months now. I use it for personal use and for work and have had no problems at all.

The battery life is fantastic. Being a Lithium Ion (Li-Ion) battery it can be charged nd topped up as and when you like without decreasing the capacity of the battery. Many other handsets still come supplied with older Nickle Metal Hydroxide (Ni-MH) batteries which can only be charged when completely flat or will degenerate. I use my phone on average for about 1-1.5 hours per day in conversation and it is never switched off. I only put the phone on charge every 3-5 days depending on how much I have used it.

Another feature I have found to be useful with the T20 is its voice control. I do a lot of driving so therfore use the phone while driving with a hands-free. I admit I dont use voice commands when out and about on foot, but when alone in the car the phone rings while negotiating a busy intersection, the call can be accepted or denied at user set voice command. You can also store up to 10 voice labels with number to use for outgoing calls.

The Ericsson T20 can be customised in about as many ways as possible. About the only method it lacks is changable facias but that is only asthetics, The T20 has 6 "Profiles" which can be edited to suit you. I have different profiles for the phone to function is for exapmle when out, at home, in the car, at work or for if i dont want to be distured but need to see if people have tried to call or send a text message.

Another useful facility is being able to assign different ring tones to different numbers. Again on my phone I have one ring tone for friends numbers, another ring tone for work numbers etc... This has proved very useful for me to distinguish between personal and work calls and is so much cheaper than a contract phone with 2 lines set up on it.

Still on the subject of ring tones, there are 10 built in with another 4 that can be edited by typi
ng the notes in on the keypad or downloading from a computer with the correct data cable. If you have a data cable you can also download animations to play on your phone when you switch it on. Ring tones cannot be exchanged by SMS but there are many sites on the net with the notes you need to enter for ring tones and 100% free.

The T20 also comes with a built in WAP browser. I have used the a couple of times to check email and get F1 Grand Prix results but not in the last couple of months. On the Orange network, WAP access is charged at 10p/min and is a very slow and limited resource. Compared to unmetered net access on a PC at home or at work which more and more people have now, unless something special happens with WAP or the new GPRS takes off, I believe demand for it will dwindle.

Ericsson have done a good job with the asthetics and ergonomics of the T20. Looking at it face on, it is similar in size to the popular T28 but is deeper and more rounded. This means it fits nicely in the hand and will be less likely to suffer the same fate as one Ericsson T28 I saw not so long ago. It snapped in half!!! However I can think of many colour schemes which the T20 would look good in and unfortunatly, Ericsson havent produced this phone in any of them. At the end of the day though, it is just that. A phone.

The active flip is a nice touch and appears to be attatched to the main body of the phone fairly securely. Although I have no doubt that a heavy knock of it being bent further than intended will result in its detatchment from the phone.

Appart from the colours availiable, the only other main gripe I have about this phone is its very pronounced anttenna. With more and more phones being released with internal anttenas, it does unfortunatly make the T20 a little dated. If there is one thing I've learnt from this phone, it is not to sit down with it in your back pocket!

Otherwise i have found it to be a great phone that has se
rved me well and I have no intention to part with it for a very long time. Very highly reccommended indeed!!!

Summary: