The end of an era? (Mitsubishi Trium 110)

Member Name: tomshanks

Product:	Mitsubishi Trium 110
Date:	28/12/03 (1844 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Modern design and good weight, Some useful features, including polyphonic ringtones, Surprisingly well-built

Disadvantages: Old-fashioned green backlight, Text messaging concerns, Games really should have been updated

It must be said that I have a particular fondness for Mitsubishi Electric's Trium mobile phone brand. Ever since I bought my first Trium Mars two years ago for only 40 GBP in Carphone Warehouse, I have always been impressed by a manufacturer putting substance before style, value for money before image. For a few years, Trium phones sold slowly but steadily in this country, never as popular as the big brands such as Nokia, Siemens and Motorola, but offering quiet value for money and some unusual features to a small band of discerning consumers. Then, at the end of 2001, Mitsubishi suddenly unleashed its attack on the pioneering Ericsson T68, with its colour screen Eclipse. Despite a specification which was almost as impressive as the pioneering Ericsson, and adding wonderful polyphonic ringtones to its own list, the buyers simply passed it by. Now selling for only 60 GBP at Carphone Warehouse, the Eclipse has ended its life as it began, unloved by all but a select few. Mitsubishi has now moved on from this expensive mistake, hence a rejection of the Trium moniker, and a move back to the household Mitsubishi name on its mobile communications products. The latest model, named M341i, with its built-in camera, Java games and popular flip design, takes the company back to the forefront of technology, and there is no reason why this should not succeed where previous models have failed. Only one handicap greets this phone, and it is the price tag. So far unreleased in Britain, but selling in significant numbers in France, the M341i would have to be very well-publicised over here for a similar market performance. One casualty in this radical change of image, which has involved a deal with the French mobile phone manufacturer Alcatel and forging ahead with the Japanese i-mode technology, has been the last phone ever to bear the Trium name, the 110.

Originally to be named 'Cupid', in common with its cosmically-monikered ancestors, this phone was never desi
gn
ed to break new ground in design and technology, but merely to do reasonably well in the crucial budget sector of the mobile phone market, as the Mars had done, the 110 was released in 2002. Interestingly enough, despite the brand new design, the first Mitsubishi to have an internal aerial, for example, a lot of the phone's hardware comes directly from the older models. The green backlight on the screen immediately places the phone into a much lower class than even extremely cheap monochrome models like the Siemens A55 and Motorola C300, both of which have far more modern orange and blue backlights respectively, and a lot of the interface is a direct copy of the Mars. Naturally, Mitsubishi is not the only manufacturer to have done this. On the Nokia 3510 that I bought recently, it seemed impossible to tell the main menu icons apart from those on the old 5110 released in 1998, and the 110 certainly does not repeat this, but those who are familiar with the Mars will certainly recognise a great deal of it. Fortunately, the menu structure has also remained the same, so it is easy to find most things if you have used any of the Trium phones before.

The menu system of the 110, and of the other Trium models before it, has to be one of the best on the market. Once one has got used to the idea that the central D pad moves up and down just like any other menu system, and that pushing the pad right enters a menu, whereas pushing it left will exit a menu, then it becomes simple. The function of the central D-pad is slightly different in the standby menu, where a press to the left will open the address book, and a press to the right will enter the main menu, and also changes completely when composing a text message, but on the whole it works very well. Then, there are the two soft-keys, which, unsually, can be customised to any of the phone's functions, including quick access to the alarm clock, and, if you have a Pay As You Go SIM card, to checking one&#
39;s ev
er diminishing balance. I personally have the right hand one customised to take me directly to the text messaging menu, and the left hand one to take me to the calls menu, so I do not have to search through the phone to see the time of day that my mother has tried to ring me, but die-hard gamers may want to have it slightly differently set up. This is quite different to a six-button Nokia, but with the phone book and main menu functions covered by the main D-pad, it leaves the soft-keys free for other functions. It is also worth noting that the keypad has been dramatically improved over the old Mars, which did take some getting used to, and it is interesting to note that the late versions of the Eclipse have actually copied it. The soft-rubber keys have completely vanished, and the central D-pad and soft-keys/answer keys have been overhauled in silver plastic, which has a much more solid feeling to it, and allows for a lot fewer mistakes than used to happen with the Mars. The number keys are hard rubber, like those on the Nokia 3510/3510i, and work very well, being well spaced with a positive feel to them. In fact, the whole phone is a complete revelation in terms of build-quality and durability.

Where the old Mars and Geo would sometimes feel very delicate, which was maybe something to with their French provenance, after all the current Mitsubishi M320 is made in France as the Alcatel OT 531, the Trium 110 looks like it could take a few knocks. My particular example is about five months old, and has some scratches on the silver paintwork, but is amazingly tight and well-finished. Not a hint of creaking or coming apart, which even my previous phone, a Siemens MT50, sometimes threatened to do. The 110 has non-removable covers, which is personally no problem for me as I like the standard appearance a great deal, but this does not go the full way to explaining the sudden massive improvements in construction. My old Trium Eclipse, which also had non
-removable c
overs and was considerably more expensive than the 110, had a few more creaks than this one. The old stickers, which used to reveal the Mars and Geo's French origins, have been replaced with ones merely stating the model number, and no clue to the phone's origin at all. I would like to think, therefore, that Mitsubishi has gone back to producing its phones in Japan, but somehow I doubt this. With a price of only 40 GBP on Virgin nine months ago, there is no doubting that this phone is one of the cheapest handsets ever, but this does not mean that compromises in build quality are needed. The style is also perfectly acceptable, taking after the newer M320 and M21i models with sumptuous curves and an excellent choice of colours, and this has to be one of the reasons why, despite some of the dated inerds, I decided to buy this phone in the first place. However, a pleasant appearance is not the only selling point.

Taking the polyphonic ringtones from the far more expensive Eclipse and placing them into what is essentially an updated version of the old Mars, which is the cynical view of the 110, was a stroke of genius. I used to be rather fond of the Trium monophonic ringtones, which certainly stand out as different from anything that Nokia, Siemens and Motorola were producing at the time, and had excellent quality due to the fact that they were played through the loudspeaker at the back of the phone, but the polyphonic tones on the Eclipse and 110 are fantastic. They are not quite as loud as those of the Eclipse, as the speaker has now disappeared from the back of the phone, and this new arrangement has created a lot more distortion when the ringtones are played at maximum volume before, but they are still perfectly audible in most environments, and as pleasant as ever. It is possible to download ringtones, in the same way as it was possible with the Eclipse, but Mitsubishi appear to have helpfully dismantled the feature on their website
to get them free
which used to exist. I am also fond of the way that phone names, SIM card names and numbers which are not in the address book can have their individual ringtones, something which is impossible with a Nokia or a Sagem. Unfortunately, the text message alert cannot be alerted, but it is distinctive enough, so this is not so much of a problem. The speakerphone feature, of which I have been grateful on all the Sagem and Trium phones that I have owned, is also alive and well with the 110, and I cannot imagine that this will disappear from future Mitsubishi phones. Unlike the Siemens C55, this is also of an acceptable volume.

Other useful features of the 110 include the 'office' functions. These include a currency converter, a scratchpad, the ability to turn the phone on and off automatically, and a calculator. It is not quite a full organiser, such as one might find on the Eclipse, but the market at which this phone is aimed at, the budget sector, would not normally require these. When I am in France, both the currency converter and the calculator have certainly come in handy. Unfortunately, the games which are on the 110 are rather poor. They are exactly the same ones which were released on the Trium Geo back in 1999, and have not dated very well. There is no feature to update these either, so gamers had best stay away from this phone!

The reception of the phone, considering that this was the first Mitsubishi phone with an internal antenna, is commendable. Normally, my house is something of a nightmare for reception, with levels varying wildly all around the place on Vodafone, which is the network I used with this particular phone. The Mars and the Eclipse that I had, along with the Siemens MT50 and the Motorola T720 that I used briefly, had problems getting a signal in some areas of the house, but the 110 has no problems at all. It is not full everywhere in the house, but it means that I do not need to worry about where I
go in order to have a
conversation as I used to. The weight of the phone, which was a slight issue with the old Mars, has been changed dramatically with the 110. At only 90g, it seems that sometimes it is too light, and of course, with a lithium-ion battery, the standby time could probably be pushed to four or five days if required. This is the most modern aspect of the phone, and with the monochrome display, this means that it can compete with far more advanced machinery in this respect. Some may complain about the girth and the length of the phone, but I have never found this a problem. The benchmark phone in this country is still the Nokia 3310, and since it is smaller than that, I have no problems with it at all, especially considering the removal of the aerial.

Text messaging is probably only the mixed blessing of the phone. It is easy to get to the menu from the standby screen, and reading the messages is excellent since the standard view of the inbox is the first two lines of the message in addition to the name of the sender and the date and time at which the message was sent, but there are still problems. I have said it before and I will say it again, Mitsubishi have to make their phones so that when sending replies to text messages in areas of poor reception, it is not so easy to lose the entire message when the network fails. Merely sending the messages as a composition is no problem, and they can be saved if one is interrupted, so why not use the same system for replies? This is the major flaw of any Trium phone, and I am intrigued to see if Mitsubishi has remedied this in their new models. The lack of character counter in the message editor is also a problem these days, when all Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens phones have them, and the lack of support for long messages is unacceptable in this day and age. I still receive messages which go over 160 characters as separate texts, which is something of a retrograde step from my previous two phones
. EMS is also receive only,
which is a disappointment. Fortunately, the keypad has been improved, apart from an irritating tendency to press the down arrow instead of the number 2 key due to its proximity to the D-pad. I cannot help feeling that the whole keypad could be moved further down the phone which would prevent this, due to a considerable amount of wasted space underneath the keys! The final problem with text messaging is moving around the message. The logical thing to do would be to use the D-pad to go up, down left and right in the message as is usual these days. Unfortunately, only left and right navigate the message, down toggles predictive text on and off!

Overall, the 110 works very well. The design is excellent, the phone is very easy to navigate, and it has some useful features for the price. However, if one is after the most modern phone, the green backlight will not suffice, and if text messaging and games is priority, one will need to look elsewhere. Since I can cope with both of these, owning a camera phone with excellent games in tandem with this one, and I know that the phone will last, unlike its predecessors, then it has been an excellent choice. I only hope that it will not suffer the reliability problems with which Trium has been afflicted in the past.

Summary: