Multiple phone numbers and text on a
single phonebook entry
Business card exchange
EMS (Enhanced Messaging Service)
Six (6) colour games
Screen saver
Colour themes and backgrounds
Problems/Issues?
Slow response to keypresses
Keys lacking
tactility
Fair sound quality
Menus somewhat hard
to navigate
Joystick takes a
little “getting use to”
Hard to remove
battery
Problems with
business card exchange via SMS?
Poor backlight
Sales package (should
contain):
1 x T68 handset
1 x T68 standard battery (BST-14 – Li-Poly @ 700mAh)
1 x travel charger (CST-13)
1 x T68 carry pouch (blue)
1 x T68 user manual
Overview
An affordable mobile phone that has a colour display! The 8-line (small font) colour display is one of the selling points of
Ericsson’s new T68 tri-band GSM phone that has been packed with what everyone
may need.
It has been a while since I have had the chance to test drive a truly “new”
Ericsson phone. Models, such as the
T29 and T20, possessed many characteristics similar to its predecessors (for
example, the T28 and T10 respectively). The
new design of the T68 gave me a fresh outlook towards what I was going to
expect.
On first glance, the most noticeable characteristic is the missing antenna,
which has gone internal (similar to Nokia phones). The model that I got to preview had the “Ziroccan Gold” front casing.
Weighing at just 84 grams (with the provided Li-Poly battery) and
complemented by the phone’s design, the phone can be handled quite comfortably
with minimal effort. As for most
new Ericsson phones, the phone does have quite a solid feel. The rubbery backing of the phone also assists in the
phone’s tactility – especially when trying to type SMS messages and browse
using WAP!
The first stunning thing, of course, is the colour display. Supported by a white backlight, it was quite easy to read what was on the
screen in terms of clarity. Even in
the daytime where there was enough natural light, it was necessary to have the
backlight on to see what was displayed.
Another major difference was that navigation has been made somewhat easier with
the help of a 5-way (up, down, left, right, depress) joystick – instead of
having to fumble around with individual keys. Although easy to use, it may take some getting use to – depending on
the size of your thumb :)
Next was going through the phone’s menus. With the help of a colour LCD and a larger display, a new presentation of
menu items were achieved through the use if individual icons representing
different sub-menus (again, similar to Nokia phones). For those who have found the menus on previous Ericsson phones “hard to
get around”, and hoped for something easier... sorry, not this time round. Under these icons are the same long lists of menus that were found on
previous models. Fortunately, the
larger screen made it easier to find what menu function you wanted – but it
was still a heap to handle!
The phone’s overall response to keypresses was somewhat slow, especially when
it came to typing SMS messages. Although the
addition of T9 helps with fast-tracking the completion of messages, the phone
has a hard time of catching up with your typing – where sometimes ending up
having to wait for the phone to complete the entire word before one can scroll
through the list of words that you may be wanting to use. A good thing is that the phone buffers (or retains in memory) all the
keypresses that has not been displayed on the screen yet – and not completely
ignore them (the Panasonic GD92 has this problem when typing with T9 on becomes
too much when you’re a fast typist!)
I tried to make a few calls using the T68 – and had found the call quality to
be poorer than the average Nokia phone. Echoes
during a phone conversation are one of the biggest irritants that can drive
callers mad. The problem could have been with the microphone being too
sensitive where it picked up a lot of unnecessary background noise. Another issue could be that the speaker on the T68 was too sensitive
which, at the same time, was affected by the microphone leading to a possible
disruption. One of the callers
asked if I was in an empty room or not (which I wasn’t).
"I
managed to get the setup information for using Telstra's GPRS and got it
working in around 5 minutes."
Setting up WAP was not too
hard. I managed to get the setup information for using Telstra’s
GPRS and got it working in around 5 minutes. Navigating the WAP browser on the T68 was, again, somewhat slow. But with the joystick, this helped in moving around the page. Overall, WAP-ing on the T68 was similar to that on other phones… but
with the bigger screen, I was able to read more than I could on other phones
before having to scroll down.
The T68 also has Bluetooth built into the phone. Unfortunately, I was unable to get hold of any Bluetooth devices that I
could have tested with the phone – but should be a plus when an additional
Bluetooth module is no longer required at the base of the phone (which was the
case for previous Ericsson models).
As for battery life, the phone is speculated to last its user for around 3-4
days standby with the probable average use less than that. Where the battery that I am using has only been charged the first time,
this is not an accurate indication of the phone’s true battery life.
Overview (Page 1)
