| Sony Ericsson T68i |
| General |
| Network | Gsm 900 / Gsm 1800 / Gsm 1900 |
| Announced | April 2002 |
| Status | Available |
| Size |
| Dimensions | 101 X 48 X 19,5 Mm |
| Weight | 84 G |
| Display |
| Type | Stn, 256 Colors |
| Size | 101 X 80 Pixels |
| | - Joystick Navigation
- Image Handling |
| Ringtones |
| Type | Monophonic |
| Amount | 21 + 8 Custom |
| Customization | Composer, Download, |
| Vibration | Yes |
| | - Ringtones Can Be Assigned To Contacts |
| Memory |
| Phonebook | 500 X 8 Fields, Photo Call |
| Call Records | 10 Dialed, 10 Received, 10 Missed Calls |
| Card Slot | No |
| | - 1000 Sec Voice Memo
- 300 Calendar Events |
| Data |
| Gprs | Class 4 (3+1 Slots), 24 - 36 Kbps |
| Hscsd | No |
| Edge | No |
| 3g | No |
| Wlan | No |
| Bluetooth | Yes, V1.0b |
| Infrared Port | Yes |
| Usb | |
| Features |
| Messaging | Sms, Ems, Mms, Email |
| Browser | Wap 2.0/xhtml |
| Clock | Yes |
| Alarm | Yes |
| Games | 8 - Arimona, Contrary, Erix, Four Piles, Naval Fleet, North Territory, Q, Yukon Struggle |
| Colors | Arctic Blue |
| Camera | No |
| | - T9
- Organizer
- Voice Dialing
- Voice Answering
- Profiles |
| Battery |
| | Standard, Li-ion (bst-14) |
| Stand-by | Up To 300 H |
| Talk Time | Up To 11 H |
|
Sony Ericsson - T68iThe new 256 color, MMS, Bluetooth enabled Sony Ericsson T68i was announced March, 2002. The T68i marks the next logical progression from the T68 and adds MMS functionality; raising the T68i to the top of the color phone pile, the nearest competition coming from its predecessor the T68. Instantly recognizable from the T68, the T68i is based on the same platform with important differences.
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Design
Sony hasn't changed much in redesigning the Ericsson T68. This phone still has fashionable angular curves in a compact body. Its size and weight can rival that of the Nokia 8290 and 8890 series. However, Sony has managed to improve the look and feel of an already beautiful phone with good clean design with plenty of functional control.
Ericsson has this ability to produce functional mobile phones packed with options, but now with the looks Sony has come to be known for. New colors which is Artic Blue, Lunar Grey, and Dark Blue (AT&T) now instead of Ziroccan Gold or Lunar Gray, and the earpiece looks slightly different. Otherwise, the cosmetics are identical.
The T68i has a plastic body, making it light yet durable. The rubberized back of the T68, a favorite among many, has been replaced by a smooth plastic that matches the rest of the phone.
Many people have expressed their opinions of the change, since now the plastic is susceptible to scratches, is harder to handle and slips more. However, it is worth noting that the black T68 batteries are fully compatible with the silver T68i batteries, if you don't mind sacrificing looks for functionality.
Screen
Perhaps the most noticeable feature of the T68i is the bright and rich, 34 x 28 mm, 101 x 80 pixel, 256 color screen. It should be noted that the color display doesn't provide the kind of brilliant colors we're used to on laptops, however the clarity is exceptional. It provides legible text even at the smallest settings.
However the colors did wash out in direct sunlight. The ability to save backgrounds, screen savers, and themes makes full use of its colors. Just like the T68 before, it is able to fit 5 lines of text, making it a sizable screen for emailing, and text messaging.
Controls
As with small size of the phone, comes a small keypad. People with larger fingers may find the phone hard to press. However, the T68i still has the joystick found on the T68. The 5 function joystick (Up, down, left, right, press) makes navigation around the menu options and playing games simple. Completely eliminating the need to navigate with buttons.
Battery
The Standard Battery BST-14 is a lightweight 700 mAh Lithium Polymer battery (Silver). The BST-14 is identical to the T68 battery (Also called BST-14 except black). The package also comes with a standard CST-13 Travel Charger.
Sony Ericsson claims the included battery provides up to 12 hours of talk time or 16 days of standby. On a quarter-full battery, we didn't need to recharge for four days.
Minimum Rated Standby Time: 200 hours
Minimum Rated Talk Time: 400 minutes
Many variables, including carrier signal strength at your location, signal consistency (including incoming and outgoing calls), display and ringer settings, and battery charging methods and history, will affect performance.
Storage
The T68i comes with over a megabyte of storage for pictures (JPEG, GIF, animated GIF, or WBMP), ring tones, screen savers, themes, and text messages. The pictures and ring tones can be set to contacts in your phone book, so that you can identify your caller.
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Connections
On the bottom of the phone you'll find all of the T68i's connectors. Charging your phone, transferring files through data cable connections, and the optional CommuniCam MCA20 camera accessory are connected here.
On the top right, you'll find a infrared port for transferring files to the T68i. You can use the T68i as a wireless modem for a notebook with its infrared and Bluetooth features.
As mentioned previously, the T68i also comes with Bluetooth wireless technology. This makes it possible to transfer images to another phone, and connect wirelessly to headsets, PCs, or other Bluetooth-equipped peripherals.
Sound Quality
Incoming calls have great tonal qualities. Voices were clear and crisp. However, while listening in quiet environments, noise was noticeable. It's not so noticeable in noisy environments, however this background noise seems to happens quite often to GSM phones. A repetitive hissing sound will be heard in the background caused by vibration within the earpiece of the phone. It should be noted that when I tested the T68i using a Bluetooth headset the hissing was nonexistent, Tests show tonal balance was a little thin. It becomes more noticeable during higher volumes. But overall it's decent.
Outgoing calls calls were also very clear and crisp. When talking in noisy environments, the voice comes through pretty clearly. Background noise is filtered out pretty well, leaving you to talk without having to shout.
The earpiece volume was very good. It's sufficiently loud even in noisy environments while talking to soft spoken callers.
RF Performance
The T68i performed above average for the fact that it doesn't have a protruding antenna. However, it by no means has excellent reception. When conducting our tests we found several flaws.
The phone's ability to hold on to weak signals is above average when information is being sent. However, calls are dropped quite easily when idling. When receiving weak signals, there were frequent error bits sent that were not corrected. It's not to say that there's a lot, just more than we'd like to see. The result are occasional sound irregularities, garbled speech, drop outs, and loud bursts.
Overall we give the T68i a reception rating of:
Below Average
As we stated above, it has excellent incoming and outgoing sound quality. If we would have stopped here, the T68i would be Above Average easily. However, problems with RF performance, holding and making calls with low signal strength, and bit errors, lower our rating for the T68i.
Pros
· Excellent color screen and contrast. Best we've seen thus far. 256 colors, 101 x 80 px screen.
· Good screen clarity and size. Great for text messaging fiends.
· Easily navigate through your menu's with the joystick. Once you use it you'll never go back.
· More aesthetically pleasing that the T68m. Great design and small size.
· Long battery life. Talk for hours. Go days without recharging.
· Large memory size. Store 510 phone entries and lots of pictures, ring tones, and other multimedia.
· MMS. Send pictures, animations, and sounds with your text messages.
· T9 Predictive Text. Type faster with predictive text. It completes words for you as you're typing them.
· Incredible set of software applications. Ericsson has outdone itself yet again. Everything this phone could possibly have is packed in here. Voice control, calendar, stop watch, composer, etc.
· Great versatility and customizability. Backgrounds, ring tones, screen savers, and themes. Is there nothing this phone can't change? Oh yeah, faceplates. (Unless it's 3rd party)
· Connect from anywhere with any means necessary. Bluetooth, IrDA, GPRS, Triband, WAP, etc. The list is endless.
Cons
· Poor to Average RF performance. Good voice clarity and quality, but unable to maintain or get a small signal.
· Lack of message summary information. When you get a lot of messages you can't tell them apart without opening each one.
· Arguably worse games than the T68m. Tetris is gone...
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· Tiny buttons makes it hard for people with big fingers to press. You may suffer from button smashing syndrome.
Conclusion
As you can see there are a lot more Pros than Cons. However, the RF problems is significant. If you can't get a stable connection what good is a phone? If you can live with it or get good reception we'd recommend it. We give the T68i an overall rating of:
Above Average |
| Common misspellings on this brand: ericss9n , ericssoin , sohy |
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