dbakercow's Full Review: Sony Ericsson T68IS Cell Phone
I upgraded from the Nokia 8260 to the SonyEricsson T68i in November of 2002 in search of a phone that would work while traveling internationally (Asia, Europe, etc) as well as a phone that offered PC syncing and other fancy feature that a technology geek such as myself demands.
For the record, the "$149" price that I paid reflects the $50 mail-in rebate that AT&T is offering with SonyEricsson.
First impression is that my old Nokia 8260 is slightly larger and heavier than the T68i, with practically none of the features. It feels pretty solid, too, which is a good sign.
Usually, I buy a gadget with extremely high expectations and have to lower them after fiddling a bit. Not that I'm unhappy with my purchase, but because the features aren't "all there" or it's under-featured. I had the opposite experience with the T68i. If you enjoy something that has countless configuration options and features, you'll be attracted to this phone.
Setting it up with a PC is a breeze. I sat the phone down next to my Windows XP notebook computer and it was instantly detected (via IR). In about 10 seconds, I was dragging jpeg files to the phone. To save storage space on the phone, you should optimize the size of images as well as bring them down to 256 colors.
You have to download a tool from SonyEricsson's site to sync Outlook (or the phonebook tool that comes from SonyEricsson) with your phone. I setup a category in my address book called "Phone Calls" and checked off all the names of people that I wanted to be in my phone. Then, I went into the sync tool and set a filter for the "Phone Calls" category. On my first attempt, it copied over the ~50 contacts and their ~150 phone numbers. It only took a few minutes after that to link contact names to their pictures.
The phone natively supports POP3 and IMAP4 so you can actually check your regular email mailboxes. Naturally, the typing interface is on a telephone so you're not going to be composing large replies or anything. However, the ability to scroll through email on existing is pretty great.
My notebook with XP supports using the phone as a modem. Sit it down next to the computer and setup a dial-up networking component to use the IR telephone as your modem. Speed is very limited, but it's a regular phone call so it's using your "minutes" instead of your data count. You need to have a regular PPP or SL/IP dial-up account for this to be useful though. I would recommend buying a cable, too, since it becomes a pain to make sure that the computer's IR port and the phone's IR port are within line of sight.
There's a status button on the side that lets you see the current estimated battery life, which is certainly more useful than the general battery display with a series of bars or whatever. It shows both the estimated remaining standby time and talk time.
Voice quality is very good. You can still tell that it's not a landline, of course, but it's better than my older Nokia and better than any phone that I've had in years.
It doesn't come with a cradle for the power, which is kind of lame for a more premium phone. However, you can buy one off ATT's site for about $20, so it's not a bad deal.
I like the idea of Bluetooth but don't actually have any devices yet. The headset looks attractive, but at $179, I'm opposed to spending more on a headset than the phone, so I'm holding off on that purchase until later.
There's an indicator light on the upper, left, front corner of the phone. It blinks green once a second to indicate that everything is okay and it's in service, I guess, and it's driving me insane. There's no way to turn it off. I hope that I will get used to it. I've gotten better at ignoring it and I'm sure that I won't notice it before long, but if that sort of thing drives you crazy, you've been warned.
All in all, this is the best phone that I've ever owned and is the first time that I've purchased a phone and not been disappointed. If you're tempted, go for it!
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