T68i - All features but weaker reception than top rivals (Sony Ericsson T68i)

Member Name: ftimes

Product:	Sony Ericsson T68i
Date:	24/02/03 (1652 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: features, battery life, bluetooth; tri-band

Disadvantages: OS lock up (minor problem), signal strength poorer than Nokia, poor Ericsson Celestica repair support

This phone has every feature going including a snap on camera, but I'm not going to cover these features that you can read about everywhere else.

I'll cover how this phone performs.

If you want bluetooth, then this is a very good implementation, everything working simply and logically.

Feature wise, useage is illogical (e.g. you can't save a dialled number when its onscreen, you have to go to ADD then select UNSAVED #), it all works well but unlike Nokia it is not intuitive. This same design fault, if it is one, can be found on Motorola, Samsung and other brands.

The worst, but unimportant perhaps, feature is the silly camera requiring good light to produce poor image quality.

The most disappointing and most important feature is that aerial reception in not as good as any Nokia since the NK702. WHY WHY WHY ? This is the most important feature of a mobile phone and Sony need to have got it right. Poor aerial performance looses one star, otherwise this is a great phone. I now know how Ericsson came to be bought by Sony. Your mobile - however well featured and flash looking it is - is a complete waste of time if you can only complete calls in the City of London or Manchester Piccadilly. I've had Nokia phones for years since my Motorola on One2One when I discovered that no, not all mobiles are just posh but awkward answering machines. I had becone illusioned into thinking that by now, all mobiles must surely work properly... this Sony offered tri-band that I needed but its now on eBay. What a load of rubbish, Sony! Its no wonder that One2One became T mobile and its no wonder that Sony will loose money on Ericsson.

Whilst this phone's aerial reception has definitely degraded, its been to Celestica for repair and they've cleared it as "working satisfactorily". Poor support like this is why Ericsson went bust. Its not very "Sony" at all. I cannot complete a call but its "
;
;working satisfactorily". The signal bars oscillate from nil to max but its "working satisfactorily". There are several other reports, just like mine, of aerial degradation.

Oh and what is wrong with Japanese phones ? Simply, that once you reach the age where the video manual is too boring to read then Jap phones are too complicated to use. Why ? You never need a manual with a Nokia - and no, I don't have any Nokia shares.


Expect shares in Filtronic to soar when mobile phone manufacturers realise that they have to have Filtronic aerials in order to get a respectable signal.

Summary: