The Sony Ericsson T610 features a built-in digital camera, Bluetooth, multimedia messaging, polyphonic ringtones, and tons of ways for you to personalize its look and feel. Quality materials and a large color display give this phone its sophisticated personality. It's the perfect complement to T-Mobile service.
Design
The phone features a bright, clear 128 x 160 screen with 65,536 colors. The stylish candybar form factor of the phone will turn heads and get attention, while the quick camera buttons and easy-to-use center control toggle make it a snap to operate the T610. Charging and data connectivity are provided on the bottom of the phone, while an infrared transmitter for synchronizing contacts and data is housed on the top of the device. Meanwhile, the phone's CIF-resolution (352 x 288) camera is housed on the back panel.
An onboard joystick and iconic menu make for easy navigation. |
Calling Features When you're calling, you'll enjoy essential features like redial, vibrating alert, speed dialing, and side volume keys, as well as choice extras like sleep mode, menu shortcuts, keypad lock, SIM card lock, voice control, and status view. Create your own ringtones with the built-in MusicDJ using a library of pre-loaded instruments, rhythms, and melodies. Further, the phone's 32-voice polyphonic ringtones make your incoming calls sound like music to your ears. Use the ringtones that come with your phone or download new ones from T-Mobile's t-zones mobile Internet service. And because the T610 has Bluetooth built in, you can use a wide array of Bluetooth-compatible headsets for total wireless freedom.
Messaging, Internet and Tools
The T610 has all the bases covered when it comes to messaging. Support is built in for sending and receiving text, graphics and sound via messages. Multimedia messaging (MMS) lets you compose your messages using images, sounds and text. Sony-Ericsson's QuickShare feature, meanwhile, lets you share content with other devices, other phones, even your computer--just drag and drop pictures from your PC to your phone. Instant messaging is also supported and the phone ships with a built-in email client (T-Mobile messaging charges apply). T9 text entry, which is a technology that makes it easier for people to enter words and text on handsets, is built into the unit-- a plus for mobile email and text messaging users.
The T610 has a built-in camera with 2MB of onboard storage. |
Getting on the Internet is easy with the T610, as well. It supports the GPRS protocol for speedy downloads and wireless Web access. T-Mobile's t-zones service lets you receive and send emails, read news headlines, get sports scores, download games and ringtones, and more.
The T610's Bluetooth capability lets you connect, wirelessly, to a laptop, a PDA, or another Bluetooth phone, and users of Apple computers can synchronize their calendars and contact information with the T610 using iSync, Apple's free synchronization software.
A number of handy tools come with the phone, including a memo pad, a calculator, business card exchange, a calendar, and a tasks list. There's also a full-featured clock, which includes a stopwatch, an alarm, and a handy timer.
Imaging and Entertainment
The camera T610's camera couldn't be easier to operate, with just one click to activate it and another to take a picture. Want to view your pictures on your computer screen? The T610 can automatically enlarge pictures to VGA size (480 x 640 pixels). Software included in the phone recalculates picture size without sacrificing quality.
Mobile gaming has never looked better than on the T610's high quality screen. Force and sound feedback guarantees full-throttle fun. The T610 comes with a variety of embedded games, including the legendary racing game V-Rally 2, and many more are available for download.
Vital Statistics
The Sony-Ericsson T610 weighs 3.26 ounces and measures 4.02 x 1.69 x 0.67 inches. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 9 hours of digital talk time, and up to 300 hours of digital standby time. It runs on the GSM/GPRS 800/1800/1900 frequencies. The phone comes with a one year limited warranty.
What's in the Box
T610 handset, SIM card, battery, charging cord, user's manual, and warranty information
1 Hey, not so bad
I got this phone for -$200 about a year ago, so I was willing to forgive a lot of problems. It actually turned out to be a decent phone.
Pros:
1. Bluetooth with wireless Jabra headset, syncs up nicely with my Mac. I'll never go back to using a phone without the wireless headset.
2. Intruitive, computer-like interface
3. Good vibrate function
4. Nice long battery life
5. Works pretty much everywhere these days, including travel abroad. Reception started good and got better after a CSR fiddled with it at the mall.
6. Addictive mini golf game.
Cons:
1. When it's sunny outside, it can be VERY difficult to see the phone. You need to retreat into the shade or try to decipher the glare.
2. Certain functions are buried in menus. If you want to get rid of the envelope from a voice mail, you need to go through 8 menus to get there. I'm also forgetting the 18 menus you need to set a speed dial, for example.
3. Reception certainly not as good as Verizon, for the most part, but they charge through the nose, too. It's a trade-off.
4. Quiet ringer. I keep the ringer at maximum, but I still can't hear it if I'm out of the room.
Overall, it was a good choice, especially considering they bought me four months worth of service for the year.
2 Sony Ericsson T610: great design, bad reception.
First of all, I've used Sony Ericsson T610 with both Cingular and T-Mobile service and found them comparable in Los Angeles (Verizon is best here). From comparing all three phones (Nokia 6230, Sony Ericsson T610, and Motorola V551) with Cingular service, I've discovered that there is a *BIG* difference in phone reception quality.
Phone reception quality is as follows: Nokia 6230 > Motorola V551 >> Sony Ericsson T610. The Sony Ericsson T610 had no reception in my apartment, the Nokia 6230 has great reception everywhere.
Overall phone quality: Nokia 6230 > Sony Ericsson T610 >> Motorola V551. (Though if reception is most important, you might rank Motorola V551 over SE T610.)
Here are pros/cons of Sony Ericsson T610:
PROS:
-Bluetooth: easy to sync contacts, photos, etc. w/PC, no additional software required => great.
-Great battery life
-Great display resolution, better than Nokia 6230.
-Nice OS design: easy to navigate, easy to read menus, ex. "silent" is handy
-Small, sleek, cool-looking, phone
CONS:
-Bad reception!
-Phone freezes sometimes. If turning on/off doesn't fix, try removing (and then re-inserting :) battery.
-Sometimes keylock doesn't work and phone calls contacts.
I recommend this phone if you have a good service provider for your area. It is cheap and easy to use. (Though, be wary of service providers locking the bluetooth. This hasn't happened to anyone I know, but I've heard that it's been a problem.) If I had reception in my apartment, I would have kept the T610 and sold the new Nokia 6230 on ebay.
3 Good triband phone with decent batery life
I've been using this phone from the past one year. Like any other phone this phone is also not perfect, but hey I got all I wanted from my T610, it never disappointed me.
What I like :
1. Tri-Band :: Many people think that any tri-band phobe can be used overseas. Not true!. Because 900/1800 MHz GSM is standard. With support to 900/1800/1900 MHz T610 is a true world phone.
2. Battery Life :: Very good battery life - one week without charging for me. I generally charge only during weekends.
3. Reception :: Very good reception even in basement. This depends on your location too. Occasionally, between cities on the highway you may notice black spots for 5-10 mins. - Noticed it only once though.
4. Look & Feel :: Very handy and looks little geeky :)
5. Bluetooth :: Nice add-on. I love my Jabra headset.
What I didn't like
1. Sluggish Java :: Performance of Java is very sluggish. Loading of games can take 20-30 secs. (At first I thought I've to reboot)
2. Camera :: Not worth mentioning. Very poor image quality. (What else can you expect from a < mega pixel camera).
3. Memory :: Very limited memory and no expansion slot :(
4. Voice Dialing :: Doesn't work very well. Agreed, comes handy while driving. Make sure to roll up all your windows and turn off radio.
5. Joystick :: Not real joy operating it.
Overall, I think it is a good buy. Esp if you are looking for a good true world phone with nice battery life.
4 cute phone - bad hardware and really bad customer support
This phone completely froze on me after exactly a month after the warranty expired (1 year from purchase)and now reboots regularly at intervals of 10 minutes.
I called customer support at t-mobile who couln't help in anyway except making me do a master reset and and I lost all my data.The phone still freezes and regularly reboots on me - I guess I can use it as a paperweight now.
The entire time the phone actually worked the T-Mobile service sucked BIG TIME
The only reason I'm giving it a one star is because thats the lowest I can get.
Pleaaase don't ever buy this phone and plase don't use T-Mobile
5 Really the worst I have had
THe only reason I give it 2 stars is because it's a cute phone. Otherwise its the worst performing phone I have ever had. Not only that, I've never known anyone with a phone that performs this badly.
Firstly - the functionality is terrible. Where they decided to put a lot of the funtions doesn't make logical sense. Also its lacking in a lot of the basic functions that a lot of other phones have
Secondly the service is TERRIBLE. I get no service at home or almost anywhere even when everyone else around has full reception.
Third - It freezes up all the time. I just returned my first one because of this problem and received a replacement...the replacement does the same thing. It needs a Ctrl-alt-delete key.
The keys are too smal, if you text a lot its a pain not only because of the keys but also because of the way the whole thing is set up. Very annoying phone.
I think I'll die a year earlier because I owned this phone based on all the stress!
6 Okay
I have this phone for over a year & have following comments on it.
Phone reception is bad indoors and in the car.
The screen is not visible in bright light.
It looks good but not easy to use.
7 not good
If you want a phone that looks good, then this one is for you. But if you're looking for a good phone, this is not the one. The phone locks up every now and then. When it does, I have to turn it off, then on again to use. Also, the joystick is too sensitive, hard to click 1 and get it do what you want it to do.
Volume is also too low, can't hardly hear it ring.
2 stars for the look only.
8 Pretty looks ugly performance
It is a bad phone when it comes to performance. I had many phones (GSM and non-GSM; USA and abroad) in the past and this one rates lowest in performance.
Signal reception is bad. I always hear some strange electronic flash noises. I was once told by a mobile phone company representative that this phone is not high on performance. I tested this phone along with some other brands from same phone provider (T-mobile) from two different locations (work and home). This one failed with a poor grade.
Only feature I liked is the ability to sync contacts on this phone and Outlook contacts on laptop, wireless.
No wonder they give $150.00 back on this phone. Looks like even phone maker wants to get rid of this from their warehouse!!!
9 its horrible
it has the most horrible service in all the land and is an upset because it breaks easliy my phone that i didnt have for half a year it broken and i cant buy a new one.but not only that it has the stupidest features ever.You cant get a good service in a basement or in a car.it studers and cancels your calls.not only that but tapes your recording after the call if you didnt press the cancel button.it has some wierd features in wrong places i would rather have a home phone that my phone.it makes you wait more than a minute for some features and dosent work right ever.
10 urgent order
Dear sir,
We understand that you are manufacturers and exporters
of the below product and we will like to orders this
item in small quantity.
Kindly furnish us your best Price list and air frieght
C$F of this following products below to spain:
Payment will be made to you by credit card we need 10 of this items
Awaiting for your respond.
Thanks.
Yours faithfully.
Mr tony cox
Sales/Manager
city choice ENTERPRISES
11 Not Good
Phone hungs and key pad locks some times.... Phone has more functionality but Sony ericson should invest some more money in Testing the phones.
Signal strength is also poor when compared to other phones.
12 Pretty good......not great!
If you are looking for a really good phone, and don't care about the bells and the whistles, then I would say this is the phone for you. My cell phone is my life line to my business, so having a long battery life is one of if not the best feature of this phone.
The design is fabulous. It is very durable, but a little on the small and light side (I guess which is a plus). I have dropped this so many times, and it still works like I just got it yesterday. The key pad is easy to navigate without looking, as is the menu.
It is super easy retreiving missed calls, or calling back missed calls. Phone also offers name announcements, which you pre-record, as well as assigning special ring tones for different callers. Vibrate feature comes in handy.....it vibrates just enough that you can hear it without it disturbing or interfering what is going on around you at the office.
The minor faults of this phone if you really care about these features are: camera is absolutely horrible; buttons on the sides are badly placed....always found myself pressing one of them when picking up the phone...maybe they were just too sensitive; signal is not as good and receptive as others; and NO SPEAKERPHONE - just bluetooth so you can go out and spend more money on an annoying earpiece.
Overall, I must say it truly is a good phone. The only reason I am in the market for a new one is because my state has banned hand held cell phone use while driving, and I can't stand the ear pieces. If this phone had the speakerphone capability built in, I would stick with it and continue being happy.
13 liked but not anymore
When I first got this phone about a year ago I was very excited. Like the other reviewers, PROS include long battery life, light weight, sleek design, and large screen. But CONS are also significant:
- Microphone has problem! Ppl always complain how they can hear the background noise soooo well. It's annoying. No privacy, feels like.
- Menu button (center one) too sensitive. I would push it to go to menu and it would go to Internet which costs money for my annoying At&t phone plan.
- Camera quality very bad. Blurry. Can hardly see what's in the pictures.
In general, I think this phone was very good 2 years ago, pretty good a year ago, and if now, NO need to buy it! Buy the improved ones!
14 I've had this phone for nearly two years!
I've had this phone for nearly 2 years and I have good & bad things to say about it. I'll keep it simple:
Pros:
Excellent battery life- lasts at least three days even with heavy use & I still have the original battery
Attractive phone
Very user friendly - Make a call in only two button pushes
previous calls are very easy to access
picture caller id
organizer is helpful
Cons:
Camera Sucks
It I've gone through 3 of phone itself because of the spontainous
freezing problem that it has. The most current one I have had for a year with no more of that
It does scream in my ear every once in a while with a one second long painful noise for no apparent reason. It's just long enough for you to go "OW! What the #$%&?
The phone is too small
The buttons are tiny - my boyfriend hates it
Major annoyance: The microphone is overly sensitive.
For example: If I am going through papers on my desk while talking to someone, the paper noise will be loud enough to be very distracting to the other person. Background noise can be louder than your voice.
No real music ringers
Signal isn't nearly as good as my boyfriend's Nokia - We can be in the same exact spot and he will have 3 bars of service to my 1.
Overall I wouldn't reccomend it. If you want a phone with all the same features: Get the Nokia 3650. That is what my boyfriend has and he works in construction. The phone looks like it's been through hell and the only problem that he has ever had is tht it has a shorter battery life. Plus his takes video and has HiFi ringers!
15 Try To Get Support
Before you buy anything from Sony Erisscon, try their "support" site. The Contect Us pages have been broken for months, they have extremely poor after sale processes.
I would not buy another, you can choose for yourself.
16 not great
the phone's camera is not that great, dust gets on the camera lens and it is very hard to clean. the text messaging is pretty easy, it spells out the word if you want it to. although, the signal sucks, i dont get great signal unless im in the middle of no where.
17 Sexy Phone
hi guys
I have this phone over a year now and I am truely satisfied with it.
I never faced any problems with call dropping and it always served it master very well.
Although camera is of poor Quality , if ppl are thinking pictures of mountains, football game i think they didnt get the real use of camera. Digital cameras are available outside.
Bluetooth and infrared rocks. I am using Jabra BT250 with it and i have no doubts.
Overall i would suggest this phone to people who are looking for bluetooth wireless technology, camera and who truely love SONY Products like me. others shouldnt buy
Thanks
18 worst phone I've ever owned
This c610 I bought from Amazon, got a great rebate on it and thought the phones was a good deal at first. I couldn't have been more wrong. The phone locks up nearly daily(as in you have to remove the battery to get it to boot up and respond again), and drops calls constantly(tmobile coverage is horrid). I have 2 friends that have this same phone...we all bought it together, and their exps. have been the same. T-mobile is friendly enough when you call them, but they won't let you out of a contract, and the 3x's I've called them and complained about the HORRIBLE coverage at my house, they've responded with we are working on our coverage of that area, our computer shows you should have good coverage, please let us know if it gets better over the next few months! BAH, what a joke. I can't wait until my contract ends on the 15th of this month so I can get out of this nightmare. Yes the t610 has a lot of cool features, with midi ringtones, bluetooth, camera, games - - - But the phone capability is just sickening...I cannot get very loud, it drops calls, coverage is horrible anywhere but the center of a major city, and they just lead you around in circles when you call their tech support. I honestly could not be more disatisfied in any way. I'll not be getting a sony-ericson phone nor a t-mobile plan anytime in the next few years.
19 Phone isn't that Great
I've had this phone for around 7 months now and must say that it's one of the worst I've had. Before this I used a Samsung that I now miss. Three to four problems exist with this phone: 1) The phone will sometimes freeze up, even during startup. 2) On a few occasions, the phone has made garbling/shrieking noises when used. I would have to restart it to get it to work again. 3) The keys are overly sensitive and the call quality isn't that great. As far as dropping calls, I've had a few calls dropped but not enough to warrant labeling this phone as being the worst when it comes to that. The camera also leaves a lot to be desired. Many times pictures are too blurry with this phone. Once it's time to upgrade this phone, I'm exercising that option in a heartbeat. Back to Motorola and Samsumg for me.
20 Call log problems
The main reason I will be replacing this phone as soon as my contract is up is simple: the call log.
1. As another reviewer pointed out, once a call log entry is over a day old, you lose the ability to know what TIME someone called. This is fantastically annoying.
2. The only way to actually see the time/date is to sit on an entry and WAIT for it to switch from displaying the name/number to the time/date. One would think that by clicking "more" you could see the "properties" of the call -- but no.
3. Also -- if you have more than 1 missed call by the same person, you get the following series of readouts. [name] (wait 2 seconds) [phone number that called followed by the number of missed calls from that number in parenthesis] (wait 2 seconds) [date of LAST missed call] (repeat)
I really don't understand why they feel the need to aggregate my call listing like this. I don't understand why they can't just have a simple listing of calls dialed and calls received with date and time. I really miss my Nokia 8290.
21 Warning: phone not for dummies
I think many of the bad reviews here are unfair. I've owned this phone for about 14 months. Many of the problems these people have had are either faults of T-Mobile or the user themselves didn't configure the phone correctly.
Rule #1 - when you buy stuff like this phone, READ THE MANUAL ON HOW TO CONFIGURE IT! Seems simple enough to me.
As far as the phone dropping calls, that has only happened to me when on long calls (I mean like 2 or 4 hour calls and when it drops the call its usually right at 2 hours or 4 hours, so i assume its a network preserving thing of T-Mobile. And i can live with that...just call them back). Plus, I'm under the impression that T-Mobile uses a weak signal, at least where i live, and this is certainly to blame for the weak reception. It does seem like when i get a connection that the phone tries to maintain it even when moving into weaker areas where i wouldn't have been able to initiate the call.
The problems with people looking at the phone to discover they are in a menu already has to do with the shortcut functions and the key-lock. The key-lock is the same as almost all other phones (press a function key followed by the * key, repeat to unlock). The shortcut function is more complicated. Some Nokias have something similar....you can tell this phone that when I press these 2 keys I want to do a specific function that would normally require several key strokes. There are already a few of these programmed on the phone....so you need to disable them. Again, if you'd read the manual you'd know this.
I have experienced the operating system lock up to the point where i had to remove the battery to reboot the phone. People need to understand that this phone is basically a miniture computer....with an operating system and memory and many other similarities. I hardly ever turn my phone off, so i don't complain when it locks up like that.
Bad things about the phone:
-The call log only shows the time of the call until the date changes over, then only shows the date of call. (example: I miss Grace's call at 10am on 2-11-05. The log will show the call at "10:00" until midnight and then it will show the call at "2-11-05." This is very annoying to me.)
-The camera is pretty poor quality. Keep in mind though that this was one of the first generations of camera phones. If you want to take great pics, buy a regular digital camera. I just like the fact that if i need to, i can take a pic. This has come in handy on the job for insurance reasons.
-The Sony-Ericsson site has some really cool things like a Theme editor where you can design how your phone display looks (similar to rightclicking on your desktop on Windows to change the colors and backgrounds). However, the site has had a problem ever since i first got my phone and hasn't fixed it. I can design as many as i want, but i can't download them. So i'm stuck with the themes other people designed.
-The ringtones aren't polyphonic or whatever its called when they sound like actual songs. I can live without it, but it would be nice.
-The camera requires absolute stillness!
Besides that, its a great phone. I haven't gotten to really take advantage of the Bluetooth stuff yet though. The internet browser works fine if you pay the extra service charge for the access. The games are fine. There's a big selection to buy...you can even download ebooks to your phone (I actually got The Art Of War!!). You can make your own ringtones, there is a photo editor too so you can take pics and do funny things to them. When I see cool pics on the internet, i edit them to size then email them to my phone for desktop background (right now i got the matrix code on it).
Most important thing i can say is read the manual. I've read a few pages of reviews here and most of the problems can be solved by configuring the settings. To save memory space delete all the lame preloaded pics that come with the phone, and when you take a pic with the camera that you don't need on the phone...email it to your hotmail or yahoo.
22 Perfect phone
I have had this phone for over a year and have had no problems with it. The software on the phones really nice and its never died on me. It has a very intuitive interface and is very easy to use. The screen size is good and accommodates good amount of text. A very nice basic phone. The camera is good, but pictures are more or less average quality. Fairly sleek.
The cons are small keys and average-reception at best.
23 This phone is FINE! STOP complaining people!
I have had this phone for about a year. It does NOT drop calls, it does NOT have terrible reception. Every gadget you ever own will give you problems once in a while, that is something it seems like every reviewer on amazon can not understand. I have had all kinds of cell phones (currently a motorola v600) and this one has been as stable or better than any other. The menu is easy enough to use. Text messaging is easy to use. The bluetooth is very easy to use, and I use it ALL the time with my headset. Sound quality is fine, at least as good as I've ever experienced. I also live in a basement apartment, so for me to get any reception down here (or any of my friends on any phone with any carrier) is amazing. If you are looking to save some money, and get a solid phone that does probably everything you need, get this phone. If you are looking for the phone god built, that does everything with no problems ever... good luck. YAY for this phone!
24 Bad Service goodlooking phone but just goodlooking
Let me first address experiance with T-mobile.I had a really bad experiance with T-mobile their service is really really bad and I guess thats why they are giving highest number of minuttes and best phones ,which are actually useless as u wont get any reception most of the time and when I tried to replace within 30 day trial period they are asking for full month payment??Lets get to the phone.The outer looking of this phone is very good big screen and crisp image, good camera, good ring tones and even u can create your own tunes.But if you are using this "gadget" as a "phone" it is bad idea to buy this one.Take Verizon instead of T-mobile.I have LG VX4500 with Verizon great service great phone works everywhere.I went to Carmel, CA none of my friend's cell phones were working except mine.
25 All form, no function
I pretty much agree with all the reviews. The phone is a great looking piece of rubbish! My aim was to find a small, sleek, simple/contemporary looking phone. I found the look but sacrificed everything else I needed in a cell phone. As with the other reviews, I found that the phone would OFTEN lock up when ending a call or even when simply navigating the functions. The only remedy for this was to remove the battery and re start. It would also constantly ask for a time confirmation while sending messages or when activating the unlock keypad feature. Despite the locked keypad, I could also switch on the key pad, switch off the ring tone, call friends and activate the web browser, all without me knowing. The scroll device could also be so sensitive that I would end up in functions I didn't want. The camera is a gimmick. Probably added at the last minute to keep up with a camera phone market, it was only just ok to take a picture in good light, when perfectly still and reasonably close, otherwise a hand drawn sketch would be better. Other issues included a weird, high pitch squeal in my ear from time to time, too many steps needed to navigate ANY function, a poorly visable display when in sunny conditions, and the occasional call dropping. With all that said, the old fashioned ring tone option did seem to impress both friends and strangers alike.
26 Serious Disappointment
Bought a T-610 through T-Mobile with T-Mobile's promise that it would do at least as good a job as my old Nokia at basic phone functions, plus it had a camera and could connect wit the 'net. In actuality, the T-610 is far inferior to the Nokia. It drops calls all the time. It often doesn't record incoming phone numbers. It freezes up about once a day. It can't send or receive calls from places the Nokia could, like my office. I sent the first one back and got a replacement under warranty, but the second was worse than the first. Shoot me if I ever buy another product from this company. What an embarrassment for the grand old Sony name!
27 Decent camera phone for the price
PROS: Slim, Good sound quality. Few dropped calls.
CONS: It cost me $75 and died after 14 months.
For some reason, it'd take hours to be notified of voice messages received while it was off. This was very inconvenient. The picture quality was grainy and not as good as my brother's free Samsung, which is still working and is a month older than mine. The OS often crashed when using Tzones. Anyways, I wish I'd gotten the free Samsung.
28 very nice phone, innit.
I'd held off purchasing a mobile phone til one came out that didn't look like crap. I was never a fan of the cheap plasticky phones that most everyone had.
This phone reminds me of the Audi TT. Compact, but with a solid, almost Germanic, feel and look. And while it is a very good looking phone it's in a rather understated, utilitarian way. It attracts attention, but it doesn't look like it's trying to.
I've toyed with the idea of buying some new face plates for it, but after nearly a year, I find the jet black on brushed 'aluminium' is still aesthetically pleasing. It's made of plastic, but it is so well done you could be forgiven for thinking it was brushed aluminium.
The camera is nothing special to shout about. Has a timer which is nice. No zoom though. Should someone prang your car it'll do a decent job of providing photo evidence of what happened.
I would recommend it. I've been on the look out for a new phone to replace it with, but have yet to find one that looks or feels better than this.
29 Awesome!
OK so this phone is great! I've had it for a little under a year and i have almost no regrets! The camera is pretty decent, but thats not the main point here ... the phone has pretty good reception, except for that one time where i went on vacation in wisconsin ( i live in chicago) and i lost all signal for two weeks! that was pretty bad ... cause wisconsin isnt that far away! So if you live in chicago and you go on vacation a lot, dont get a t-mobile phone! My friend has an LG phone and it picks up all the way in colorado and georgia! So thats a flaw. The buttons are pretty good, they dont get jammed/stuck, 'cept for that one time that my friend spilled some of her frapuccino on my phone, but it still works! The screen has great color and e-mailing your photos to your e-mail only costs about a quarter, so thats pretty good, concidering you can only store 12 or 15 photo's. The design is small and compact which is good and its great for text messaging. I have had it freeze maybe once or twice, but it isnt so bad because all you have to do is take out the battery from the back and start it up again, its really a minor flaw. However, i think the biggest problem is the fact that it does not have an antena, because then its signal would be a lot stronger, concidering when im in my friends basement, i have no signal at all, and my phone says "no network" instead of saying "t-mobile". But thats only certain areas, so, all in all, the phone is great!
30 I love it!
I have had my T610 for about 6 months and im really happy with it! Its small and fits everywhere, the color screen is excellent, the camera takes decent pictures and the overall design is great! The only problems would probably be small buttons, and the capability to only store about 12 pictures taken from the camera, but you can send your pictures to your e-mail for about a quarter, so overall, a good phone!
31 hangs....
My T610 stop responding to any key press in various scenerio like when I am done with the call or I want to press 1 for messages and so on. It does not respond to any thing...!!!! You wait till it reboots or you manually remove Battries...!!
I have exchanged the instrument three times already with same result.
32 Awsome Phone
Awsome phone cool graphics. Nice camara
And most of all i love that its bluetooth
campatible!!
33 Great phone!
Hi i am 13 and i happen to own this phone it's really great! I love the size and it has really good connection. Even in a mall bathroom it is a great phone. the only thing is that the camera does not work great in the night or indoors but outside it takes beautiful pictures. When i take a picture with my phone outside it comes out great! i would recommend this phone. I love the shape,size and weight. i have had three different phones in the last two years but this one is a keeper!
34 Fantabulous!
This phone is ultimately sexy! It's so slim and feels perfect in your hand. Fast keypad for texting. And It has great storage space. Well T-mobile isn't the greatest service, but hey if I had to choose between a sexy phone or good reception, I'd definately go with the great celly. If you're yet undecided with your purchase, I would strongly advise you to buy this little puppy.
35 Software hangs!
As a whole I would not recommend this phone to buyers.
Yes, the phone is small, "cute" and has nice accessibility to volume buttons and there is a camera
However :
- the camera has poor resolution
- t-mobile reception is awful
in places where other cell phones with tmobile received one or two lines, mine had no signal.
after leaving some place where there was no reception and going out into open air, the phone takes upto 1.5 minutes to pick up the signal (sometimes it works if you turn it off and then on again)
many times when i change time zones, the cell doesnt pick up the new time and date.
- the SOFTWARE HANGS!!
the software is awful - it hangs at least once every 24 hrs and often times more.
that's enough typing for now...
i would suggest you look for a better phone...
36 Great phone. LONG battery life.
I have used this phone over a year now. This is a great phone. The best part of this phone is that it has a GREAT battery life -- the longest I have used. The voice and reception is great. It is small. The bluetooth works well. No problems with the T-Mobile service. Camera is not that good but I use this as a phone and not as a camera.
37 Worst phone of my life!
I got this phone because it brought back (...)net in rebates into my pocket! "How bad can a phone get", I thought.
Big big mistake!!!
This phone hangs all the time, the java processor is slow as hell (so basically EVERYTHING on this phone has a long lag), the camera images are terrible, the menus are extremely non-intuitive and basically, nothing's easy!
I've sworn off sony ericssons for life...Motorolas it will always be!
38 really good
I've had this phone for about 6 months now, and it really works well for me. After reading so many bad reviews, I was a little apprehensive, but went with my first instinct. It turns out to be great - small enough to fit just about anywhere, intuitive and easy to use menu, easy to use camera w/ black and white, sepia, and negative options, infrared, and great service from T-Mobile. I generally have little or no problems getting service, except when in museums and such. It has a different scale for service bars, so don't compare it to Samsungs or Nokias. Also, the vibrate and ring at the same time feature is really very helpful, something I've found that Samsungs don't do. It's never frozen on me and none of the keys have ever gotten stuck. I've never had any problems with it at all, actually. Maybe I'm just lucky, or maybe everyone else that had problems with it just got unlucky. Who knows?
However, the phone does have a few flaws. First, the camera quality does leave quite a bit to be desired. It's grainy, flash-less, and zoom-less. But hey, it's a phone, not a digital camera! And as long as you are somewhere with enough light, you can get a pretty good picture. Second, it scratches easily. For example, I put it in my jeans pocket to go somewhere and the next time I take it out, it has a new scratch on it. Oh well, better get a case for it...Also, the memory space on the phone for pictures and ringtones really gets annoying. You can store up to about 30 pictures if you delete all the preloaded ones. Thankfully, the phone has a very good infrared port so you can load your pictures onto your laptop computer and keep clicking! As for the bluetooth functions, I really don't bother with them because of the cost of other bluetooth-capable items, but I still get along just fine.
All in all, the phone is a very good deal and I'd recommend it to just about anyone. It is very cute, very compact, and very usable.
39 Problems
I've had the T610 for almost a year and it has low reception quality compared to other phones of the same service provider and had enormous problems with static during calls. If it weren't for these two problems, the phone is mediocre at best. The features of the phone are great: Bluetooth, infrared,and sync. However, the relability of the phone during calls is poor.
40 Rebates made this purchase even more appealing
I was shocked at the price of this phone! After the mail-in rebates, I paid absolutely nothing and receive free money in return! The reception is comprarable to any other phone--so I've had the "typical" cell phone complaints. Its so tiny and compact, I can just stick it in my purse and go! The camera feature, colors, graphics and special 'tricks are hot--and I use them all of the time! Although blue tooth technology is typically a 'working professionals' feature (maybe because the devices needed to support and use it are a little pricy) I would recommend this phone for a younger audience because its cute, fast and pretty reliable.
41 Great phone. Don't expect to get your amazon rebate money.
[...]
Ok, so I've always known rebates often turn out to be a scam, but is that really the best they could do? Right before they tell me I didn't indicate the product on the form (which I did, have a copy right here), they specifically state what product I purchased!
Talk about insulting.
Anyway, back to the phone. The bluetooth feature is nice, though I leave it off most of the time because I'm concerned with bluetooth security issues. It does work well with my BlueTrek G2 headset, though the battery life of the phone is severely reduced even just having it on, not talking on it. The phone syncs great with my Apple PowerBook and the bluetooth adapter, which made it a breeze to get all my phone numbers added to the phone.
As expected, the picture quality from the camera isn't great, but I've found it is good enough for taking pictures to use as wallpaper on the phone. If I want to take pictures, I'll use a regular digital camera anyway.
The address book is decent, though I found some features missing that my previous Nextel (Motorola) phone had. Namely, you can't add enough numbers for people in the phone. I'm probably one of the few people to have this problem, but I have dozens of contacts for whom I need to have their home/work/cell phones and pager in my phone. This comes close with home/work/cell but no pager.
The organizer is ok, but lacks a few things. It has an alarm feature which is quite loud, and can be set to recur. There is a way to have calendar entries change your profile, which is nice for automatically changing it to silent when your meeting starts. It doesn't appear to support recurring calendar events. I haven't tried syncing it with my work calendar yet to see how it deals with recurring events there, so I have hope it'll work ok.
Text messages: I get paged for a living, as I'm a Unix admin with an oncall rotation. This means I'm quite familiar with a number of electronic leashes. This is the worst phone I've had yet for text messages. This thing makes a short noise when you receive a message and then remains silent afterwords. Worthless! My last two phones and my oncall phone at work continually sound until you press a button to silence it, which is a must if it is to have a chance at waking me up if it's been a bad night. Near as I can tell, there's just no way of improving this part of the phone. My plain pager for work isn't perfect either, but it at least beeps for a minute before quieting down to one chirp a minute.
Call list: It has one, but I'm not thrilled with it. It does distinguish between incoming, outgoing, and missed calls. However, it seems to collapse multiple calls together sometimes. I say sometimes, because it appears to be only with missed calls, but I'm not certain. I think it just collapses the missed calls down if there are multiples in a short amount of time. Bottom line is, I'd like to see at what time each call was missed, not whichever one (earliest or latest, not sure) it chooses.
Overall: Great battery life (unless I'm using bluetooth!), good sound quality, great form factor, seems durable (the vibrate/silent has vibrated it's way off the table a few times!). All in all a great phone, [...], still a great price for the phone.
42 Lousy phone
I have had enough problems to last a lifetime I guess. I moved from Sprint PCS to T mobile (thinking that their Service was good). I think I was wrong in doing that.
The Sprint service was working fine. My Sony Ericsson phone does not have any reception at all in my office & has a Lousy reception at home as well!!!!!!!!!!
T Mobile sent me a replacement Phone & as well as the SIm card in the hope that their service would improve. Unfortunately (to my horror & utter dis-belief) the service is no better. The service is fine after I checked the SIm on my friend's phone which is a NOKIA. T Mobile refuses to replace the phone with the same features...I will have to shell a good amount of money as well....
All in all SOny Ericsson T610 is not a good one. At best I can say that it is a good one by itself..but not for T Mobile I guess.
43 Good phone...
I had a T68i before this and like the camera, flash accessory and text messaging. I had a code for a while where you can get free internet access using the t610 as a modem wirelessly with the powerbook's bluetooth connection... pretty cool. I have the bluetooth connected to the PowerBook with Salling Clicker software, I can control iTunes wirelessly (which is playing wirelessly over Airport Express), it is easy to send any midi file to the phone to use as a ringtone. The text messaging is fast and easy, although the whole interface for SE phones isn't lightning fast, but it works well. Mini golf is great, the other games kind of suck. The flash accessory doesn't actually "flash," but does add light, so you can take pictures in bars again (that's why we all got camera phones, right?). Get the Krussel case, it opens in the back to use the camera, my t610 would have been toast over a year ago if I didn't get one.... drop it all the time. Good case. Good iSync compatibility with Apple's iCal program, you can sync all contacts and calendars, although taking the phone to a different time zone can be hazardous for all of your already scheduled calendar events, they will be offset and not corrected sometimes upon returning to your home's timezone. Not sure how to fix that yet, but it's still pretty cool. I paid *full* price for this phone when it came out and it's been worth it and a way better choice than the t300 that was being offered at the time. The picture resolution is very low, though. They look OK on email. Make sure and get the next model up on this phone, because now the screen is easier to read in daylight (can be very hard with the t610). If I get another phone, it'll have to be of similar caliber and functionality with this one, and it won't be until this one bites the dust (knock on wood).
44 Great but has one or two problems
I Got this cell phone about 6 months ago, and i love it. It looks cool and has a lot of functions, but sometimes my joystick stick gives me problems. its hard to access the menu because you have to press the stick and it often interprets it as moving it down which accesses the phone book. i usually have to try 2 or 3 times before i can get to the menu. the joystick can also stick at times. the phone can also be really slow. things take a while to open and im not very patient. and i wish it were easier to change the volume, my old phone had buttons specifically for the volume, with this one you have to go to the menu/settings to change the volume, but easy access to vibrate- vibrate is only two buttons. last thing: phone doesnt seem to have much storage space for photos...i can only store up to 15, i even deleted all the pre-set graphics and smilies just to fit more.
everything else about the phone is awesome! its easy to figure out and use, and its beautiful, great graphics and ringtones.
45 Not reliable!
I bought this phone (T610) 6 months ago. At first I loved it, but after a few weeks I started to notice how slow it was. Although it looks cool on the outside, there are too many problems with it concerning the price. The menus are complicated and certain processes take much longer than they should. This phone has freezed many times and is veryyy frustrating to use at times. After removing the back cover to change the camera reflector to the mirror, the battery moved, and I put it back in its correct spot. However when I turned on the phone, it says "No access." Do not buy this phone unless you like being frustrated and annoyed the majority of the time using it!
46 Decent phone, great price
After reading all the bad reviews, I bought this phone because it was -$200. Bottom line, that really helps lower T-Mobile's bill over the next few months. First off, the phone isn't really all bad. Bluetooth, infared, nice little screen, joystick, and comes with a Windows software CD to sync your Outlook contacts. I've experienced no freeze or signal problems whatsoever in Dallas/Fort Worth Texas area.
Of course, phone has many downsides: The power plug is the worst design ever. It's two plastic WIDE plugs with a metal contact between them. You must forcefully jam the plugs into your phone and hear a snap as it barely fits in. Only a matter of time before one of those plastic plugs breaks off and gets stuck in the phone, since pulling it out requires a lot of force. Also the headset is a non-standard propietary clip-on that snaps in hard like the charger. Why can't they just use a standard style plug? Camera quality is also really poor, I wouldn't recommend sending pics to anyone.
Would I pay real money for this phone? No. But a price of -$200 sold me. Getting Outlook sync, decent screen, bluetooth, infared for that price made the phone a good purchase for a year's use. Then I'll switch to something superior in late 2005.
47 ok phone but far from great
i've had this phone for over a year now and can say something about it from real experience... it's a good little phone, but i'm having one major problem with it lately, and that it that the little joystick is becoming increasingly reluctant to move "down". i'm told this is because of dirt that's gotten inside, well - great! sometimes it is VERY difficult to actually move down on the screen, which, from time to time, one needs to! so that's not a very good thing. my other gripe is that the camera is really not very good at all. i did not buy this phone for an excellent camera, but this one barely hots the 'acceptable' mark. i'd keep that in mind.
48 as bad as it gets
That summarize the whole problem. this phone freezes once a while. Poor connection. poor quality
49 This phone is pretty friggin awful
I have had this phone for about a year now. And my happiness with it has gone downhill since day one.
First of all, the reception seemed to get worse and worse. Now its to the point I cannot wait for my contract to end so I can get a new one. And when I talked to the t-mobile guys in the mall, they said that this phone is known to have crappy reception. Coulda used that info a year ago.
Second, its way way way too quiet. Even at full volume, it will not even come near comparing any moderately new phone out there (namely the motorola V300 and V600 that my girlfriend and roommate have, respectively). This becomes very annoying if you aren't hiding by yourself in a box where it is very quiet. But you won't have to worry, because you won't get strong enough reception to make a call anyway, whew!
Minor things. The phone is easily scratched. After 11 months, 60% of the time when I press the 6 key, it punches in two 6s which is real nice. Battery life doesn't really last more than 3 days under less than average use (I use like 200 or 300 of my min a month, tops). Camera is blah, screen is too small. Did I mention the reception is really bad? Cuz it is.
This phone was great when I had free t-zones, but T-mobile took them away from me. :-( It was the only thing I was enjoying on my phone.
BTW, as far as my other friends have noticed, no one has issues with T-mobile service here in East Lansing, MI.
So, if I can tell anyone reading these things one thing, spring the extra few bucks for a flip phone from anyone but Sony. Seems I have gotten what I paid for. Oh well, live and learn. Hopefully the V300 treats me better
50 Quality depends on the service
After reading a few 5-star reviews on Amazon, I decided to write a hopefully informative review to assist in another's buying decision. To better understand the perspective of the review, I'm 30 and have used the phone in varied climates.
I upgraded from a T310 and chose to buy the T610 based on its various techological improvements, including bluetooth, and its stylish features (Yes, I'm a sucker for shiny things). I've had the SE T610 for about a year now and I've used it in northeast NJ, Germany, and eastern Africa.
While I was in Jersey, I used a prepaid T-Mobile SIM card and much to my disappointment, the reception and sound quality was very poor. Most times, I had to step outside of my house to make calls and when I made calls on the road, the calls would frequently be cut-off due to reception. I did some reading on "professional" reviews and found that reception was often a vice of the T610. Although I was disappointed, I wasn't too dismayed because I knew I'd be using most of the phone's lifespan in Europe.
True to my expectations, when I brought it to Germany and popped in my T-Mobile SIM card, it worked beautifully. The reception was faultless and the sound was clear. However, it should be noted that T-Mobile has a monopoly in Germany, so there's no reason why the only cell provider should be bad.
When I brought my phone over to eastern Africa, I tried inserting an MTN SIM card to no avail. The phone was locked. After deciding to pay to have it unlocked, I found once again that the phone worked like a charm.
The problem that I had with the T610 in the states could be attributed to the freq of 850 vs 900. However, I haven't heard any such complaints of other phones using the same freq. Ultimately, I decided that I want an international phone, one that I could use even when I'm home in the States, so I decided to get a Motorola E398, the one featured on the Black Eyed Peas video, Let's Get It Started (?). My choice was based on usability. I have yet to hear someone complain about Motorola's reception quality when moving around, my foremost concern when choosing a _mobile_ phone. As far as I've experienced, Sony Ericsson has some work to do in that department. As far as everything else on the phone including connectivity via IR/BT, battery life, etc, I have no complaints.
A few post-review comments:
1. The SE T610 attracts fingerprint smears easily. The shine is hard to maintain (Another reason why I chose to replace it with the Motorola E398).
2. The screen isn't TFT so it's hard to see w/o the backlight and in the sun even with the backlight. The T630 addresses this issue as well as it's problems with reception.
3. If you must have the T610, I'd recommend the T630 (option to have it in a matte (?) black to somewhat resemble the black/silver of the T610).
4. I hate writing reviews so I hope this helps someone.
51 Great phone
I received the phone just before Turkey's day, and what I regret is that I should get 3 instead of 2..
52 GREAT DEAL, Dont miss it
I think its an amazing deal. I got $175 to buy this phone. the catch is that you have to sign up for a 1 year contract with tmobile which has average coverage, but its the best service if you use international SMS or even use text messaging a lot. It takes some time to get use to the phones menu, but after a while you get use to it. For all the people reporting problems about "not loud enough ringers" there is an option in "settings/ sounds & alerts/ Increasing Ring" which makes the ringer loud enough. What i found most useful are the reminder notes, send picture messages option, making voice notes and the stop watch. Ok now what I dont like about the phone is the camera, the photos are really bad, not what you would expect from a sony phone. But I would strongly recommend the phone to anyone because you ACUTALLY END UP MAKING $175 by purchasing the phone.
53 Make $175 on T610. Cannot complain!! Great phone!
Just received my T610, although I am 1 year behind on the model, this phone is still packed with features. Mainly bluetooth and IR. Simple to use menu. Took sometime to get used to the joystick/softkey. Problem free unlock process with Tmobile.
Not only I get the phone for free, I make $175. [...]
Good Luck.
54 Great Phone. Less than free.
I love this phone. The best feature in my opinion is the neck strap holes, primarily because other phones don't do this. A neck strap is not included though.
I have the t-mobile service and even though it isn't the greatest it doesn't matter because t-nobile lets you roam on any other network for free. So even though I'm a tmobile customer I smile when I see that Cingular/AT&T are improving their network.
55 Works for me
I've had my T610 + Tmobile for about a month now (So no word on the rebates yet) but as for the phone and service... I've been pretty satisfied. I get pretty good reception everywhere... The phone is small and comfortable and everything seems to work on it without a hitch. The camera is good enough for a cell phone... and the phone was more pleasing after I got a few new games/themes/ringtones on it via the infrared port. The phone doesn't have all that much memory but I deleted all the predefined themes/songs/graphics (or at least all the ones it lets you), and that gave me more than enough. It hasn't frozen on me yet (and mine came with the oldest firmware). I heard upgrading the firmware resolves freezing issues, increases the quality/compression of the pictures, and overall makes the phone more useable... but I none of these things have affected me like others, so I haven't looked into how to upgrade it. Unfortunately, you cant just update the firmware yourself... Two of my friends also have the same package and are pretty happy with it. I think most the reviews on here are just people who've had negative experiences...
56 An Awesome phone with awesome service and an awesome plan
This is the sixth phone i have used in the past two years and the only phone that I deemed fit to hold on to for an year now. Come this christmas, this phone would celebrate its first and sadly last anniversary with me.
In the past i have used Siemens A56, Nokia 3595, nokia 6340i, a sony ericsson t326 and a motorola v66. This is by far the best phone I have had.
Reception: The reception somewhat lacks as compared to my roommate's Nokia 3650 with T-mobile too. But I have no problem with that. In the garage or in my room I dont have to hold a brick in my hand and talk into it.
Bluetooth: bluetooth is amazing. but the bluetooth headsets are still comparatively huge and doesnt hold charge for long. I guess theres still more to develop in that area.
Camera: The camera is crappy but hey, it can "take" pictures which i used to post in moblog (http://exclamates.textamerica.com ). This was as long as t-zones was free. now it costs me 4.99 a month - way cheaper than any other provider but am not gonna pay for that with this phone.
Coolness factor: This was the coolest phone in its time (an year ago). I still love this phone for what it is and for what it can do. T-Mobile is giving away cash like crazy for all their age-ol phones like v66. I guess this was their last "cool" phone.
After using 2 nokias, I HATE them. I guess moto v300 and v600 kinda made its mark but theres nothing in them which wud make me dump my t610 for that.
Customer Care: As for customer service - tmo is the best. granted- the only other cust service i have had experience with is cingular. Either they sucked or TMO rocks.
I cant believe .... after all this I am goin back to Cingular which has poor service in cincinnati, bad cust service ... but am jus in love with Moto mpx220. Am gonna dump my 1K anytime with unlimited 39.99 to move back to cingular coz they have better collection of phones.
But hey, T610 is my first love.... & as u all know - first cut is the deepest.....
57 Not too bad, this little thing!
My girlfriend gave this cell phone to me as a birthday present and I was thrilled about it. I read some of the other reviews where people said they had poor reception with this phone but I think it's cause of the service (T-Mobile) not because of this phone. I have AT&T wireless and so far I have never had a reception problem unlike my old Nokia phone (also with AT&T wireless). The really cool thing about this phone is that it is Bluetooth enabled. I can transfer ring tones and pictures to and from my laptop wirelessly and use a wireless Bluetooth earpiece to make calls when I am driving. Battery life could have been a little better but it's not that bad considering it has a big, bring color display. The camera also could have been a little better. Over all, this is not a bad phone.
58 T-mobile service bad
This phone is great, however T-mobile service is really bad. Lots of dropped calls, and rude customer service agents. If you can help it do not get T-mobile.
59 Could be better, could be worse.
OK, there's been a lot of bad hype about this phone, but my personal experience doesn't really agree with most of it. There are some annoyances and minor issues, but nothing that I think makes it completely worthless. Frankly, there's a lot about the phone that's really good - overall, it WORKS, even when I only have one signal bar. And getting paid $150 to take the phone wasn't bad either - it was way better than the phone I paid $20 for through Cingular. Not only that, I've dropped the phone about a million times (in the car, on the tile floor, on concrete, everywhere) and it just keeps going (not even a scratch on the screen to date).
Annoyances:
1. Every once in a great while a button will get stuck under the face plate. This is only really annoying the first few times it happens; you get used to it and accept it as a flaw.
2. When you receive a voice mail, you're notified via text message. This system is somewhat illogical, causing you to have to both listen to your voice message and deal with it and then go through the menu and delete the text message you received. But hey, at least I know when I have a voice mail, right?
3. I work in a bowling alley, and I've found that the phone's mic can pick up really high-pitched frequencies (such as those that eminate from our machines) and amplify them. This isn't so much annoying to me as it is to the poor folks that try to talk to me on the other end.
Overall, if you're a cheapo like me and you want to have an OK phone for a decent price, this is the way to go. T-Mobile isn't the best service provider (especially in terms of signal strength), but it's far from the worst, too.
60 Sony Ericsson t610
I just love this phone. It has been with me for a year. The phone is small, tiny with good looking front screen. It has a bluetooth technology which simply is great. I have dropped down this phone like 4 times but it stills works - thats good. And the best is it has good colorful displays and ringtones.
61 ring tone volume hard to hear
I bought this phone when it first came out so I've owned this phone for over a year now. The major drawback is that the ringtone is hard to hear in any ringtone other than 'old phone.' The features are very nice, but not being able to hear the phone ring is a definite flaw. Even on the loudest setting, it is still too low.
62 MUY BUENO
LA VERDAD EL SONY ERICSSON EN UN GRAN TELEFONO MOVIL YO HE TENIDO MAS DE CINCO TELEFONOS ERICSSON Y ESTE ME HA SALIDO MUY BUENO TAMTO LOS OTROS
63 good but not the best
I purchased this phone for its bluetooth connectivity and nice looks. It worked quite well in the beginning. There were some things I didnot like much but still it was usable.
Things I like:
1) joystick. it is well thought and pretty useful to do things.
2) bluetooth, it is easy to transfer contacts, files from your cell phone to other cell phone or to your computer.
3) color screen shows pretty crisp images.
4) you can set a midi or mp3 file as ringtone. neat.
things I didnot like about are:
1) ringer volume is low. I used to hear my old cell phone (nokia 3390) ring from upstairs. You cannot hear this one unless you are in the same room.
2) menu navigation could be better.
3) camera is not so good. Don't think that you are getting a digital camera.
4) keys are small, I had hard time not the press multiple keys.
finally the problems I had recently, note that none of them were present in the first 3-4 months of usage.
1) charging system is not durable, power adapter connection was made poorly. It disconnects while you are charging the phone, you came back 2-3 hours later to see your battery is still empty.
2) speaker/mic is broken after 5 months of usage. Neither you, nor the other party hear anything. I will see about the the warranty coverage.
3) pressing power button may not turn on the phone. I had to keep pressing it to get it to turn on.
My final remark is to stay away from this one if you have comparable Nokia phone.
64 prettiest phone worst reception
i loved everything about this phone except for one minor detail...nobody could hear a word i was saying....most of my conversations consisted of " WHAT, WHAT DID YOU SAY....!!!!" yikes that was awful....I believe the internal atenna is a large design problem...However, enough of a problem to return the pretty, picture taking masterpiece....
65 AVOID T-MOBILE!!
This phone is OK, but whatever you do, don't get T-Mobile! You can get this phone from At&t. I have had the worst service from them, and since they have me in a contract for 6 more months, I'm stuck with them. As long as you have a contract with them, if you have a problem, they will basically tell you it's your problem. As soon as the contract runs out they treat you well to get you to sign up again. Coverage in the Portland Oregon area can be poor too. Ive had three dropped calls in the past week.
Be careful, they make their plans look good, but if you sign up with them you will regret it. I sure do.
66 Dont get if T-Mobile coverage in your area is not excellent
The only two good things about this phone is that it is a tiny, beautiful machine, and the joystick is an absolute "joy" (no pun intended) to use. Other than that though, do not get this phone, even though you can get it for free. You can also get a refurbished Motorola V600 from ATT, and it's been giving me less problems than this piece of junk.
First off, this phone has terrible reception problems. I can barely get a signal at my home, whereas my other phones have at least two bars all the time. I couldn't get a signal at the mall, which was really ridiculous. It's not T-Mobile's service, it's this phone. I get better reception on my refurbished V600.
Secondly, this phone crashes a lot. Granted, the V600 was problematic at first, but that has been remedied. I don't see a recall of this lousy piece of crap, they just keep selling it like nothing is wrong with it. There is something wrong with it, which is why they're giving it away for free. Every time I'm chatting through Powerchat, the phone locks up in couple of minutes. I don't know if it's just my phone, but it's really annoying. Also, I cannot access Yahoo Messenger from the E-mail & IM menu in t-zones; I have to go onto the Yahoo site and access Messenger from there. Really time consuming. I just wish this phone didn't have the software problems that it has. For a person who bought this phone to use all it's features, I'm pretty annoyed and disappointed.
Lastly, I know that camera phones don't really have good picture quality, but come on. The picture quality on this phone is absolutely terrible. It doesn't even have 640x480 resolution on this camera. The highest setting is 288x352, which is kind of disappointing, because it doesn't capture the kind of detail you wish it had when sending picture messages. There's no point in picture messaging with this phone. I sent a picture to a friend, and he couldn't even see me. Can you see me now? No.
I know that some people will say that this phone is a hand-out and I shouldn't complain about it, but I PAID for this phone. I got it before all the discounts being offered, and it was just a waste of money. I should have stuck to Samsung. I've never had any problems with their products. I just wished they stopped selling phones that had so many problems like this. A dissatisfied consumer.
Edit - Feb. 2005
After six months of use, I'll ease a little off the animosity that I have towards this phone. A couple of issues that have popped up since then:
- Am not able to download games. What?!? You mean to tell me that "Although your phone is capable of downloading games, your phone is not currently supported." Well actually, I am able to download games, just not from T-Mobile. Oh well. Get over it.
- Volume is not as loud as I would like it to be. Of course, I have to give this phone credit, it's louder than my old Samsung phone.
- It can take a long time for the phone to catch up to you when you're text messaging at times (at least when using multi-tap}
I love the form factor of this phone. The menu, with the exception of the call log and saving voice messages, is very intuitive, made all the more so by the joystick. The camera isn't great, but it's a phone, not a megapixel digital camera. But other than that, if you live in an area where T-Mobile coverage is only fair, I'd suggest getting another phone, as this phone WILL HAVE TROUBLE PICKING UP A SIGNAL.
67 Don't let the bad reviews stop you! This is a GREAT phone!
My husband and I found this phone online and got a GREAT deal, we actully got paid $350 to own two of them and set up Tmobile! So, after we got the shipping confirmation we came to this site and read the reviews. We were horrified! We thought we had made a huge mistake with this phone and thought we might have to sell them and get new ones. When they arrived we both cautiously unpacked them, making sure that everything stayed pristine so we could return them or sell them if we needed to. I was sure we would have a problem.
Well, it has been 2 months now and we LOVE our phones. They are great!! We have great reception, the pictures are fun, blue tooth is cool etc etc. What a relief! Both phones work great, sound great and and look cool. I am so happy we got them. I think the other reviews are from people who wish they could afford a more expensive phone with all the extras, settle on this one, and are disappointed becuase they really wanted the grander versions of the high tech phone world.
For us this is a great phone. The buttons are small, but not a problem for either one of us. The joystick is fun and the games entertaining. This is not the ultimate deluxe future phone with whipped cream and a cherry on top, but it is fun, higher tech than most phones and acutally does what a phone is supposed to do with a spunky lemon lime twist here and there. The reception is pretty good too and we live on an island in the San Juans near Seattle so I was not sure if it would work.
There are some minor things that took adjusting to, the text message with every voicemail thing is pretty annoying, but all in all we are very happy. The camera is fun, not amazing, but a nice feature. We have a digital camera for pics we are more serious about. I recommend this phone for people who don't want to make a serious investment (you can acutally get paid to take this phone!) but want a phone with some fun, higher tech features. And best of all, it is NOT a sprint phone, cause as we all know sprint SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
68 pleeeeeeaaase
to the people complaining about standby time, im willing to bet big money that you didnt charge properly. i already read that one guy charged for four hours. you get full time as listed by sony if you do not use it at all when you first get it and charge it for twelve hours. then you use the phone until the battery dies out completely, and only then do you recharge it to full capacity. this phone is not your standard phone, it runs with a sony operating system, do not expect all new advances in technology (ie. os) to be simple. dont be tech dumb and complain. take some time to play with the phone get to know and you'll be able to access all the features blindfolded. dont tell me the first time you used windows and all other operating systems you were the super whiz. If you were, then you should be ashamed you cant handle this phone. with regard to buttons getting stuck and stupid crap like that, IT IS NOT A STANDARD. you either got stuck with a defective phone, or you did something to damage it. sony does not spend tens of millions for quality control to give you crap. overall its a good phone, most professional reviews praise it tremendously, most user critics have not made the effort to truly know the phone inside and out, a lack of knowledge makes for a lack of judgement.
69 YOU ARE EXPECTING TOO MUCH.
Seriously. Stop expecting so much from a phone that you were PAID to take. In fact, if you do order this phone, expect it to be a piece of junk. Then, when you get it, and you may or may not find that it isn't, you won't be disappointed either way.
I am quite disgusted by anyone who rated this phone less than 4 stars. Take the value of this deal into consideration, not just how well the phone works. If someone paid me $150 to take something, I wouldn't care HOW bad it was.
And if it turns out that you truly hate this phone and cannot live with it- then you don't have to. All you have to do is get a phone that you LIKE off ebay or amazon marketplace. (Make sure it is a gsm phone that can be used with T-Mobile- gsm 1900 mhz.) A Nokia 3595 or 6010 will be just fine for someone who just wants to call and send text messages, and they cost less than $50. Feature-filled phones will obviously cost more. Once you get the phone, take your sim out of your t610 and pop it in the other one. Now you can sell your t610 on ebay. In fact, you might end up making even more money.
(Example: You got paid $150 for taking the t610. You buy a 3595 off ebay for $30. You sell your t610 for $100. Overall, you were given a $30 phone and $220 in cash.)
And even if you don't save more money, you will be getting that other phone for a very, very low price.
(Example. You got $150 for taking the t610. You buy a new, $300, loaded phone off eBay. Then, you sell your t610 and get $100. Overall, you got a $300 phone for $50.
Even if you end up hating this phone, this is still an awesome deal.
70 If you have more money, skip this one.
I used this phone for three weeks now , I am not very happy
about it.
Pros:
1. A lot of features. (BLUETooth, IRDA and so on.)
2. Cheap( got it for $50 before rebate.)
Cons:
1. Very difficult to take SIM card out.
2. The key pad is badly designed, sometimes the keys stuck under the face plate and cause the pone to froze.
3. Menu is difficult to use .
4. standby time is about 1/3 ( or less) what Sony Ericsson stated. Other phones I used before usually get 60%-70% of stand by time with light usage.
5. Ring volumn is low. Vibrating(Ring) is not strong enough.
6. The phone screen get dirty easily.
7. Only 1 mb of memory avaliable (T-mobile).
The reciption signal is ok for this phone. This phone looks cool , but the quality is poor. Spend a little more for a better phone. I will not recommand this phone.
71 Nifty, great deal, far from perfect
I picked this phone up for a great deal from Amazon--and, really, at the price, it's like getting three free months of service. No complaints there.
Overall, I like the phone. No major, I-wish-I-hadn't-picked-this-phone complaints. It's small, but not too small (no problems hearing or being heard), it's sturdy, and it's pretty smart. It does a decent job as a phone. And of course there are some nifty extras, like the camera (not great quality, of course, but it's cool to snap the face of everyone in your phone book and see their face pop up when they call or send a message), and the bluetooth (no trouble synchonizing with PC or playing multiplayer bluetooth games). Also great battery life (typically 2-3 days heavy use, 3-4 days light).
But there are a lot of frustrations. Just to name a few:
- The volume buttons, on the side of the phone, are next to the camera button. Sometimes when I try to adjust the volume during a phone call, I hit the camera button, and then the phone goes into camera mode (why? even during a call), and I can't even hang up from the call without fussing with the phone.
- It has voice-dialing, and announces by voice or unique ringtone when someone registered in your phonebook calls, but I can't get the voice-dialing or speed dial features working (I haven't tried too hard, but it's non-intuitive).
- The web browser can be really frustrating. The interface is clumsy, and slow, and some of the input menus on tzones are terrible.
- Occasionally when I try to do something like run a game, I get a message about "insufficient memory"--what is this?
- The phone freezes up sometimes. It only happens about once every other week, which isn't too bad. I'll pull it out of my pocket and not be able to unlock it or something, so I pop out the battery and then it works fine again.
- Typing messages is SLOW. After you've typed just a couple of lines, the input lags way behind and is prone to making mistakes. Don't expect to write any novels on this phone.
- The flimsy little "joystick" in the middle of the phone is too small and hard to handle. Thankfully you can usually use the buttons instead.
I've had no particular problems with reception around New York City. It does get less reception than other T-mobile phones in the same places, but even with one bar the connection is usually solid.
72 Good phone, but....
The phone looks great and works nicely but occasionally it will freeze up -- then you'd have to remove and reinsert the battery. That is the only glicth I've encountered. I bought it using a coupon from UnderTag.com, so it was a real bargain.
73 It's ok.q
I got this phone because it was supposed to be such a great phone...and now don't get me wrong the phone works great as far as being able to talk and hear the other person...but when you look at the features you'd think it does a whole lot of stuff too, well it does. BUT, it doesn't do awhole lot of stuff too. I think it maybe it may depend alot upon who your service provider, so be sure to check that T-Mobile hasn't reprogrammed your phone to do alot less than it's capable of. I can't even download games. As far as firmware goes, I have had a hell of a time finding that. I'd like to undo whatever T-mobile did do just to have the functionality it would have origionally came with had they not screwed around with the original software.
74 good phone...
I got the t610 through T-mobile and bought on amazon... therefore I will recieve cash back for buying it. a lot, apparently. so, can't beat that...
Others have truly criticized some things about this phone. some of those criticisms are valid and others are just kind of silly. Here is my own list.
good things:
-- bluetooth is indeed flawless with a Mac (OSX) and I assume with windows too. I had to buy a $40 usb-bluetooth adapter for my older powerbook. I make full use of the Syncing of my address book and iCalendar (I use both applications intensively and recommend them.) you might need to fiddle with what time zone you tell your phone you are in, or whether you tell the phone it's daylight savings time -- sometimes appointments get translated to the other device one hour off.
-- physical design is sharp and the large screen is great and impressive. the user interface is just very crisp and impressive, like you're looking at a recent computer OS. I wish some of the downloadable Themes i find on the net were as good as two of the ones built in ("T-mobile" and "magma glow.")
-- having bluetooth and infra red is cool -- I was able to beam pictures to the photo printing kiosk at my locan drug store using IR.
-- camera is cool... yes, it's only limited size and not incredible resolution, it's for FUN, not art.
-- the user interface makes up for some of its frustrating slow aspects by having a "shortcuts" menu on the home menu that you can customize, bringing almost any feature to 3 clicks from the home.
-- some cool games to download. Townsmen ($5) is fun, like a mini simCity... but the backgammon game I bought is slow and absurdly graphical... god, anything for a bare bones backgammon game like on the nokia!
bad things
-- reception for me (T-mobile in washington DC) is sometimes disappointing. granted, I live in a cellar. but I think there's a chance that other phones on T-mobile, using different frequencies than this one, will be better.
-- the user interface is not as crisp and hyper-smart as on my nokia phones. sending a text message can be a ridiculous experience until you learn to use various short cuts. Even if you are sending an sms to someone already in your phone book, it COULD be click-down-click-click-click-type message-click-click-click-scroll to address entry-click-click-click. Absurd -- some of those clicks are in effect telling it, for instance, that you want to scroll through your address book entries in the phone, not the ones stored on your SIM chip. they could make that a default. Fortunately, unless you are un-techie, you learn shortcuts. (1) hitting left on the joystick from the start takes you to a blank sms screen. or (2) you can program stuff into your "shortcuts" menu. (3) they thankfully, like in nokias, attach numerical values to all menus, so you can just tap your way through common choices.
-- yes, it is a drag that you can not turn off the ascending ring feature... fortunately for me, I prefer that setting.
-- god, I wish it would simply automatically erase old entries in your recieved and sent SMS messages folders. it doesn't, so every once in a while you must manually clean them out. Nokias are better that way.
-- it is true that reading the screen in the bright outdoors is hard. bummer, but fortunately not THAT common a problem. the T630 (the next version) is supposed to fix that.
75 GREAT little phone!
I can't give it 5 stars, because that would mean there's nothing that can be improved, and that's just ridiculous....
I have read a lot of reviews on here, and it seems that more people complain about T-Mo's service than the phone they're supposed to be reviewing. NO MOBILE CARRIER IS PERFECT!
That being said...this phone is terrific! Very easy to use - I skimmed the manual and was breezing thru everything the phone could do. Reception is fine for most cases. The only exception is when I'm at school, in the middle of nowhere, inside the building. Go outside, and all's good. Even with 1 bar reception, sound quality is good. The joystick is a bit tough to manage if you have larger hands, but that too was learned quick enough, and it's a nice feature instead of constant button-clicking to navigate menus. Bluetooth, voice commands, and picture call-ID were all very easy to set-up.
To the majority of the complaints I have seen on here, I have to say:
*It's a PHONE - having a camera in it is a bonus.
*T-Mo's service - try Cing*lar and tell me you don't have billing problems.
*Easily scratched/smudged - so's a new car, but I'm not gonna run out and buy a rustbucket to avoid it!
76 Bad software, no guaranteed that phone will last long
This phone has bad software and also hardware. I have this phone and it reboots whenever there is less signal and I am on the call.
Some time it hangs forever, you need to remove the battery to restart that. Beside this the conductors (charger and head phone) are bad after a while the phone stop charging. I complained about this to t-mobile and they have given a new phone (T610 again) and I am using this, don't know how long I can use it. One of my friend also got this phone and his cell phone stop charging after 5 months. I am now desperate to get any Basic model of Nokia phone instead of this. T-mobile has condition where they can't exchange with any other model if it has crossed more than 2 weeks.
This phone also doesn't have good reception.
The camera is not great.
Ring tone is good.
If you seriously looking for bluetooth, camera and infrared feature, I will suggest for Nokia 6600. In my family plan the another phone is Nokia 6600, it has very good reception. Beside this it has good speaker phone, ofcouse the camera is much better than T610.
77 Phone is OK but T-Mobile is terrible
The phone is ok. It's nothing special. I have already accidently scratched the screen enough that it is hard to tell what is displayed. Especially in bright sun light. I think I need to buy a flip phone next time. As far as the service, T-Mobile is the worst. I had decent service up until about 3 weeks ago when the service dropped completely. I have permenantly lost reception and they told me it would be 6 months before my area is upgraded. Now the phone is worthless and the Customer Service department are trained to be absolutely no help. I have been told I need to contact Customer Relations to sort out the details of my contract so I am not charged the cancelation fees of $250. Well Customer Relations does not have a phone number and the T-Mobile internet link I was given is worse than the Customer Service people on the phone. I am going to report them to the Better Business Bureau and probably end up eating my cancelation fee. I don't recommend T-Mobile as a cell phone provider. I can't believe that any business can get away with treating their customers so badly. So, if you decide to go with T-Mobile good luck!
78 spiffy looking but sorely lacking
this phone is slick and pretty and ought to be a great phone, but it isn't. the worst problem is that it's often hard to hear the person you're talking to, even with the volume on high. no matter how feature-packed a phone is, it's still first and foremost a phone. it doesn't fit up against the ear well so you get a lot of ambient noise crowding out the sound from the phone, and the volume simply doesn't go high enough. that alone should earn the phone a single star, but i'm generous. the earbud that comes with it helps, but only marginally. it is pretty low quality, picking up a lot of ambient noise and also often not fitting in the ear well enough to block out other noise. i often have to press the ear bud into my ear, which basically defeats the purpose of "hands free."
another problem is that the camera is the absolute worst quality camera i've ever encountered. it's basically useless except in bright light, and even then it's still low quality. i've only just installed the software that comes with the phone and a cursory look at it makes it seem like you can't download pictures from the phone to the computer. i doubt i'm right about this, but if it's true, it's a really dirty trick to make you pay to email pictures to yourself.
finally, the user interface isn't designed well, and it takes too long to come out of dormant mode when you want to make a phone call. you can't just start hitting numbers, you have to wait for it to awaken. and buttons get pushed easily when it's in your pocket or in a bag. not too big a deal if it weren't for the fact that some buttons can take you to wireless network and other such features that probably charge you money.
79 Phone is far from perfect, service is not far from the worst
Well, unfortunately, I have had this service for quite a while, so I have a lot to say about it.
I must accept, that when I lived in San Diego the signal was good. I moved to San
Francisco Bay Area around 6 months ago , and got this phone. Since then, all I have from my cell service is problems. Not sure if this is more due to the new phone (Sony Ericson T610) or to the service.
First of all, it looks like T-Mobile likes to make money on you every time it can, both when you expect it and when you do not. (Well, it was like that in San Diego too).
Second thing, the signal in SFBA is not just bad, it is horrible. The service is bad too. (....)
Now about the phone. The soft that comes with it (the one that is supposed to send messages) crashes all the time on my WinXP. All the service packs are installed, so I have all reasons to believe, that it is their soft and not my system. Besides, everythign else works pretty well on my new laptop.
The phone has no front cover, so if you accidentally forget to lock the keys, it will call anybody from your phone book. The worst case is when it connects to some T-Mobile internet service, because there is nobody on the other side to hang up, so you will have to pay for all the time it was online.
It could be hours before you notice that. Cool phone, huh?
Me personally, two months ago I got a monthly bill
for (are you sitting?) $426. I was not. No warning, no anything.
Just the bill. When I called them, do you think they went down a penny? If you think "no" you are right. I had to pay the whole amount.
Another story: they disconnected my service without any notice.
I called them and asked what happened. They said, I owed them a payment and was 1 week late. You know, I pay all my bills as soon as I get them. I never got this bill, that is why I did not pay. Okay, they said, took my payment over the phone, and reconnected the service in two hours.
You think, it was just a mistake, lost mail? I did too, until it happened to me again. This time, I did get a message on the phone: your balance is $108, if you do not pay we will have to disconnect you. I paid immediately via my Bank Of America billing services. However, the next day they called me and said, they were going to disconnect me immediately if I do not pay. I told them I sent the payment, they said, it was not good enough, and did not stop bothering me until I promised to complain to BBB. I gave them the B.O.A. payment confirmation number, but they still said, that it was not enough and my service could still get disconnected at any time and I would have to pay the reconnection fee. So I am waiting to see what happens.
I have had so many problems with them, but I am on the plan,
would have to pay $200 to cancel it. I got the phone directly from T-Mobile, not from Amazon.com. I have nothing bad to say about amazon.com, I love them! I hate T-Mobile, and hope that their low phone prices will not deceive you.
Is anybody willing to get T-mobile? I have the rest of my plan to give out! Free phone! Just take it from me. Please please please! $40 for 600 minutes, nationwide coverage included, nights and weekends free. Try'em out, see for yourself.
But I made my mind I will never be their customer again.
80 Lots of features, short on memory, dodgy (T-mobile) network
I enjoy the phone a lot. It's small, good battery life, syncs contacts and calendar with my computer, has a built-in camera, etc. The only 2 complaints I have with the T610 is:
- Only OK reception
- Not enough memory to really enjoy the camera or recordings
T-mobile's service and plans have been great to me, but the network has been dodgy. Some places get outstanding reception, some places terrible. The real kicker is that sometimes the distance between 5-bars and 0-bars is only a couple of feet. While driving you especially notice, as often calls will get dropped.
81 Signal strength sucks - features are good
Just got this phone with the T-mobile plan. It has absolutely no signal in the house- slightly better when at school.
I have no idea whats the point of having this phone when I cant receive calls in the house.
Tho, find it as user friendly as the nokia- if not more.
82 Recepiton and Signal Sucks
Hi
I have used this cell phone for about 10 months now - I highly recommend you guys DON'T BUY THIS.
it has cool looks and cool blue tooth technology. Its a cool toy, but a very bad cell phone. Its reception is very very poor. I had heard that T68I was bad, but I realized t610 still has the same problems.
I am stuck in a contract for the rest of this year- no sure what I gonna do, but I would never buy a Sony Eric phone for a very very long time.
83 Great phone
This is a great phone, with a great look and great functionality. The only downside is in direct and bright sunlight - the screen is very difficult to see. Other than that; it has an outstanding battery life, huge memory, useful versitility, compact size, a nice screen, and a very stylish body.
84 If i won the lottery :)
I dont have one but my coach does, and when i have to call for a ride , it is the highlight of my day, well other than practice. Anyway, this is so fun, so many features. What are you guys whining about? This is a awesome phone. If you dont like it, you could write letters or some thinng dumb or pointless.
85 Needs improvements
Bluetooth is cool, but this phone freezes up, randomly shuts down, and the camera sucks. Too bad because the display is really terrific.
86 Wonderful phone with a couple of problems
The T610 is relatively small, which personally I love, and it's loud, which is awesome when you misplace it like I do everything. I adore this phone, but I have two major issues with it. First of all, the camera is not all that great. Unless there is a LOT of light, you won't be able to take any good pictures. Second, if it's really sunny out, you will barely be able to see the screen. It gets annoying sometimes. Otherwise, this phone is pretty useful. The interface is easy to learn, and (my fave) the text messaging feature is also useful and convenient (except for the T9 thing-- you might wanna shut that off real quick). I get a very strong signal almost everywhere, except when I'm surrounded by cornfields in the middle of nowhere (understandable), and the sound quality is very good. If you find a good deal on this phone, take it.
87 Don't use T-mobile if you want to keep your old phone number
My husband and I purchased a Sony Ericsson T610 and a Samsung E 105 in July 2004. We had cell phone service from Sprint PCS on a family plan and wanted to keep our existing phone numbers. We checked all the instructions on amazon.com and with T-Mobile on how to purchase individual phones, switch to a family plan, and port our numbers over. When we got the phones we were successful in porting our numbers over and were very happy with both phones. Then we got two bills - one for our phone numbers from Sprint PCS, and one from phone numbers we didn't recognize and never heard of. Apparently the phone numbers assigned to the phones from amazon.com were never cancelled when we ported the Sprint PCS phone numbers over. Repeated calls to T-Mobile customer service were not helpful - they told us stock answers like disregarding the bill, or that the billing cycle hadn't caught up with the customer service computers, etc. etc. etc. At about the 6th phone call to the company, a customer service rep was able to cancel the account and credit it so we didn't owe them any money for these phantom phone numbers. We were very excited that this was finally resolved and gave this rep's supervisor a glowing report. Case closed... or so we thought. We received a final bill for this account that had all sorts of adjustments but still said we owed $41.06. Two more phone calls to the company came up with nothing but assurances that this would be taken care of. One rep even scheduled a follow-up call to tell me that it went through, but never actually called. Today on the answering machine was the standard recording for code 100 (which means I didn't pay the bill). One more call this evening (October 15, 2004, 3 months after we purchased the phones initially) with me masquerading as SuperBitch got me assurances that this would be rectified in 2 hours. Well, I'm not holding my breath. We like the phones and have no problem with the account that we're supposed to be paying on. It's the account that never should have existed that's the issue. If you're in a situation like we were, make absolutely sure that whatever phantom phone numbers that existed are cancelled as soon as you port your phone numbers over. Better yet, use a different phone service.
88 Don't take out your battery without turning off the phone
Considering that I had a T68i before T610 so this T610 phone is actually much faster and better in many different ways. Unfortunately it freezes up on me at least once a month now. It happened after I took out the battery without turning off the phone one time. Sometimes when I dial all I hear is, "The number you have dialed is not in service" and at that time I really thought the person I called has disconnected his phone, but until I started calling other people and that was all I would hear, then I knew it was my phone or my T-mobile service. I couldn't do anything but to turn the phone off and turn it back on in order to dial out again.
89 All the wrong reasons.
I switched to this phone from Sprint in an attempt to save a little money. Aside from very poor coverage this phone is just terrible. The buttons are too small and I can barely dial correctly without holding the phone 2 inches from my face. The phone works poorly in crowded or noisy situations and and those I call have difficulty understanding me when I take a call while in a car. This coupled with unintuitive menus and seeming lack of shortcuts to any basic functions. I can't read the screen in direct sunlight. When I put the phone in my pocket it always dials someone unless I remember to "lock" the phone. The camera takes poor pictures, and stores very few. Bluetooth, 90% of people don't need it and if you turn it on it shortens your battery life. I just want to place calls quickly and easily and put the phone back in my pocket. This phone has a tiny joystick for navigating the impossible menus. That joystick is operated by your thumb and doubles as a button. More often than not I end up pressing the joystick too hard and selecting some unwanted menu while trying to navigate at a snails pace to the contacts menu. The entire phone's design is basically dismal. I'm almost at the end of my contract, I've been using this phone for nearly 10 months and I'm going STRAIGHT back to some sort of sprint flip phone. Then I'll be albe to 1. open phone 2. place call 3. close phone. Sounds almost too good to be true.
90 Gr8 Phone - but hard to c siplay in sunlight
This is a great phone, but you cannot read the display outdoors in bright sunlight.
91 poor coverage, hard to use, useless features
I'm in Sunnyvale, CA; where this phone (T-Mobile) has zero reception and my Sprint PCS phone has 3 of 5 bars when in the same location side-by-side. the keys are extremely difficult to use. the calendar/organizer feature is useless; the camera is a disgrace. I returned mine. I hope you avoid the hassle.
92 Can't do better for the plus 200 in rebates
(...)Using the app, I was able to upload/download ringtones, themes, backup my address book, delete unwanted files on the phone, etc, straight from my computer keyboard, without having to touch all those tiny buttons on the phone. I'm 6'4", and those tiny phone buttons are a pain for me sometimes, but I'll live with it, as the rebates are giving me free phone service for 5 months. Plus, T-mobile will let get you the 1000 minute plan for 40 bucks, how cool is that? Pretty good, you don't get rollover yet, but I'm sure they'll get something comparible to Cingular soon. Like all cell phones, your reception is dependent on the phone and the towers in your area. I have only one bar reception at my house, and I'm able to have decent converations all the time with only a few dropouts. I recommend this phone and service.
93 Stay away from it.
I have had this phone for 14 days and I'm already fed up with it. I'm a gadget person, I love the bluetooth feature about this phone and the fact that I can just play something with my keyboard and drop it in the phone's "sounds" folder and vola, I have a new ringtone.
Here is the problem, you can't use it with phone cards, basically you cant punch in too many numbers without it slowing down too much to the useless point. Say you need to check your bank account. You call the toll free, you start punching your 16 digit number. You comlete the 16 digits but the phone is not! Halfway through, your bank systems responds "that is an invalid card number" and quickly shuts up to wait because your phone is still sending the last 3 remaining digits to your bank. Basically you can't use it with phone cards sine you need to dial a 12 digit or so phone card PIN number, then dial your destination which in my case is 15 digits so the phone completely stops.
The phone freezes for no reason. The black buttons froze on me tonight and even removing the battery did not work. All the other buttons were working thought but useless. I couldn't turn the phone off using the button either.
I am actually on hold on the Amazon's secret (800) number which T-Mobile ended up giving it to me. I couldn't find it on amazon.com. I have been on hold for 15 minutes already.
94 Not a bad phone Plus Phone card use.
First off take any bad reviews here with a grain of salt, All of the this phone is garbage reviews on here almost detered me from buying this phone. And what a difference when it comes to connectivity with this phone over my S105. One thing I do give the S105 is it does seem like it has better all around sound more on par with a regular home phone where as the T610 sounds a bit shallow to me, but thats all just prefrence and it is very clear. Back to being able to connect up over bluetooth to your PC and file sharing between the PC and the T610. Set it up and all works good. My S105 just wasnt up to snuff when it came to connecting to a pc (nothing but trouble). Anyways at this point I recommend this phone although I guess we will see how well it holds up.
A.Z.
I just received this phone as well and reading your view I hadnt tried my phone card input as well so I tried, Had no trouble at all entering a 12 digit code. Worked fine first time. I tend to think you either have a bad phone or your service is going in and out.
Revision 1:
I will take back the reception being better than my samsung S105 at this point as well. This phone has dropped on me the last 2 days of use in places that my S105 did not. In fact my S105 didnt drop hardly ever. Im kind of in the middle of the road on this phone now. Love the features of it but the sound and reception quality could be better Im feeling now.
Revision 2.
After having this phone for about 2 weeks now there is nothing really wrong with this phone other than I dont care for the sound on my end of the line. People I have called say this phone sounds better than the samsung S105 I had before it. The bluetooth and easy connection to the phone to my computer is a big plus for this phone. Samsung I had was not worth the time when it came to this. Not a bad phone for +175!
95 Worth for your money...
Cool phone. Excellent battery stand by time. Little complicated to access and operate the phone menu. Very good signal when compared to the audiovox phone (verizon carrier).
96 bad signal, not worth the money
It is too late for me to anything. but I hope this will benefit future buyers. BAD signal is the biggest problem. I use to have Siemens A30 phone and the signal was great. But I have to say that I don't know whether this is because of the phone or the server. But I guess it is safe to say Sony Ericsson T610 + T-mobile is a no no.
97 Built too cheaply to last a year out
Under wholly normal use I've consistently had problems with the ID card not being read by the phone, and now, at the 10 month mark, the charger contacts not consistently connecting with the phone - resulting in a phone that's apparently been charged all night, and is still dead in the am.
Taking it in for warrantee repair... but generally, think these problems show how the phone is built to be disposable.
Also having problems with the center multifunction key being not responsive... which leaves you without alternatives for key functions.
98 Not recommended
I have a T-mobile service in Miami, but I used it all over the east coast. The reception is pretty bad everywhere, a lot of noise, the sound is not clear also I have lot of dropped calls. When I called customer service they say we cannot guarantee service in all the areas, even in those painted as covered in the national coverage map. In some places I had no signal whatsoever but my friend who has the same service with a Nokia phone had three bars. In addition to that the preloaded games are boring like the "colorbug" and T-mobile doesn't have downloadable games for this phone. The camera is really bad, low resolution, no zoom and useless with poor light. The internal memory is small and you have to erase pictures all the time. If you have big fingers just forget it, it will be a nightmare to dial. The screen is pretty clear and bright, but that's it ...
99 Real garbage
This phone looks really slick on the surface, in reality it is a rare piece of garbage. I had two of these phones for the last year or so and I can't wait for my contract to be over to throw this thing away and far. My biggest problem is that the phone freezes constantly. The only way to bring it back to life is to remove the battery. Sometimes it happens when phone is ringing, so you have no way to answer the call, although you see who is calling. The screen is unusable in daylight. The camera feature is embarrassing (they might have as well not included it), the quality of pictures in extremely poor.
100 Long Term Review
I have owned this phone for about a year now. This is my long term review of the Sony T610.
The Good
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- Quality Materials Used in Casing
- Bright, Clear Display
- Menu is Easy to Navigate
- Clear Tones
- Blue Tooth Capability
- Crisp Audio
- Easy to Use
The Not So Good
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- Buggy Software
- Phone Shuts Down Randomly
- Slow Power Up
- Phone freezes
- Average Reception
Bottom Line
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Do not recommend phone due to the software problems. Plan to replace the phone soon.
The software issue is not unique to my phone. My colleague owns the same phone and has similar problems. Problems occur more frequently as the phone ages.
