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Sony Ericsson T616 Phone - Next Generation (AT&T)

Sony Ericsson T616 Phone - Next Generation (AT&T)

List Price: $199.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: The most important features for me were long battery life and customization. I really didnt place an emphasis on a camera-phone when purchasing.

Pros:
1. Customization - Can have distinctive ring tone and image for each person that calls you.
2. Tranfer Files - I transfer images and midi files via the infrared port on my laptop all of the time. Just change the setting of the phone to "infrared" and place near the laptop, and the laptop identifies the phone immediately. No need for cables or to pay for Internet browsing capabilities on the phone. Just browse the Internet, download files to your laptop, and then transfer them over to the phone.
3. Battery Life - The battery life on this phone is outstanding! When you aren't using the phone, it goes into standby mode that puts a minimal drain on the battery.
4. Volume - Flexibility with volume control. You can make it relatively loud or quiet.

Cons:
1. Pictures - Resolution of the pictures is not that great. The Samsungs and LG phones have better built-in cameras.
2. Exterior - The exterior of the phone is susceptible to scratches and nicks. It is difficult to keep the phone looking like new.
3. Screen Visibility - When out in daylight, it is very difficult to see the contents on the screen.
4. Keys are a bit on the small side.
5. Midi files - my only wish for this phone is that it played mp3's instead of midi files.

Please note: If you do get this phone, do not forget to enable the "key lock" feature. This is because when you place the phone in your pocket, it can make calls to other people on your phone list without you knowing of it.
Also, I deleted most of the standard ring tones and pictures so that I can make space for the tones and pictures that I like.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hotness
Review: Upgrading from the simplistic Nokia phone to the more complex Sony Erricson was the best thing that I ever experienced...phone wise. This phone has many features, some take a bit getting used to, but once mastered this phone can be a powerful tool that nobody will know what they did without it. Bluetooth, one of my favorite features connect right up to my Apple iBook through a Bluetooth USB adapter. Surfing the net from anywhere while my phone is in my pocket is great. Poly-phonic rings tones are sweet! Pictures do need significant lighting, but can be great fun. Actually talking on this phone let my ears expierence clear calls from friends and family, even better quality with the included headset. The two not so major con's are a small lack of processor speed, and picture memory which again is again fixable by sending pictures to my laptop via bluetooth. But overall this dense, however not heavy phone is a great companion to one's day to day activities.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Silent Mode for the Ages
Review: Today in class, my crotch wanted to make a phone call. I told it, "Not yet, wait till after class, you're going to be too loud! You're going to disrupt everyone." But then, the crotch told me, "Look, this phone has silent mode! I can just turn that on." Then, my teacher called on me. He was like, "Hey, Joshua. Why are you talking to your fly." I could muster no response. I hope I passed today's pop quiz.

Oh, yeah. If you guys have any questions about my phone, ask my crotch. It knows everything about it! Talk about handsfree telecommunications! (My crotch even knew what Bluetooth was! I just thought my phone was referred to that stinky guy by Wendy's!)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Dont get it for it's camera.
Review: when I got the phone, it would not let me save pictures so I had to return it for a replacement. The replacement works. Everything is fine but the camera takes lousy pictures, due to relatively low resolution. The Samsung 715 takes much better pictures but is more expensive and works only with TMobile.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good Phone but bad customer service, very bad...
Review: Bought this phone with AT&T service. Its an amazing phone with all conceivable features like calendar, multi-line address book, sync'ing with other devices. So tiny in size, mighty in features, you got to love this phone. Two drawbacks - one is that the buttons are too small (can't be bigger due to the size of the phone itself), and another - very hard to see the display in day light/ sun light. Battery runs out completely in 2 days with very less i.e. 30 min talk time. They did'nt say it in the manual, but that's how it is.
Now coming back to the AT&T service, I mean disservice it is. First and foremost is that I do not get signal at some places where I used to get good reception with Sprint PCS service.
And multitude of problems with their service,
1. Billing started 3 days before the Service got activated.
2. Their customer service has so many 800 numbers, email service, etc... But had to hold on to the phone for hours to get to a person.
3. And finally the person refuse to hear the problem.

I am at least better off by taking only 1 year service. But be aware of those problems !

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: You're not dealing with AT&T
Review: Where do I start?
AT&T sucks. From next to zero coverage to TERRIBLE customer service, you will hate this phone. I have had to wait on hold longer than an hour every time I have called "customer care". Half the time I call I am told that AT&T is unable to answer my call at this time. When I am finally connected the staff on the other end is neither helpfull or curteous. In fact, they are rude and useless. They read their script very well, but it does nothing towards solving my problems.
More than that. The fine print will be sure to more than double your plan costs.
My recomendation:
Anyone but AT&T

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great phone with all the gadgets
Review: Compared to my bulky Nokia 3650, this phone is a godsend. It has all of the great features you could want in a phone: calender, contacts, camera, bluetooth enabled, polyphonic tones, etc. Sure the Nokia has these things too, but it also has about 8-10 oz on the Sony as well.

I get great reception 5 bars all the time where I'm at and high res screen looks fantastic indoors (see below).

The Bluetooth worked perfectly on this little device. No messing around with what type of "profile" does the phone support (handsfree vs. headset). I had the Motorola BT handsfree working with the phone in under 5 minutes.

Now for the not so good.

As mentioned before, the battery in this thing is not good at all. I also conditioned the battery and did an optimized charge. I am lucky to get 2 days out of it which is kind of disappointing. Another little picky thing I don't like is the battery icon. When the battery is fully charged, you see a battery icon that is green, but only half green up and down (I've let it charge for 2 days and can only achieve the half full green icon). When the power starts to deplete, you see an icon where the meter changes from left to right and then the color changes to yellow etc. What kind of goofy icon shows a full battery with a half full green icon? Just plain stupid if you ask me.

Also, don't plan on looking at the screen in sunlight. You can't read a thing on it. I was having to use my hand to provide shade just to see what the heck I was doing.

Overall, I would give this phone a 5 star rating based on what I had been using. However, the faults I've listed above bring into the 4 star category for now.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: got robbed by AT&T
Review: 4 star for the phone and no star for AT&T. The phone itself is pretty good but buyers (purchasing the plan), beware of the "fruadulent" billing by AT&T. I was billed and paid (didn't realize this until sometime later) for a bill that was for the period before I received the phone. Even more upsetting was the fact that AT&T rep. is not willing to resolve this matter stating that I called too late. He first said, he can't do anything on something that is 90 days past. When I pointed out to him that it's been around 60 days, he changed his statement and said, he can't help me because it's been over 60 days.

In addition, I used to frequently get calls looking for the person who previously owned this number. Which obviously, used up my miuntes (for answering and checking messages that are not for me).

I am upset!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: One Defect Can Ruin A Great Phone
Review: This has to be the nicest cellphone I've yet seen. I don't understand the attraction of flip phones, so this tiny little gem from a consumer electronics giant is a welcome addition to a marketplace that offers the likes of Nokia 3595 (ugly!). However, I might choose another phone if given the choice.

The color screen is fairly large and very readable. The sound "system" is wholly satisfying; you can hear the sweeping grandeur of a waltz. By simply posting a midi file to an ftp server, I was able to set it as my ringtone. It was quite necessary as the factory defaults are sad, incomparable to Nokia's. The menu system is clean and easy to learn. You may be surprised at first at the tiny buttons, but you'll easily get used to them and won't have trouble with wrong keypresses except for the joystick button.

Games included on the phone are alright and you may decide to keep a few. The quality of the camera is good for the phone, but don't epect more. Samsung probably has a better alternative there.

So far, so good.

A few serious defects mar an otherwise excellent product, however. Most importantly, the maximum sound level is teeny in your average environment. Unless you spend your day at home, you'll prolly miss calls. The vibration is inadequate prolly due to the tiny size of the phone, and even in an empty pocket will only slightly alert you to an incoming call or alarm -- and I mean slightly The phone won't even vibrate when you receive a message, for which you can't set your own ringtone. The alarm sound level is audible only when you hold the phone up, a strange decision by the phone designers. These notification problems make it almost useless to find a good ringtone (cuz others can't hear it), and will most likely make you miss calls. On this alone you should prolly avoid the phone.

Also, I conditioned the battery but it runs for only one or two days with minimal usage. I've to see if I can convince Sony or AT&T Wireless (tough luck as it took them 18 days to send me my phone). The signal is great and has much improved since August 2003 and my brother has had great experience with AWE in Philly while I've greatly surprised by the service in NYC. Customer service lags, tho.

I don't know if this is a real problem, but the phone rarely shows even one out of five bars in signal strength. A Nokia 6800 (frustrating user interface) shows great signals in the same locations at the same time. If you hold your hand across the top of the phone, it'll usually show two bars...I haven't had real trouble with any noise during calls or making calls, however.

Another thing the phone misses is a real alarm system. You can only set one one-time and one recurrent alarm. You can set one-time event notifications in the calendar, but this is wholly insufficient with a phone that can run Java games. Voice control is hard to configure, while it's all too easy to move the joystick in the wrong direction while at standby mode and get connected to the internet. Over time this will cost money.
All in all, this is a great looking phone with great musical abilities that are undermined by poor sound levels, few alarm possibilities and possibly low battery life, which I'm not yet sure about.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Great looking but just a decent phone
Review: Pros:
- Very stylish design
- Excellent connectivity options, including fantastic Bluetooth implementation
- Very good battery life
- Automatic timer-based keypad lock
- Highly portable

Cons:
- So-so signal reception
- Poor LCD quality -- virtually impossible to read outdoor
- No EDGE, no speakerphone
- Slipperly chassis, prone to finger prints
- Calendar lacks all-day events
- Comparatively dated UI is slow at times
- Keys can be small for larger hands
- Somewhat high radiation

T616 is AT&T's version of highly popular T610. Generally speaking, T616 is better suited for US residents than T610, which had generally worse RF reception on 1900 MHz GSM than T68i that it replaces. T616's reception should be comparable to T68i now. It is worth noting, however, T616 drops the 900 MHz GSM band popular in Europe while adding 800 MHz GSM.

While T68i wasn't exactly lauded for RF reception quality, it was adequate. In areas with good to excellent signals (3 to 5 bars), T616 should be equally capable of high quality phone conversations. But deep inside the building where 1900 MHz signals have trouble penetrating or in areas where signal is low, T616 will generally perform poorly. For instance, Nokia 3650 sounded fine in areas where T616 stuttered or dropped out entirely.

Signal quality aside, T616 is a good phone. If anything, it is arguably one of the best looking phones. While slightly larger than T68i, it is still strikingly thin and tiny. Turn the phone on, however, you may be disappointed by dim LCD output. It is virtually unusable outdoor. You must vary the angle of the phone to see anything even with backlight turned on.

The UI sports pretty icons rendered with rich color. However, it remains largely unchanged from T68i, which could be positive to former Sony Ericsson users, but disappointing for those wanting latest and greatest. Worse, rapid key strokes will cause T616 to lag quite a bit.

It would be unfair to ignore T616's greatest asset: Bluetooth. Whereas Nokia and other manufacturers add Bluetooth as a mere marketing feature (poor Bluetooth signal quality, incomplete support for many Bluetooth devices), Sony Ericsson took the time to do it right. It will sync and communicate with pretty much all applicable Bluetooth devices out there with virtually all the functionalities intact. It also syncs beautifully with Apple's iSync software.

Although built-in camera results in decent enough pictures for MMS or quick email, it will not replace standalone digital camera. Considering 99.9% of the camera phones are also poor, I will not single out T616 for this weakness.

It is worth noting that upcoming T630 will fix much of T616's ongoing issues: much brighter LCD, larger keys, less slipper body, and improved RF reception. The chassis is resigned a bit, which sort of resembles Apple's iPod look and feel.


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