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| Ericsson R600 |
| General |
| Network | Gsm 900 / Gsm 1800 |
| Announced | 4q 2001 |
| Status | Available |
| Size |
| Dimensions | 105 X 45 X 20 Mm |
| Weight | 82 G |
| Display |
| Type | Grayscale Graphic |
| Size | 5 Lines |
| | - Lcd Illuminates In 3 Colours
- Background Pictures |
| Ringtones |
| Type | Monophonic |
| Amount | 10 + 10 Custom |
| Customization | Composer, Download, |
| Vibration | Yes |
| Memory |
| Phonebook | 200 |
| Call Records | 10 Received, Dialed And Missed Calls |
| Card Slot | No |
| Data |
| Gprs | Yes |
| Hscsd | No |
| Edge | No |
| 3g | No |
| Wlan | No |
| Bluetooth | No |
| Infrared Port | No |
| Usb | |
| Features |
| Messaging | Sms, Ems |
| Browser | Wap 1.2.1 |
| Clock | Yes |
| Alarm | Yes |
| Games | 4 - Erix, Catcher, Pathy And Ripple |
| Colors | 2 - Ice Blue, Luminous Champagne |
| Camera | No |
| | - Sms Chat
- T9
- Pim Functions
- Profiles |
| Battery |
| | Standard, Li-ion (bst-20) |
| Stand-by | 90 H - 150 H |
| Talk Time | 2 H - 4 H |
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Ericsson - R600eZiText with the Ericsson R600
Major features
Metallic-like paintwork
WAP over GPRS
Four-way navigational key
Three-colour LED display for call screening (Colour Signal feature)
EMS, SMS and e-mail messaging features
eZiText predictive text input system
Picture and melody editors
Simple organiser functions
Variable font sizing for menus
Background picture, screen saver and display sleep feature
Problems/Issues?
Display sleep doesn’t activate after screen saver is enabled
Sales package (should contain):
1 x R600 handset
1 x Li-ion battery @ 700 mAh (BST-20)
1 x standard charger
1 x R600 user manual
Overview
This cute little phone could very well be one of the last phones to bear just the “Ericsson” brand name and insignia on the outside (the stickers inside says “Sony Ericsson” already). But whether the R600, considered as a market-entry GPRS handset, will make any sort of noise is another question in itself.
New/outstanding features
Ericsson phones are always one step ahead of the rest - and in this instance, GPRS has become a market-entry level requirement. The R600 sports the new always-on, high-speed Internet feature and marrying it with its on-board WAP browser. A new predictive text input system, called eZiText, is used instead of T9 - which is supposed to make typing messages easier than before.
If you’ve previously used the A3618s, don’t expect any surprises- as the R600 shares similar software features to its predecessor.
Physical aspects
The R600’s cover (no, it’s not interchangeable) comes with a similar paintwork to the one offered on the Nokia 6110 - a metallic-like material that shows off different colours when looking at it from different angles. Its size is something that I’m quite happy with also - as being able to hold the phone comfortably is always a big plus.
User Interface (UI)
Ericsson has maintained its user interface with the R600, being similar to those found on the A3618s and T39 phones. With the addition of the 4-way navigational key, a user can simply enter and exit to and from the main menu without having to press either YES or NO buttons. The greyscale screen also helps with the menu displays by providing a greater level of detail (for example, menu items that cannot be used are displayed, but are greyed out instead).
Making and receiving calls
The phone sits comfortably on your ear and face when a user decides to take the call from the phone itself. Of course, a headset or car kit can be used with the R600 as well.
A call screening feature called “Colour Signals” is available on the R600 (similar to that available on the A3618s). Where the R600 supports three different colours for its display (amber, green, red), these same colours can be used to identify different callers which have phone book entries.
Messaging
I have never gotten used to messaging with an Ericsson phone. It took the company long enough to realise that predictive text was a mandatory requirement on today’s mobile phones, with the first phones to feature T9 were the A3618s and T39m. With the R600, Ericsson has decided that they would rather go with something else - called eZiText.
There are pros and cons with eZiText. First of all, one of the advantages that this system has over T9 predictive text input is that it allows for a word to be “guessed” without having to complete the entire word. For example, if you want to type “yugoslav”, a user would only need to type the sequence ‘y’ and ‘u’, where eZiText will bring up the entire word. Choose the word by simply pressing YES. If your sequence of words brings up more choices, simply press the left or right arrow to scroll through the choices.
But if you may have spelt something incorrectly or have missed a word, eZiText doesn’t display the raw characters entered. Therefore, you will have to continuously press the C button to clear your input until eZiText displays a sequence of words that you can recognise.
For those new to predictive text input, this system may be preferable over T9. For existing T9 users, it may take some getting use to.
Battery life
The lifetime of the phone on a single charge will depend on the features that you enable on the phone - as it may affect overall performance of the battery (for example, wallpaper, screen saver, display sleep). For the review, the R600 had none of these features enabled - which yielded an approximate battery life of around 4-5 days’ worth of standby and 2 hours’ talk time on average use.
Major features...
Take a closer look!
Metallic-like paintwork
One of the more attractive features of the R600 is the phone’s exterior. Using similar metallic-like paintwork featured on the Nokia 6110 a few years back, the R600 can show off different colour shades at different angles. The R600 I reviewed had light-yellow paintwork (the colour is officially called “Luminous Champagne”), which made the phone very splendid to look at.
WAP over GPRS
The R600 comes with GPRS capabilities allowing its user to access high-speed Internet services either through the built-in WAP browser or an external computing device (requires purchase of the appropriate data cable). Of course, standard WAP connections can still be achieved through dial-up via CSD (circuit-switched data).
Four-way navigational key
For easier navigation of phone menus and WAP pages, the four-way navigational key allows the user to keep his or her thumb on the keypad, reducing the amount of movement required.
Three-colour LED display for call screening (Colour Signal feature)
The R600 gives the user a choice of three different backlight colours - amber, green and red. These same backlight colours can also be used to screen incoming calls using the “Colour Signal” feature. When the colour signal feature is enabled for a phone book entry, the caller will be uniquely identified with the chosen colour each time he/she calls.
EMS, SMS and e-mail messaging features
Messaging isn’t limited to just basic text inputting for the R600. As like many Ericsson phones, EMS provides the ability to add that personal touch to messages with objects - including melodies, animations, and pictures. Concatenated (long) SMS messages and e-mail through a gateway are also supported on the R600 as default.
eZiText predictive text input system
Replacing the T9 predictive text input system used on some previous models, eZiText uses a similar concept of accepting inputs from the user via the standard 12-button numeric keypad - but with a difference. For a T9 system, a user would need to type all the letters of a word before the phone gives the choices of words that you want. For eZiText, a word can be extrapolated from the first few letters inputted, which is of course dependent on the commonality of the word and its letters sequencing.
Picture and melody editors
The R600 comes with a picture and melody editor allowing for the customisation of ringtones and pictures (used for background pictures and messages) respectively. Such creations can also be sent to another person via SMS too!
Simple organiser functions
A simple calendar and calculator function is also available on the R600.
Variable font sizing for menus
Although the R600 may have a small display compared to other mobile phones, the variable font sizing feature can provide for up to 6 lines of text. If you like more text on the screen, but you have to squint which may mean discomfort, you can always increase the text size to your liking.
Background picture, screen saver and display sleep feature
You could say that one of the great things about the R600 is the level of customisation allowed for the display. For example, a typical user would have a choice of using a wallpaper (to be displayed alongside with the one-line network name), screen saver (activated after a preset duration of inactivity) or display sleep (reducing the information provided on standby to a single line at the bottom of the screen).
Problems/Issues?
I would consider the R600 as one of the better phones that Ericsson has so far released. It comes with a larger screen than the T39m (not a phone to use WAP on, surely) and has a better keypad than the T65. Its weight and dimensions are relatively in line with other similar phones available.
Display sleep doesn’t activate after screen saver is enabled
But an issue I did find with the R600 was the screen saver feature. On the handset reviewed, there were two standard screen savers plus a customisable one. When activated, the animated screen saver is activated after the phone has been inactive for a preset duration. The screen saver remains animated until the phone is used.
What’s the problem with this? If you’re not too concerned about charging your mobile phone very often, then this may not be an issue for you. It would be an idea for the animation to cease after some time, since a user won’t be staring at the phone all the time to look. I also found that when the screen saver is enabled, the “Display Sleep” feature will not kick in even when it’s activated - which really defeats the purpose of such a feature.
In Summary
The R600 would probably be one of the cheapest GPRS-enabled phones around when it becomes released in Australia (it’s already available in some markets overseas). Considering the other options that it has available (and its looks of course), one may just want to add the R600 to the list of possibilities if you are hunting for something valued for money. |
| Common misspellings on this brand: ercsson , ewricsson , erivcsson , er8csson |
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