Mobile phones

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  • Reply 41 of 100
    bradbowerbradbower Posts: 1,068member
    Xaqtly, very interesting, thanks for posting. As you probably have read in this thread, the T68i was one of my main considerations for a phone... but I'm still going with the T300 right now.



    The main differences between the T300 and the T68i are (1) Bluetooth, (2) Polyphonic ringtones, and (3) the camera... As in, the T300 trades off Bluetooth for polyphonic ringers and a camera attachment. But I'm fine with that: the T300 has IrDA which works wonderfully with OS X to upload/sync things up and with Ericsson modem scripts, so I can live with that until ... well, until Bluetooth actually becomes a part of any shipping Mac.



    As far as GSM services go, though, you'll get more for your money with T-Mobile, and you won't have to sign a two-year service contract.. but I guess if a phone number is that important to you, you better stay with AT&T. But I don't know how you're going to get a decent 'new activation' pricing on a T68i when you're already in service with AT&T... check back with us about that, I wonder how much that'll be.
  • Reply 42 of 100
    bradbowerbradbower Posts: 1,068member
    [quote]Originally posted by tonton:

    <strong>Brad, can you sync the T300 via IR with iSync?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Hrm, there's one question that I forgot to ask my friend. He's been using his T300 since the very week they came out, and he also works at an Apple store.. I'll ask him. What he's told me so far is that: the IrDA is compatible, he has uploaded ringtones and pictures and stuff to the phone, he has used the phone as a modem over IrDA, the driver for using the phone as the modem was built-in to Mac OS X (some generic Ericsson driver), he downloaded themes from Sony-Ericsson's site and put them on the phone, he's read his .Mac email on the phone, and he has made his own ringtones and put them on the phone. He also says that he is going to pick up the USB cable one of these days, and possibly the desk cradle to sit it in, the one that Sony-Ericsson offers, just to see if it works the same or figure out which he likes better of the two. I'll ask him about iSync... I would hope that iSync would use IrDA, because I want my contacts on the phone. Anyway, since the IrDA between the phone and PowerBook of his is working fine with no configuration, you wouldn't think it would be that big of a trouble, so we'll see if it's already in iSync Beta, or maybe if it'll be in iSync 1.0. Results later.
  • Reply 43 of 100
    haraldharald Posts: 2,152member
    It's quite similar to the Mac / PC thing, only different:



    One has a MUCH better, more intuitive, better work-flowed interface, that most people despise because the "standard," which they know, is something else, and it's run a bit slower in the past. The SE is the better / slower interface.



    The analogy breaks down because the slower / better UI ALSO has the tech bells and whistles earlier and much much better. Implementation of mobile internet / MMS / browser / Bluetooth is signficantly worse on the Nokia.



    BUT:



    1) It's a damn mobile, not a computer fer godz sake (a snappy mobile!?) and you'll probably buy the one you like the shape of, and with the better marketing campaign. Sigh.



    2) The T300 and onwards are snappier then the Nokias -- seriously, try it yourself -- snappier.



    I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I remain confused why anyone would buy one of those buggy horrors from Nokia for any reason other then "they buy Nokias" and "the interface is what they're used to."
  • Reply 44 of 100
    bellebelle Posts: 1,574member
    And though this seems to be of minor consideration these days, with everything else that cell phones do, I've never had an issue with the quality of sound (both listening and speaking) on a Nokia phone. My friend is always complaining about the quality of sound on his Motorola. (And it's not the signal strength - we've made calls from the same place before, and had remarkably different results. One time, trying to call from a restaurant, he had to borrow my phone because the guy he was calling couldn't hear a word he was saying.)
  • Reply 45 of 100
    bradbowerbradbower Posts: 1,068member
    Well, it's nice what you're all saying, but there's just no way that any of us can come to a conclusive decision about Sony-Ericsson from a few different experiences and some opinions... there are just too many variables with phones. It's what year, what month, what batch the handset was, what phone, what model, what software version, what service is being used, what technologies that service employs, what area you are in, the coverage in that area, if you're roaming or not, what kind of user you are, what preferences and familiarity the user has, what the phone settings are, what network issues, and so on and so forth, which will bring you to your end result.



    Personally, I just don't care for where Nokia is going with their phones, the aesthetics, the technologies which they choose, and the network technologies they've chosen for each phone model, the game of musical RF band selection they play with all the new phone models (like, why are ANY phones not tri-band anymore?! Are they stupid, or are they just trying to suck more and more money out of people to get the tri-band phones? Either way, they suck). They've got some cool ideas, but they aren't a very American company. Sony-Ericsson seems to know what we want a lot better than Nokia.



    And honestly, as far as the slowness, I've heard it about almost every phone, and I've heard the converse about every phone. I've also heard with each case that some people can handle it and get used to it, some people are driven absolutely crazy by it... or just think they need the instant snappiness, or to memorize each of the shortcuts for navigating around every inch of their phone's software interface, or the really expensive bells-and-whistles, state-of-the-art phones, it's just the same as computers.



    By the way, I've been spending a lot of time over at a great forum I finally found for us mobile phone geeks, the best I've found, and dare I say, the AppleInsider of mobile phones... <a href="http://www.howardforums.com/"; target="_blank">http://www.howardforums.com/</a>; . Check them out, lots of good readin' about all the phones, service providers, anything wireless communication. There's a good mix of pros, geeks, insiders, dealers/reps, amateurs, and even a few newbies that stumble upon the site.



    As of right now, I'm still wanting to go with the T300.. there's a definite chance of a Bluetooth upgrade possibility for it, from what I can tell. The lack fo Bluetooth is the only thing that makes me want the P800, but then I just remember the price of the P800 is going to be around $800 and I forget about that.



    [ 12-01-2002: Message edited by: bradbower ]</p>
  • Reply 46 of 100
    [quote]Originally posted by bradbower:

    <strong>



    Well, it's all right.. for a phone-phone. I don't think much of it, good or bad, it's getting to be pretty popular, nothing much about it interests me to be truthful. I guess I'm just not too crazy about the folding flip phones... There's a V60 as well, which is the GSM version. GSM is the future, don't invest too much in inferior technology like T/CDMA or you'll regret it later.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    In regards to investing in wireless phone technology, I don't buy this. I bought a Digital only StarTAC from Sprint a long time ago.. like back in 1998 or 1999... and it still works today. I couldn't use the phone on another network even if I wanted to. When you buy a mobile phone from one of the big providers, you're buying into the provider. The phone isn't going to stop working in a year because their network has moved to GSM or what have you.



    Or am I missing something?
  • Reply 47 of 100
    I got the T68i and I thought you might like to know some cool features that aren't really promoted.



    1) Multiple phone numbers are tied to one person in your phone book. No longer do you need to generate multiple entries for the same person with different numbers. Click "down" on the joystick and locate the person you want to call, select them and you'll get a new screen showing the different numbers you have for that person (with an Icon representing work, home, cell, other).



    2) Upload pictures for people in your address book and the picture will come up when they call you. This is so cool. I've uploaded pictures for many of my friends and it's nice to see their face when they call.
  • Reply 48 of 100
    bradbowerbradbower Posts: 1,068member
    Yeah, you are missing something. Ironically, one of my favorite aspects of GSM technology is exactly where your reasoning becomes a reason against CDMA. You can only use your StarTac with Sprint. You can't change service providers without buying another phone. Not only that, but as a Sprint or Verizon customer, you can only choose between, buy, use, and upgrade to the phones that they have chosen to enable or have had made specially (and have branded) for their network. With GSM, you can use any GSM-capable phone, an unreleased phone, a smartphone PDA, a wireless internet PCMCIA card, an old phone, your friend's phone, a loaner phone, an Apple phone, whatever, just put your SIM smartcard into the phone and you'll be on the chosen carrier's network as your subscriber, your phone number, and under your account. You can have a backup phone to put your SIM into if your main one dies. You can trade handsets with friends with no hassle. You can take your GSM phone all over the world and use it with any of thousands of wireless service providers, as GSM is the standard de facto outside of the U.S. (GSM is the leader in coverage for everywhere in the world except for the U.S., where we jumped on the inferior TDMA/CDMA technology bandwagon too soon), to use a tri-band GSM phone, just put the SIM card in and you're on whatever carrier you wish, in India or China or France or Zimbabwe. Speaking of handsets, the coolest ones are always GSM. Smartphones, camera phones, really great-looking, stylish, and compact phones, the really neat models, they're GSM. Take Sony-Ericsson for example, 90% of their phones are GSM. And Nokia has a ton of them. Then there's GPRS, which was the first wireless broadband internet, and it's a GSM technology. GSM has always been the more advanced technology, it was developed from scratch by wireless experts as the best global solution for mobile communications ever. (CDMA was a commercialized side-effect of outdated war technology for guiding missiles.) Then there are the companies offering GSM, including T-Mobile which has awesome deals and cool phones, AT&T which has... well, they're AT&T (and they're both GSM and CDMA), and Cingular which has equally awesome ideas about mobile communication like the rollover minutes.



    But eventually, it shouldn't be that much of a problem. In 3-5 years, we'll have hundreds of phones from a dozen or more manufacturers with all kinds of form factors, featuresets, and aesthetics, and they'll all be using chipsets which are capable of using UMTS (3G), all three bands of GSM/GPRS, and WCDMA (the future of CDMA) technologies with whatever provider you wish, the nation will be saturated by GSM just like it is with CDMA today, and the cost of using wireless communications will be coming close to putting landline telephone companies out of business (even your home phones will have gone wireless, but kept the nice home phone-type form factor, without having to deal with annoying telephone jacks and the like). Once there is great coverage and the cost comes down, I can even see the respective internet access/VPN technologies of each of the different technologies becoming standard for home and work internet/network usage. I see a day when we'll have derivatives of Bluetooth and 802.11 for short-range connections and for mid-range fast networking (respectively), and UMTS/etc for internet/WAN/VPN, built in to every computer.



    But um.. I digress. I forgot where I was going after that.
  • Reply 49 of 100
    gycgyc Posts: 90member
    [quote]Originally posted by bradbower:

    <strong>



    GSM is the future, don't invest too much in inferior technology like T/CDMA or you'll regret it later.</strong><hr></blockquote>





    GSM is not the future, GSM is the past. All future 3G technologies, whether CDMA2000 or WCDMA is based on CDMA, and it is arguable whether CDMA or GSM is superior. Yes, GSM is available worldwide, that is a plus, but here in the U.S., if you want the fastest data rates, CDMA2000 is where it's at.
  • Reply 50 of 100
    bradbowerbradbower Posts: 1,068member
    [quote]Originally posted by gyc:

    <strong>





    GSM is not the future, GSM is the past. All future 3G technologies, whether CDMA2000 or WCDMA is based on CDMA, and it is arguable whether CDMA or GSM is superior. Yes, GSM is available worldwide, that is a plus, but here in the U.S., if you want the fastest data rates, CDMA2000 is where it's at.</strong><hr></blockquote>





    Oh, that is not even true! CDMA2000 implementations currently BLOW, and WCDMA has not even materialized: besides, UMTS is more than just WCDMA for good reason, and GSM/GPRS in its current implementation is only 2.5G anyway, and it certainly beats 2G solutions as they stand for the next 12-24 months, and after that, UMTS will be the next biggest thing.



    It certainly is arguable, and they each have some benefits, but the GSM system has more flexibility for the consumer, is much more proven than CDMA, and is already spread worldwide. Sprint's Vision service is only 10-12kbps faster anyway, even on the high averages, and that's including the sharp data spikes on the service which can be somewhat variable in speed. Honestly, the only thing CDMA has going for it is the coverage capacity that has already been developed in the US, but GSM is catching up quickly.



    yourself.



    Anyway.. I also wanted to post a nice little differentiation chart for those of us who are stuck between deciding on a T300 and a T68i:



    T68i:

    Size: 100x48x20mm

    Weight: 84g

    Voice Dialing: Yes

    Faceplates: No

    Calendar: Yes

    Bluetooth: Yes

    Downloadable games: No

    Ringer: Mono (regular) ringtones



    T300:

    Size: 106x48x22mm

    Weight: 101g

    Voice Dialing: No

    Faceplates: Yes

    Calendar: No

    Bluetooth: No

    Downloadable games: Yes

    Ringer: Polyphonic ringtones



    Pretty interesting featureset. It's funny, there's the T400 and the T600 as well, but neither of them have the full featuresets of these phones, nor a better color display... then there's the huge jump to the P800, which is overkill for those like myself. Makes for tough decisions.
  • Reply 51 of 100
    bradbowerbradbower Posts: 1,068member
    Wow, hmm. I wonder if the T300 is any better with RF. Nokia does have a smart idea about the antennas, they flatten it paper-thin and line the back of the phone with it, several inches. No protruding antenna that way, either. Maybe I want to wait for that keyboard Nokia.. I forget if it was triband or not now, dang. Oh well, gotta go to work. Interesting stuff, tonton. There's a lot of gawdy T68i modifications on the site too, somebody tried to "bling bling" their T68i by making it all gold-colored.. ugh.
  • Reply 52 of 100
    gycgyc Posts: 90member
    [quote]Originally posted by bradbower:

    <strong>





    WCDMA has not even materialized



    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Exactly.



    Well, NTT DoCoMo does operate a WCDMA network in Japan but supposedly the number of subscribers to their 3G network lags behind their rival operators' 3G networks which use CDMA2000 because WCDMA isn't backwards compatible w/ their 2G network and the phones are big and short on battery life. It should be interesting to see Europe's new networks and how well they work.



    [ 12-02-2002: Message edited by: gyc ]</p>
  • Reply 53 of 100
    FWIW



    i bought 2 T68's for $49 each from at&t

    (200$ rebate per ph, 100$ instant & 100$ mail in)



    so far the phones have worked flawlessly

    the ui is a little slow but not a hinderance

    the voice activation works great & the supplied

    earpiece/mic is excellent even in a noisy room

    battery life is superb...im charging my phones

    once a week & i dont have a car charger anymore

    it works flawlessly with isync for all my contacts

    & i havent had any data issues as yet

    ive yet to drop a call since ive bought this

    so i give this ph 2 thumbs up

    (nb i dont have gprs...i can live without the internet on my ph



    my 2c



    pete
  • Reply 54 of 100
    escherescher Posts: 1,811member
    [quote]Originally posted by madmax559:

    <strong>ive yet to drop a call since ive bought this

    so i give this ph 2 thumbs up

    (nb i dont have gprs...i can live without the internet on my ph </strong><hr></blockquote>



    pete: It would make sense if you told us where your home coverage area is. Both AT&T's and T-Mobile's GSM coverage are still at an infant stage. Location makes all the difference.



    Escher
  • Reply 56 of 100
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    I think I'm picking up a T300 tonight while at the mall. Looks like it has most of the stuff I'm looking for, a free camera attachment, and TMobile has this new program that includes some free gadgets with it. I'll let you all know what becomes of it.
  • Reply 57 of 100
    jamiljamil Posts: 210member
    Bradbower,



    Why not just wait a couple of months and get cool new apple iPhone? :cool:
  • Reply 58 of 100
    San Diego

    California



    [quote]Originally posted by Escher:

    <strong>



    pete: It would make sense if you told us where your home coverage area is. Both AT&T's and T-Mobile's GSM coverage are still at an infant stage. Location makes all the difference.



    Escher</strong><hr></blockquote>
  • Reply 59 of 100
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    I got the T300 from T-Mobile last night and had it on charge all night. It's a nice fairly inexpensive phone. It cost me US$99 after a $50 instant rebate and came with a camera attachment. All the T-Mobile ones are green so I had no choice in color , but the full color screen is cool. The cam takes grainy pictures but I didn't expect a miracle. But you can take up to 640x480 size pics! Interface is nice and fast although it is slightly more sluggish than my wife's nokia 3380. I really like the joystick and the games are top notch. i'm going to try to get the cable that can hook it up to a PC and try it on my Mac using the Ericsson Client app for OS X I saw on versiontracker. It's a handsome phone in person.
  • Reply 60 of 100
    A simple cell phone way of life. ..



    Don't get hooked into a contract for more than a year. Doing so ties you down. If you want to change carriers or even phones this can be a major issue. I've used many different carriers and each one has pros and con's for example.



    If you always drive the same routes and that route has spotty coverage your screwed. If you have a 3 year contract you either have to change your driving route or pay a big buy out. Cell technology is always improving. If you are tied to a contract you are stuck with an old phone unless you want to pay full price for a new one. If you lose your phone or it breaks you pay full price for a replacement...



    Make sure that you can choose your cell number. Area code is important and some areas (in Canada anyway) have multiple sub area codes in one larger area code (not sure how to explain that better).



    Cameras on Cell phones are virtually useless. I've had one on my phone for the past 9 months and it is worthless. I'm in Japan now and the phones here are great but the monthly calling rates are too expensive. I guess I was spoiled by the lowest rates in the world back in Vancouver.





    For what it's worth...

    Dave
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