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Can I post my review on the T616??? Please? In essence, it's the exact same phone as the T610, it just functions on a different frequency. Here goes (taken from my review of the T616 on Eopinions):


An Upgrade to the T68i, Now With A Fingerprint Scanner!
Dec 21 '03 (Updated Jan 06 '04)

Author's Product Rating


Durability:
Clarity:
Portability:
Battery Life:

Pros
Less slowdown than the T68i, bluetooth, infrared, high resolution camera.

Cons
Slowdown if you're used to Nokia or other brand, very easy to smudge screen.

The Bottom Line
Perfect for the high tech kid, or the professional business man. Takes wonderful pictures and can definitely keep loved ones in touch.


Full Review
Okay, that's not entirely true. There is no fingerprint scanner. It'd be cool if there was, but there isn't.

But that brings us to the main negativity of this phone. This phone's faceplate and screen are SO smooth, that if you touch it, no matter how clean your fingers are, you will leave fingerprints on this phone. However, since that's the worst thing that I can think of this phone (if you are upgrading from the T68i), then this phone basically has it all!!!

However, it is kind of sad when SONY Ericsson includes a wipe to clean off the phone's screen of fingerprints.

Now, what I mean, when I say if you are upgrading from the T68i, is that the T68i has slowdown. Please read my review for full details on "Slowdown".

Anyways, if you are used to slowdown, then you will actually notice that this phone is noticeably faster than the T68i. It is not a tremendous deal faster, but it is faster. However, if you are coming from a different phone, especially Nokia, like the Nokia 6800, then you will no doubt be very frustrated at this phone, and the slowdown is something that will take a while to get used to.

Anyways, this phone's got it all. Externally, it has semi-tiny buttons, which I find that I must press with the tip of my thumb, or even my fingernail. The front of the phone that is silver and the battery cover are, I suspect, a type of metal, probably aluminum. I reason this because every morning, these parts of the phone are much colder than normal plastic.

This phone is VERY tiny and VERY sophisticated looking. Both my wife and I have this phone, and we keep them in a holster/case. However, when we take the phones out of the case, we remember just how magnificant these phones are, and we gawk at them. They have such a simple design, yet are so professional and stunning at the same time. Remember, less is more.

Okay, the front has the keypad, the joystick and the operation buttons. Now, no matter what kind of phone you are used to (SONY Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens, etc.), it will take a bit of getting used to this phone, unless you are like me, and you just seem to GET electronics.

The two top black keys are soft keys. If you look at the picture above, you will see two keys with a white line on them. The left button functions as the "Talk", and "Select" keys, while the right soft key acts as the "End" and "Options" key. No matter what screen you are at, if you push the right soft key when it says "More", it will give you a list of options that you can do. This actually is a pretty good set-up. Under the left soft key, you see another black key with an arrow making a "U-turn", and pointing to the left.

On the T68i, this is equivalent to the "End" key. However, on the T616, this button has been split into two. The "Power" button has been placed at the top of the phone, but unlike a Nokia phone, simply pressing it will not let you access the profiles. All this button does is power-on and power-off the phone with a prolonged key press. Now, with this key, you press once to go back a page, and you hold it down to return to the stand-by screen. This is simpler to do, than on the T68i, where you had to hold down the "End" key, and many people were afraid that they would turn off their phones accidentally by holding it down too long.

Found under the right soft key, the "C" button returns as the all around "Deleter" key. It retains its full glory, from the T68i. Press this button when writing a message to delete the last character written, or when on a picture, sound, or anything else that you want to delete, just press this button. If you every want to delete something where there is not the delete option (if you were to want to delete an e-mail account on your phone, for example), merely press the "C" key, and it will ask if you want to delete the item in question.

While I am talking about e-mail, I'd like to bring something up. I used to use the Nokia 6200, and still do. However, when I tried to write an e-mail from that phone, I did it from the text message menu, and did not know how to set-up my account. There was no Inbox, or Outbox, and I suspect that these were shared with the Text Message Inbox.

However, the beautiful T616, has its own E-mail section all set-up. Found under the MESSAGING section, not the Text Messages, the e-mail on this phone is just like any other e-mail account, with a "Send & Receive" option, an "Inbox", a "Compose", "Outbox", "Drafts", "Archive" and "Options" option. This is much better than the Nokias, and as long as you have an internet plan on your phone plan, your mail account will be all setup for you.

On the right side of this phone, there is a button dedicated to "mMode", in other words, when you press it, it will take you to the mMode Homepage. On the left side is the volume buttons, and the dedicated camera button. Gone is the volume slider, instead replaced by a volume up and a volume down button, each labeled with either a plus sign, or a minus sign.

Above the volume up button, is the dedicated camera button. Press this button once to activate the camera (as long as the keypad lock is not on). The camera is astounding!!! It is SO clear. The camera has many details, which I will try to explain here. First off, I think that SONY Ericsson intended to have this camera used as a normal camera, in other words, you hold the phone sideways, with the camera button up, then press it, like a shutter button to "Snap" a pic. I found this out, when an interview was being done on the upgrade to this phone, the T630. It is a bit blockier, and not as attractive. However, that camera phone is intended to be used sideways, when using the camera. Pictures that are taken can be rotated up to 360 degrees, but you cannot rotate any other type of picture, for example, one that you download from the net.

When you rotate a picture, the phone places a little bar above and below the picture, as if you were watching a widescreen picture. Apparently the screen is taller than it is wide.

You can either press the "Camera" button, or you can press the joystick or the left soft key to capture a picture. Once you capture a picture, you are then taken to a screen where it shows the picture that you just took, along with a few options. The right soft key lets you discard the picture, while pressing the joystick in, lets you save the picture to your phone, in order to let you make adjustments to it, or just look at it.

The left soft key lets you send it right away, once you have selected how to send it (as a MultiMedia Message, as an e-mail, or sent via Bluetooth, or Infrared) and whom to send it to. This is what "Quickshare" is, as this phone is advertised as being a Quickshare camera. Also, if you send it as an e-mail, the phone automatically blows the picture up, to keep it from looking pixelated.

Now that I am talking about the camera, let's move to the back of the phone. On the back is (obviously) the battery cover, the camera, the rubber plug/mirror, and the SONY Ericsson symbol. Now, when you first got the phone, if it was brand new, then there was a rubber plug in the back, to the right of the camera. If you got it used, (like from eBay, or from a friend), then most likely the mirror was already in place. Well, if it's not there, and you have the tiny mirror, then take off the battery cover, and pop that little black plug out of the back. Now pop the mirror in.

When I first heard that this phone had a mirror, I thought it was the stupidest idea. I used to have the Sanyo 8100, when I was still with SprintPCS. It was a flip phone, and I was used to the LCD screen on the outside, which served as the external caller ID when the phone was closed. When you activated the camera, with the phone flip closed, the picture that your camera lens saw was displayed on the LCD. However, now that I think about it, this is the ideal way to go. It would be pointless, wastefull, and cost too much money to place a tiny LCD on the back of the phone, just for a self-portrait.

When used, the mirror is actually quite a good idea. As long as it is free of smudges, you get quite a good reflection on the mirror. However, while not a big deal, the mirror is concave, in other words, it is rounded sorryds, so you get a small distortion, like a fisheye lens. Nothing dramatic enough to mess up that picture of you, though. The camera is tiny, and the lens is sunk into the camera, in other words, it is not right up flush with the back of the phone. I assume the lens is plastic, as most camera phone and semi-cheap digital camera lenses are.

Above the camera is the SONY Ericsson logo, looking VERY pretty, if I do say so. It like the mirror is rounded out, but more dramatically. I assume that this is to keep the back of the phone from fully lying flat against a surface, most likely to protect the camera lens from being scratched.

Oh, under the battery is where you put your SIM card. There is one difference between this and the T68i SIM card slot. On the T616, there is a metal sliding piece that slides up and down to lock the SIM card in place. No more sliding the SIM card itself, and scratching the contacts!!! Yeah!!!

When you are in camera mode, there are several different effects you can perform. Most people don't realize this, but this camera, while not advertised as having this, does have a tiny digital zoom. I'd say about a 2-3 times digital zoom. The way you can tell if you are zoomed in is by the "Picture Size" indicator. When you are in "Camera Mode", there is a little icon in the upper right hand screen. It will either be an "L", or an "S". When it is an "L" icon, it means that the picture is "Large", and that you are zoomed out. In essence, you have a "Larger" picture area. When it has an "S" icon, you are zoomed in, and have a "Smaller" viewing area.

You access the picture size option through the right soft key, labeled "More", when you are in Camera mode. This is not intended as a zoom, which is probably why it isn't marketed as having a zoom, but in essence, this is a digital zoom. When you zoom in, the picture quality decreases very slightly, but not enough to annoy or bother. And besides, if you want a professional camera, then hey, don't be buying a phone to shoot high mega-pixel prints.

From the "More" menu, you can view your other pictures, change the camera to night mode, activate "Effects", change the default name of the pictures you take, and activate the self-timer.

Now, "Night Mode" is nice. And, it is not just for the night. When you are trying to take a picture in a dark area, with a bit of light, then activate this feature. It will utilize the surrounding light, assuming that you have enough light, and brighten up the picture. However, it is not just for when you have too little light, but also for when you have too much light. I recently visited Michigan in the past week of December, and it was snowy up there. Well, I wanted to take a pic of the snow, since neither my wife nor I have had any real experience in the snow, but the sun was bouncing off the snow, making the whole pic too bright (By the way, sand can also have this effect). Well, when you activate the night mode when it is too bright, it will artificially dull the brightness in the picture down a bit, and give your picture a better look.

The effects that you can add to your picture are making your picture look like a negative, making it black and white, and giving it an antique look, with the Sepia option.

The default name lets you change the name that the picture is automatically named when you save it. You can change it, but it just auto-names it until you do change it. The default name is "Picture".

Finally, there is the Self-Timer. It starts to beep after you press the capture button, but gets faster to indicate that the shot will be taken. This is more for like a group picture, or self-portrait. However, the funny thing is, is if your phone is on silent, then you will not hear the beeping, and will not know when the picture is taken. So, if you use the self-timer, also use the sound.

You can transfer anything that you make or have, and that isn't copyright protected on the T68i to the T616, via bluetooth, or infrared. You can transfer any pictures or ringers to the T616. Pictures will appear smaller, with a box around them, and rigners will sound better (not as beepy), but will still not be true polyphonic. The only thing that won't work, even though it can be transfered are the themes that you create on the T68i. If you need any help with your phone, or you would like to find a place where you can download all sorts of content for your phone, including games(!), you should check out my club at "http://groups.msn.com/CellPhoneMedia". I've got lots of stuff there that you can download to your PC, then send to your phone, either via another WAP site, or via PC to phone connection.

This phone has a Music DJ, where you can create your own music, but it isn't as good as the Composer in the T68i. I think that if they had made a composer like that of the one in the Gameboy Camera, then this would have been able to produce some really awesome ringers!!! The Music DJ has preset sounds of different musical instruments, that you just combine with each other to make each tone, so in essence, you cannot make any ringer that you desire.

This phone supports Java games, which is something that was lacking and many obsessed over wishing they had in the T68i. I've got some pretty killer games on my phone. Some of the preset games on the phone, like Mini Golf, and Fivestones (like Connect Four meets Othello), let you play a network game, via bluetooth or infrared, just like that wannabe Nokia N-Gage can.

Basically this phone has the same set-up as the T68i, so read that review to get the gist of the OS of the phone. However, a few more differences in this phone from the T68i are as follows.

On the T68i, you had to hold the joystick left for two seconds in order to access the first item on your shortcuts menu. Now, you can immediately press left, and it will take you there immediately.

When you press right, it now takes you to the desktop menu, instead of the "Find Contact" option in the phonebook. Pressing down still takes you to your phonebook, but pressing up, now takes you to the mMode Media page, where you can go to download media for your phone.

There are no longer any numbers along each menu item, but you can still press the button that corresponds with its position in the list to access it.

There are no LEDs that blink to indicate that you are gettting a signal, or that you have bluetooth activated. Instead, the LED is in the joystick, and it lights up when your phone is powered off, to indicate that your phone's battery is fully charged.

Finally, the service code still works for this phone. However, since the desktop now utilizes the whole keypad, when you press "*", you will be taken to the "Connection" menu. Don't worry, but continue entering the code. ("Right, Star, Left, Left, Star, Left, Star") where you can test the phone's different functions. You can no longer see the joystick counter, though.

Here are some more tips for your phone:

-when the display is dark, you can get just the clock to illuminate by pressing one of the volume control keys on the left side of the phone
-the left joystick motion (from standby) leads to the first command located in the 'My shortcuts' list, and can be customized
-from standby, you can go directly to the contact list by pressing a key corresponding to the first letter in the name of your contact, and keeping it pressed (i.e., pressing 5 will open the contact list at 'J')
-you can get the phone to switch profiles automatically (e.g. change to meeting profile) if that meeting is scheduled in your calendar: just change the 'Profile Switch' to Auto in your calendar's 'options' submenu
-from most places/programs, pressing the 'Back' key and keeping it pressed will take you back to standby.
-in camera mode, you can (1) toggle the picture size by pressing 1, (2) toggle 'night' mode by pressing 2, (3)cycle between effect by pressing 3, (4) toggle between self-timer off/on by pressing 4, (5) adjust exposure/brightness by moving the joystick up/down, (6) adjust color saturation by moving the joystick left/right
-you can add text labels to your pictures or add lines or simple geometric shapes to the smaller sized pictures by going into 'edit' mode while looking at pics in your 'My Pictures' folder
-you can access your phone number and other information by pressing the volume keys on the side of the phone while phone is in standby
-if you need to refer to something frequently (shopping list?), you can write up a note, and 'post' it. This will essentially make it your background in standby mode, and you can see it from standby and during calls etc.
-no, there is no point to the 'colorbug' game (I think) other than showing you how clustering programs work
-you can attatch a carrying strap to the phone by opening the battery compartment, and hanging the strap through the hole in the bottom shaped like a ' [ ' turned sideways.

Back on with the review now.


The bottom port still works with many of the items that could be used with the T68i, like the MP3 player. The T616 can also use a flash attachment, made just for that phone. In addition, it can also utilize the laser pointer and the blue glow light, originally created for the T68i. Almost any accessory that was made for the T68i can work with the T616. However (though it should be quite obvious), the camera attachment does NOT work with this phone.

The built-in bluetooth works wonderfully, however, and it works very well with my bluetooth headset. The phone communicates very well, and I rarely have a communication problem when communicating with other devices linked to my phone.

Finally, as an added bonus, want to take AIM with you whereever you go? Well, yes, one way is to set-up your AIM buddy list through your phone. However, you can make it so that you have the actual AIM, complete with the AIM graphics, and appearance.

If you have a SONY Clie PEG-SJ30 Handheld, then you can download the AIM program from either "www.aim.com", or from "www.freewarepalm.com" (not sure where anymore, though, sorry). You can then connect the SONY Clie PEG-SJ30 Handheld with the SONY Ericsson T616, and go online, and have access to your AIM buddy list, and everything. Oh, by the way, if you have a Nokia, you can do this also, as long as it has either bluetooth, infrared or a cable (you just need some way to connect the SONY Clie PEG-SJ30 Handheld to the phone), however, the connection may not be as stable.

I have noticed, that while the SONY Ericsson seems to have slowdown, it seems to have the most stable phone OS system when communicating with other devices. Don't ask me why, just smile and get the phone, knowing that you're gonna get one of the best phones on the market.

One interesting thing to note is that this phone is sort of a world phone. SONY Ericsson built this phone after they created the T616. The T616 was made for International (for outside of the US) use, but could also be used inside the US, in limited areas. The T616, however, was made in reverse. It functions on the 850/1900 frequency, which is the US's frequency. However, it can also function on the 1800 frequency, which is international. Unfortunately, it does not also function on the 900 frequency, so when you are out of the United States, then you are limited to being able to use your phone in only the 1800 frequency range.

Recommended
Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 300
Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy

Ethan Sobin

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Posted: 2004-03-31 21:37:11
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I find it interesting that alot of people are happy with this phone but i am not. I had a Nokia 3650 before my T610i, changed because of the size of the nokia was doing my head in. Apart from the size the T610i is not as good in any field apart from the screen. The screen is clear, bright and has more colours.

But.... The bluetooth is slower and has a weak range. Feeble memory for pictures or anything else. Camera quality is pointless. Joystick on mine after 3 months is dodgy too. No hands free (in UK this is a big deal with new driving laws) The system is slow and the predictive txt software is terrible. You can only add so many new words then it deletes them... Also the Sony software for connection to a computer is useless.

Sorry to say it but totaly unhappy about getting this phone, is the first and last phone i will be getting from Sony. Will be sticking to nokia in the future.
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Posted: 2004-06-20 12:16:16
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I love my T61o

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Posted: 2004-07-03 10:58:53
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A 1 year conclusion:
- one repair: the earpiece started getting static and i had to change it. Took 1 minute and the price was 2,5 euros. Amazed by the fact that was almost no dust inside after all that intense usage.
- battery life time decreased from 3 days (stand-by and usage) to 2 days (until now).
- keypad and joystick are still strong although sometimes they miss their purpose (once in 30 presses i think).
- had to replace the charger once but don't know if it was due to hardware failure or the fact that my gf hit it and got it off the wall while charging the phone.

All in all, very pleased with its performance and i'll keep it for anotha 6 months until the S700 arives.
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Posted: 2004-08-04 09:55:41
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Actally I have the T226, but I want the T610, It looks great!!
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Posted: 2004-08-04 19:41:01
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@701
Me too
The only problem that I have is the dust under screen have to clean it every mounth my screw I is not in so good shape now..

[ This Message was edited by: emanuelj on 2004-08-04 22:50 ]
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Posted: 2004-08-04 23:49:43
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I've had my t610 (r6c005)4 bout a month here's my views:
Pros:
Elegant design.
Excellent screen.
Menus are very responsive.
Functionalities perfect as usual.
Mophun n java games finaly.
Embedded logo.
Cons:
Inadequate memory en poor camera.

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Posted: 2004-08-10 22:08:00
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Weird, that the mostly the memory and the camera are blamed, however they arent the main aparts of a fone imho. This message was posted from a T630
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Posted: 2004-08-11 02:27:21
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Quote:
On 2004-08-11 02:27:21, bobafett wrote:
Weird, that the mostly the memory and the camera are blamed, however they arent the main aparts of a fone imho.



This message was posted from a T630


True, you dont buy a phone for the camera now do you?!
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Posted: 2004-08-11 02:31:48
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Thats right. A cam is a fun feature imho. Of course i make pix aswell, but the main reasons by a new fone are the 'original' fone and message features. On a weird way se put a lot of new possibilities to increase the palette of use and next to it batteries what dont even a day long last. This message was posted from a T630
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Posted: 2004-08-11 03:53:10
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