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Sony Ericsson

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: After reading all 85 reviews.....
Review: ....I would have to agree with most of them.

In the interest of saving you some time (if you choose not to read all of the reviews), the phone itself is of excellent quality, well-designed with aluminum and high-quality plastic construction.

The T616 has almost all the features you might want, probably more than you are going to use. Lacking is speakerphone capability and the ability to see the screen in bright sunlight.

One reviewer suggested getting a quality Krusell case for the phone and I agree. What nobody mentioned is that you can get free (no charge at the time this review is being written) incoming daily alerts for news, weather, sports, etc from mobile.msn.com. (Go to the web site and input your cellphone number and specify when and which alerts you want.)

Of course, no phone is any better than the network it is on, and your mileage may vary. For me, living in NYC, I get excellent reception from my 27-floor apartment building. I've also used the phone upstate and had perfect reception there in what would be called "the country".

So what's not to like?

Customer service. As you will find in some of the reviews, mostly going back a few months, ATT had embarked on a project to "upgrade" their customer service capabilities. For _months_ nothing worked right. The customer service reps couldn't find the information you needed to know and, worse, you couldn't even access the ATT web site to find something as basic as minutes used. (Yes, you can also find minutes used through the M-mode feature...and be billed for data charges.)

Now a suggestion, and I am being deadly serious, before you consider the phone and the network, I want you to make a phone call to ATT Wireless Customer Service. If you are pleased with the time that it takes to get through to a human who can answer your questions, fine. Otherwise, consider another service.

I hope this review helps in you making your decision and I thank you for reading it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: AT&T fine, actually, but keys on the phone stick
Review: I see some rabid reviews of AT&T. I signed up in December, and have had no problem - quick response to billing issue (yes, they did try one on, but backed down immediately and reimbursed), and fast concerned help when my far-away daughter's phone didn't answer for three days and I was worried.
BUT - much as I like the little phone, I find the keys sometimes stick, and then I have to reboot. This is maddening when you've input a text message, and it is lost.
Other than that, and it may just be my phone, I have no beef.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Phone is Cool ATT is not
Review: DO NOT BUY FROM ATT, Ive been with them for 4 months and they have yet to send me a correct bill. Their customer service Lie to you about what they can and can't do to fix your issues. I have spent 12 hours on the phone with their customer service to fix their billing issues and they will give no compinsation for my pain. Furthermore i told them they were in breach of contact and i wanted out since they have yet to give an accurrate bill. They said that would cost me 400 dollars. No Arbitaition, no customer service what so ever. They cant even be sure that they have fixed the issue. I WILL BE SWITCHING as soon as my contact is up. Look for a nice set of these phones on Ebay in about 8 months.

Craig - Sacramento CA

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: So close....
Review: The T616 is a pretty good phone...sleek design, good phone functions, fun to have a camera included. But it has some limitations and questionable function choices. I would buy it again.

Likes:

Call quality fine.

Outlook sync works well.

Caller ID brings up picture of caller (once you assign a pic to the Contact's record in the phone book).

Nice design.

Can store lots of info about each contact.

Voice command dialing (in concept, haven't played with it enough to know if it works).

Dislikes:

Poor documentation for setting up bluetooth sync: I know computers pretty well, and although this was my first bluetooth device, it should have gone more smoothly. Too many gaps in documentation. Worse, AT&Ts website provides no help, the OEM for the sync software (Extended Systems) refers you to Sony Ericsson for help, and the Sony Ericsson help desk in Toronto was counterproductive. Their suggestion was to sync one record at a time! And they were rude when I suggested there was probably a way to sync all records at once.

Screen is very hard to read outdoors. This is probably the biggest flaw, and one which may be beyond the tolerance of many people...

2mb of memory is not enough. You can store a fair number of contacts (500-ish) but not enough pictures, even after deleting all the nonsense pics/sounds/themes they include with the phone.

The web browser function is ok on the sites formatted for the cell phone's screen.

The "Find Top Ten Best Near Me" function is hysterical. This will find the Top Ten, say, mexican restaurants near you, based on the position of the nearest cell tower, which is probably within a half mile or less. I was in Plano, TX and had it find the Top 10 mexican restaurants nearest me...there are probably 30 within 10 miles, but the closest it came up with was 15 miles away in downtown Dallas...even funnier, it was The Mansion at Turle Creek! The Mansion is easily the costliest restaurant in Dallas; it is famous for having invented "Southwest Cuisine" but it is as far from being a mexican restaurant as, say, Spago's is from being a NJ pizzaria.

Voice command - To be fair, I first programmed my voice commands in a noisy hospital waiting room. Since then, it hasn't recognized any voice command I've entered...so I need to reprogram it and try again.

Overall: [Excellent] phone with good features...and a bad screen for outdoors use.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great phone once you get it set up
Review: I purchased this phone with Cingular service two months ago and I have really liked the Bluetooth and Calendar features.

The form factor is great and easily slips in a pocket. It is smaller than my old flip phone and does not have any antenna to poke out. I'm a bit concerned that the screen will get scratched over the years.

I use Microsoft Outlook on my work ThinkPad which has built in Bluetooth. Once I figured out that you configure the bluetooth as a serial device, I can now sync my contacts, calendar and task list with my phone. This has allowed me to ditch my Palm and still have reminders for all my meetings. The phone has a distinct ring as a meeting reminder. It is a bit of a pain to add a meeting or task to the system, I'm not very fast entering text using the key pad, so I mostly use it as a read-only device.

I have configured and used the wireless internet, it was a pain to setup and Cingular was no help. I eventually found instructions on someone's personal web site. I do not see myself using the web directly through the phone more that once in a great while. The WAP browser is so limiting, every password you type takes a minute to enter via the key pad and the amount of info on the screen is tiny. But if you need to check a flight status or movie schedule, you can if you are patient.

I have a bluetooth IPAQ on order which may pair with the phone to make an acceptable browser, email platform. The main capability I want is to be able to pull up an occasional email, the phone allows this in theory but sifting through my huge volume of email (50-60 per day) to find the ones of interest on that little screen is not practical.

The reception works seems about as good as any other phone.
I don't have any problem hearing but I understand the complaints that others have, the phone is so small that when the phone is up to your ear the microphone is against your cheek.

The camera is very limited but it entertains my kids (I did not really want a camera phone so I don't care much about the quality).

I have played with voice dialing and it works but is tedious to set up and I always feel stupid talking to the machine in public but in the car it is handy to call home without searching through the menus.

One complaint is that whenever I drop the phone, it has fallen out of my shirt pocket a few times, the SIM gets dislodged and a message appears telling me that the SIM has dislodged "turn the phone off and on" but it won't let me power down the phone so I need to remove the battery to reset it. The good news is the fall does not seem to damage the phone and once I reset it, everything works as normal (no data is lost).

Some day I hope to have time wo write some JAVA utilities for the phone. I'm a software engineer by trade. Ericsson apears to be very open in allowing others to write tools for the phone. You can download all of the developers kits from their site. I beleive most other phones lock the average user out by charging for the info or by "locking" the phone to "uncertified utilities". Even if you never plan to write your own software, I would not be supprised to see a large number of free applets come out for this phone over the next year based on the open-ness of the system.

Pros:
Good form factor
Blue tooth is very handy for connecting to a computer
Syncs well with outlook
Open programmes interface

Cons:
A pain to set up for wireless data and bluetooth syncing.
Open screen may scratch
Limited web browsing support (more a function of all WAP phones)
Needs the battery removed each time you drop it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Phone AWESOME Features
Review: Camera takes pictures in one of 2 modes(low-res or hi-res) and quickly becomes an addictive little feature. Bluetooth compatibility is a BIG plus I love using the jabra headset with this little number. As a technophile, I'm looking forward to the virtual infrared keyboard the "chatboard" just doesn't cut it. The 2meg memory really isnt a big deal when you can email the pictures to your primary email address.. The organizer features are spartan but easy to use (even my mother can figure this out). The best feature is text messaging of course. Did I mention you can transfer your own notes, pictures, and songs onto this phone? =)

My only complaint is that downloading games and apps for this phone is a SERIOUS pain in the arse. I've tried 3 times from different indie websites (ie: handango.com) and all to no avail except via the phone itself through cingular's wap site. Are they trying to monopolize? probably.

All in all, this phone is a good alternative to expensive smart phones and makes a successful effort at bundling worthwhile features. Battery life is more than ample as well!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Hard to see display and hear calls
Review: This is an ok phone, but I would not reccomend it

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The perfect phone for portability and to sync with your Mac
Review: I bought this phone after having an SE T68i, and before that a Motorola StarTAC clamshell. They were both great phones for their time, and the T616 is pretty much in the same class.

As soon as I bought my PowerBook two years ago, I thought it would be neat to be able to use Address Book for my cell phone. When Apple released Bluetooth support, I bought a dongle and got the T68i. I loved it. It was small, it was sleek, it had a color screen, and there was never anything I couldn't do with it. It had one fatal flaw: A volume slider on the left hand side. Which broke off. And which was going to cost $100 to repair.

So I bought the T616, and was awestruck as soon as I got it. I'm kind of a gadget fanatic, and this phone is great for me. The screen is amazing, beautifully crisp and colorful. The body is only a tiny bit bigger than the T68i, but actually feels a little smaller. The Java games support probably strikes most people as slow and mundane, but I love the idea, and the games available for the T616 are better than I ever saw for the T68i. And of course, it can still synchronize with iCal and Address Book, something I love. The camera is kind of fun, even if the lens is awful. I have no idea what use a camera which can only take (approx.) 300x200 photos is, but hey, why not?

I can't speak to mMode because AT&T's pricing is beyond ludicrous. Although if they'd ever just get Mapquest service I might just pay for their insane $8 plan (the $3-plus-per-kilobyte plan is a major rip-off). I'm told the phone does not have the greatest WAP browsing, although having used the T68i's once or twice I can't imagine anything feeling sluggish in comparison.

The OS is actually much easier than most people think, once you get the hang of it. The trick is to remember where the icons go and to always check the contextual menus. Once you do that, you can do almost anything without thinking very hard on the T616.

There is only one thing I dislike about the phone and its design. The fact that there are two buttons which can SOMETIMES have overlapping functions ('Back' and either the left or right side top button, depending) and that the left and right side buttons don't have predefined functions drives me insane. I'm always clicking on the wrong one, with, yes, predictable hilarity resulting.

I'll give the T616 a two-thumbs-up review any day of the week. If you want to sync wirelessly with iCal and Address Book and want something that fits in your pocket, this phone is your best bet.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent Phone, ATT Sucks to Deal With
Review: Had an old Nokia Digital phone with ATTWS for about the last 3 years and it wasn't working to well anymore. After being a customer wiht ATT for about 6 years I figured it should be no problem to get a new phone. Not so.

Apparently if you buy an ATT cell phone and you don't buy directly from ATT, ATT doesn't stand behind it.

If you are a new customer, ATT will give you a great price on a new phone. If you are an exisiting customer they charge you up to 3x as much for the same phone. In addition it did not appear to be possible to buy this phone from the ATT website as an existing customer.

Ended up paying over $200.00 for this phone from ATT. We'll it is a great phone but not as intuitive as past Nokias. Color screen is nice, tons of features, but as noted the screen is tough to see in the sunlight.

Don't hesitate to buy this phone, just don't buy it from ATT.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Sony Ericsson T616 Phone - Next Generation (AT&T
Review: I have read the Editorial Reviews, so I wan't to buy that phones


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