The t68i Replacement is Here

interdigitate writes "The new T610 was been unveiled today by Sony Ericsson. This is the t68i replacement and its supposed to improve on it in every aspect. It has a 16bit color screen, Polyphonic ringtones, a built in digital camera, GPRS, Bluetooth (ofcourse), and most importantly it has Synchronization which should mean it will work with apple's iSync! " So... pretty. Must... resist.

Lots of memory!

[steelerguy]

Wow, according to their web site it has plenty of memory also to store photos and other garbage. A whopping 2 MB! That tremendous number is 7% the size of my hard drive back in 1992. Why do they even bother wasting space with a camera? My 3 year old digital camera could barely fit one picture on there.

OK, enough complaining, the phone actually looks cool. Just don't get the camera in the phone thing.

Hoped they improved...

[usmcpanzer]

the antenna strength. I shutter when someone walks into my store to buy the t68i. It looks cool, everyone wants a color screen phone, but about two thirds of them are returned. Horrible reception compared to the Nokia gsm phones.

**This is with AT&T's new GSM network.

Re:Open Source & synchronization

[phil-trick]

Well, look no further than:

Multisync @ Sourceforge [sf.net]

Works great with my T68 and evolution.

Phil

it has J2ME (Re:But...)

[alch]

Hey - it has J2ME !! You can write it yourself !!

J2ME gives you control over some SMS aspects, the GPRS data channels. If you want an example - head over to http://www.wireless-village.org to how they implement some of this over the SMS channel.

Re:Silent is good

[Hal-9001]

At what point do we end up with unenforceable "no camera" rules?

Forget about unenforcable--most "no camera" rules are rubbish. I can understand "no flash photography" because the flash damages ancient artwork or distracts performers, but passive recording of an image causes no real harm. The only damage that could result from passive photography is the dilution of intellectual property, but that is an abstract, socially-constructed danger--there is no real damage to property or safety.

Re:Verizon

[Smitty825]

Verizon (and Sprint) uses a different network standard (called CDMA) than AT&T (and Cingular/T-Mobile) do (GSM). To avoid a vi/emacs level flame war, let's not discuss which one is better :-)

There is a model very similiar that is coming out for Sprint (and other CDMA providers). It looks the same, but it doesn't include the built in Camera. It does have bluetooth, though. It is called the T608.

Verizon has quasi-announced that they aren't going to be supporting any new bluetooth phones, until they can charge for the data transfered between the phone and the external device (according to a Verizon Insider on HowardForums.) They get there own version of this phone called the T606, which supports BREW, but does not have the built in camera or bluetooth support.

If you go to Phone Scoop [phonescoop.com], they have pretty informative pieces on each of these phones...plus a giant preview of all of Sony Ericssons new phones!

Re:please please please

[Darren Winsper]

I found there was a considerable difference in the T68i version. The T68 was intollerable, but the T68i is just fine for me.

Re:Why?

[normaldude]

RE:"I don't understand. Why would anyone want a thing that wasn't the P800?"

Size. The P800 is a very wide brick. And since I carry my phone in my front left pocket along with my wallet, every cubic mm is important.

Ericsson T68/T68i: 100mm x 48mm x 20mm
Ericsson T610: 102mm x 44mm x 19mm
Ericsson P800: 117mm x 59mm x 27mm

Re:Silent is good

[GigsVT]

Except around military places, in which case the "no camera" rule is taken very seriously.

Re:this is why S-E is so far in front of Nokia

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I have been using My T68 for controling my Powerpoint and Kaynote presentations for two weeks. The new 12" Powerbook G4 and a T68 is a wounderful combination. No cables needed I i dont have to spend almost $100 on a remote! And when i get back to my office my desktop computer automatically logs me back on our intranet (and of again when I leave).

It is really amazing! Jonas Sallings Sony-Ericsson Clicker and S-E phones really rule! Now I just have to decide if to buy a P800 or a T610 not an easy choise :)

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Go for a P800: IRC on the move with the P800
http://www.infosync.no/news/2002/n/3010.html

Re:Silent is good

[deanj]

The "no camera" rules most people refer to when they're talking about cell phones is "no cameras" in locker rooms, dressing rooms, etc. It's about privacy, not intellectual property.

Re:Hrmmm..

[krokodil]

That means it only works with "T-Mobile"

Well, here in San Francisco it works also with Cingular and AT&T. Plus it is 3-band and will work pretty much anywhere in the world.

Re:A most disappointing "feature"

[Mr_Silver]

And exactly what are they using DRM for here... ringtones?

Forward-locking. In other words, if you download an application, ringtone, logo, icon or something else you can't forward it onto your friend. You can't physically get it off the phone (via IR, Bluetooth or PC Link).

DRM in games (as in timeout expiration) is nothing new and doesn't require a DRM enabled platform for it. You simply get the server to pass an identifer in the JAD file which details the download time. The JAR file can use this to work out when an application will expire.

This works for any Java enabled phone.

You might also want to consider...

[SunnyElLoco]

the new Nokia 3650 [nokia.com] (came on sale here two days ago). I just bought one and I must say it's the nicest phone I've used. It comes with all features of the T610 (minus DRM) and then some. The most important features in my opinion of the 3650 that T610 lacks are: more memory (3.4MB internal memory + memory card, mine came with 16MB card, vs. 2MB of T610), bigger screen (176x208 vs. T610's 128x160) and video capture. Also the 3650 looks nicer than the T610 IMHO. On the other hand T610 is smaller and lighter at least on paper, although I have to say that the 3650 is by no means "heavy".

Other than that there are many similarities between the phones. Both are tri-band, run the Symbian OS, both have a camera, bluetooth, infrared, Java, e-mail etc.etc.

Of course these are just my opinions, but you should at least check out the 3650 if you're considering the T610.

Re:not what I'm looking for

[Goth Biker Babe]

" These combined devices are too big and the battery life typically sucks. I think that you make too many compromises by throwing everything into the same device. I think that it is better to split them up.

The phone should be as small as possible with awesome battery life. Simple email, contact list, and calendar access is a must. I always carry the phone."

You've obviously never seen a T68i. It's about as small as it can be whilst allowing me to actually press the buttons. It will run almost a fornight on standby (ie on but not transmitting phone calls) and even using the clip on MP3 player I generally only have to charge it once a working week.

It has bluetooth and IrDA, uses GSM and GPRS standards and works fine with my PDA both as a modem for internet usage and synching it's phone book and calendar via OBEX.

Erm, exactly what you're on about!

Re:Hrmmm..

[BrookHarty]

GSM - ATTWS, Cingular, Tmobile. CDMA - Alltel, Sprint, Verizon. (Nextel is in there somewhere, dunno)

Lots of national GSM providers, some small local providers, and too many international providers.

I have both tmda and gsm phones, the only thing that has been holding me back from upgrading full to gsm, is I have too many extra hardware. Multiple car chargers, batteries, speakerphone, ear phone accessories. But those polyphonic ring tones and 16 bit color displays are really tempting to upgrade. Played around with uploading midi files to a polyphonic phone, freaking sweet.

Re:Well I /was/ excited...

[FyRE666]

Hello, you are jumping down on them for following a spec?

Not at all - it's great to follow the spec, but the fact is that MIDP1.0 on its own is unsuitable for games use (no transparency, no sound etc) and so savvy vendors have ADDED classes which can be used if required. This is not a bad thing - games are usually designed for a subset of phones anyway, due to differences with memory, processor speed and display type and size. It's impossible to design anything other than a simple game that will work and look good on ANY j2me phone, unless you just design for the worst case which is insulting to the people who have splashed out on a nice big colour screen.

Siemens were the only manufacturer who departed from the standard by altering the way certain methods worked in the Image class, but they've fixed this and their game API is very very close to the spec for MIDP2.0, which can only be a good thing.

Phones and games have a much shorter lifespan than websites - so it makes sense to design to a phone than design for technology over a year old when virtually all the meatspace implementations offer more.

Re:HOW???

[zuhl]

Here is some shareware to control PowerPoint and Keynote from your S-E.

http://homepage.mac.com/jonassalling/Shareware/

Pretty slick stuff. You can also control iTunes with it as well. And it has a "proximity sensor" so when you and your phone are out of range, iTunes will pause. When the phone comes back in range, iTunes starts playing again. It's all mac-based right now. Bunch of AppleScripting going on in the background as well, I believe.

Re:But...

[cmoney]

Watch out, not every Java enabled phone works properly. I'm told the Nokia 7210 has J2ME support, but doesn't support network sockets from Java apps, only forwarding on to URLs.

Re:Hoped they improved...

[Anonymous Coward]

900MHz is reserved for public use. We have cordless phones, police radio, etc on 900MHz.

It sucks and I agree that 1900 isn't as good.

BUT, 2 of our GSM providers are switching to 850MHz, which is a good thing. But it means new phones once again!

hmmm....

[Tumbleweed]

Okay, it doesn't look anywhere near as pretty as the T68i, but that's hardly a big deal. The thing is, like the T68i, it has an internal antenna, which means it's reception is going to suck as bad as the T68i's did. You can tack on all the features in the world, but when you keep dropping connection in iffy areas, I'm just not impressed.

SE's Direction

[onthefenceman]

I really hope that SE has improved the antenna on this model. The t68i has mediocre reception, especially for initiating a call or sending an SMS. This has proved true both on T-Mobile and on foreign networks I have tried. I appreciate a lot of the features on the latest SE phones, but why does it seem that every phone that comes out now builds in a digital camera? They have no optical zoom, poor resolution, and occupy lots of silicon real estate. I'd say SE needs to tilt their R&D budget a few more degrees toward usability over bells and whistles.

Re:t68i sucks

[Slotted Aloha]

I can only double that. The t68i is the 4th GSM phone I am using and it's the first and last Sony Ericsson.

Speed quality is ridiculous. My previous phone, a Siemens SL45 (which I replaced because I've dropped it once too many times) had crystal clear reception in place where the speech quality on the t68i is just barely tolerable. I am not sure that the lack of speech quality is related to a bad overall reception though; the phone usually picks up signals just fine.

The user interface just sucks. Simple things such as selecting an entry in the phonebook and placing calls requires "CLICK", "CLICK", "CLICK", "CLICK", "CLICK", "CLICK" .....