...but all I wanted was a phone! (Ericsson T68i)

Member Name: Gaffer

Product:	Ericsson T68i
Date:	20/12/02 (1738 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looks Good, Excellent Scrren, Battery Life

Disadvantages: Way to slow, Waaay to slow, Waaaaaay to slow

I've been through one phone per year since the mid 90s (People's Phone anyone?), and I have to say the last two, coincidentally from Sony (J5e and T68i), have been poor.
That's not to say the T68i is a complete Jeffrey Archer: despite some "professional magazine" reviews mentioning it's Japanese-amine-girl aesthetics, it looks cool, the build quality is good (confirmed after numerous drunken phone-drops), the screen is clear, bright, and colourful.
The navigating stick is a revelation. I just hope that Sony decide to consolidate the nicer features of their phones into to some super-handset; something they failed to do with the superb phone lock switch on the J5...

...aaah, phone locking. This brings me onto the T68i faults. My god it's a phone that's painful to use. So s-l-o-w it's unbearable. It reminds me of DOS programming on a 286, where you type on the keyboard and the text comes up 10 seconds later. And when you have to unlock the phone buy serially pressing 2 buttons, the sluggishness becomes a hindrance. Need quick access to the phone book? Forget it. The number of times I have selected a number from the phone book and stood there like a plum waiting for the ring tone, only to see a minute later that the number required another click of the joystick.

OK some more good points: You can pick up your e-mail easily enough, GPRS is fab, as is the blue tooth functionality (I never bothered with the camera). But to be honest, I use these functions rarely.

Call quality is clear, but that may be a skewed opinion as my previous phone was the Sony J5, which was about as audible as my pet worm's sponsored silence day. Battery life is superb - I can just about get away with 5 days uncharged, and I spend about £200 per month on calls.

But the bottom line for me is this: Day to day, 99% of me and my phone's "private time" is spent making calls, and I'm afraid this phone
is too slow to be effective in it's #1 function.

Summary:
Want to make calls? Stick with your black and white brick.

Summary: