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The t68i Replacement is Here
interdigitate writes "The new T610 was been unveiled today by Sony Ericsson. This is the t68i replacement and its supposed to improve on it in every aspect. It has a 16bit color screen, Polyphonic ringtones, a built in digital camera, GPRS, Bluetooth (ofcourse), and most importantly it has Synchronization which should mean it will work with apple's iSync! " So... pretty. Must... resist.
The telephone aspect of the phone had to be removed to save space.
Looking at the Specs half way down there is apparently DRM (Digital Rights Management). Does this mean that I can't have WAV's as ringtones now? :P
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
How about a model that lets you chat via IRC? That one I'll buy for sure.
I'm very happy to see more wireless communications which don't require people to be chattering all the time. If they're too bored to watch the movie, participate in church, watch the play, etc., now they can busy themselves silently.
OTOH, is this going to be banned from theaters and other venues where cameras are prohibited? At what point do we end up with unenforceable "no camera" rules?
Terrycloth Lobster
I have a t68, and hope to god they have fixed the awful speed of the predictive text messaging. It is truly slow, and not much difference if any from the t68i.
Here's hoping
Is it a boat?
Finally a decent phone from Sony-Ericsson. Hopefully this will help to stop Ericsson from bleeding to death.
Too bad I can't afford this. But maybe it's just as good as I would just destroy it after too much beer.. =)
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
But what I want to know is why I can't use it with my verizon service. Everyone I talk to says none of the ericson(sp) phones are not compatible with the network here in MI.
This is my post. Deal with it.
Wow! Up to 2mb of memory available! I almost wet myself, I could store almost two floppy disks on there!
(oh, wait...)
Smegma.
Please!!!! No more ringtones. How many more versions of electronic renditions of Beethovens 9th do we have to listen to ?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
The thing I love about Sony-Ericsson, and the reason why I will continue to buy their phones over Nokia's which I otherwise prefer to use, boils down to this:
:)
Bluetooth.
S-E are putting it in a lot of their phones; Nokia are putting it in very few. You haven't seen how cool Bluetooth is until you run iSync with a mac, or get Romeo controlling your mac from the other side of the room through your phone.
It's very cool
-- james
Again, when did DRM become a *feature* for end users? And exactly what are they using DRM for here... ringtones?
Wow, according to their web site it has plenty of memory also to store photos and other garbage. A whopping 2 MB! That tremendous number is 7% the size of my hard drive back in 1992. Why do they even bother wasting space with a camera? My 3 year old digital camera could barely fit one picture on there.
OK, enough complaining, the phone actually looks cool. Just don't get the camera in the phone thing.
the T610 is fully compatible with any computer. Your phone books and calendars will stay synchronized and updated
Sounds promising, but is this also true for the various open-source calendar software? I've tentatively been looking for non-Windows synchronization software for my t39m without any luck.
I have a T68m and it works great with iSync...So I don't know what you mean by that. Phone looks pretty sweet. But will we see it in the US before 3G phones come out???
DRM (Digital Rights Management)
It's got this 'Music DJ' function, but just how capable is it if it's got DRM. Is it crippled beyond belief? And with e-mail and Java built-in, how long before we see the first T610 virus?
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
Say what you like, but the SonyEricsson corporate branding is really fucking good.
No doubt they spent more on that logo than most people earn while they are taking a shit at work.
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
the antenna strength. I shutter when someone walks into my store to buy the t68i. It looks cool, everyone wants a color screen phone, but about two thirds of them are returned. Horrible reception compared to the Nokia gsm phones.
**This is with AT&T's new GSM network.
So, GSM phone. That means it only works with "T-Mobile" in the states, right? The company with decent calling plans, but the shittiest service, worst calling areas, no roaming (that's what "no roaming fees!" means...you can't roam at all with an all-digital phone!) worst building penetration and no plans to improve any of these? The one that paid several million dollars for their spokesman, and it was Jamie Lee Curtis? No thanks, man. I'll stick with my POS $30 Kyocera and Verizon, where I spend a lot extra to get the basic level of service I should get with everybody -- service that works indoors, service that works in the mountains as well as in the city, service that works in Canada and Mexico and the peace of mind to say "no, go ahead and call me, my phone will be on, I get service everywhere?"
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Then I got a T68i last fall. Now I have a Bluetooth adapter for my Mac, a Jabra Bluetooth headset, and a Palm Tungsten T. Amazingly, it all Just Works together. I can sync the Mac to both the Palm and the T68i, use Bluetooth to copy themes and ringtones to the phone, leave the phone buried in my pocket and use the Palm to dial it (I keep more of the database in my Palm than I do in the phone - I only keep the 50 or so most likely numbers in the phone), and just use the Jabra to talk.
Once set up, Bluetooth is actually pretty neat stuff. Personally, it's now a feature I will look for going forward in phones, computers, and accessories.
This new T610 phone looks interesting, but I'm not sold on cameras in my phones. I'd rather save the size and go small.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
and man does that new phone work fine! I just called your wife and phone sex is better than ever was :)
.5mm to allow for your increased sexual satisfaction.
Well luckily for you they increased the size of the microphone hole another
Hey - it has J2ME !! You can write it yourself !!
J2ME gives you control over some SMS aspects, the GPRS data channels. If you want an example - head over to http://www.wireless-village.org to how they implement some of this over the SMS channel.
I've been keeping an eye on the Ericsson developers site for a while now, being a j2me developer and to be honest I'm a bit disappointed with this new phone. I'm sure it's great technically, but Ericsson are doing the bare minimum to support java developers. Their "emulator" for the P800 was simply a skin for the reference emulators in Sun's Wireless Toolkit, and since their documentation is little more than sales pitch (that I've found at least) it appears they have no extended APIs to take advantage of sound or other phone specific features.
So what this means is that people buying this, hoping to be able to download whizz-bang games are going to be a bit disappointed. There's no way of knowing whether it even supports image transparency for christ's sake. If you're interested in Java apps, then Nokia or Siemens are the way to go as both have pretty good APIs and very good documentation (Sprint java phones apparently have their own classes for sound too).
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
It still doesn't look anything as nice as Nokia. It has Bluetooth, aye, but is it a requirement to look bloody ugly to have a bluetooth? :/
Someone mentioned unenforceable camera rules in theaters and the like. Add to that military personnel that will be unable to take this phone to work. I'd imagine intelligence agencies as well.
I had a sucky sig.
That's a really pretty screen and I fear it getting scratched up against my pen or pocket knife. Why wouldn't it have a flip over protector?
This phone looks ok, but has anyone seen the P800?
;-). It can do just about everything the T610 can do + lots more. I think the only bad thing about it is the Sony memorystick instead of SD or something.
The P800 is verily cool - I would get one if I wasnt a poor student (you can send me money if you want, cheers
3G phones seem to almost be here (UK). I wonder what they'll be like. Anyone know S-E's pland for 3G? What I want is a phone that I use as a PC when I'm at home, not just on the move (with a contact lense screen of course).
http://dave1010uk.blogspot.com/ - the st
RE:"I don't understand. Why would anyone want a thing that wasn't the P800?"
Size. The P800 is a very wide brick. And since I carry my phone in my front left pocket along with my wallet, every cubic mm is important.
Ericsson T68/T68i: 100mm x 48mm x 20mm
Ericsson T610: 102mm x 44mm x 19mm
Ericsson P800: 117mm x 59mm x 27mm
3 billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines.
the T800 is next
Johns: Well, how does it look now? Riddick: Looks clear.
They let you control iTunes, Keynote, PowerPoint, DVD Player
Sony Clicker has a proximity sensor, applescripts lauch like check mail and iTunes play when you walk in the room
Romeo lets you use the joystick on the phone like a mouse
One is availible from www.versiontracker.com the other from www.macupdate.com
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I have the T68i with the bluetooth headset and the "Communicam" and it's an OK phone. It's not all that special. I also don't see what makes this newer version all that special or "a new generation." It seems like a marginal set of tweaks and the permanent installation of the camera.
Not that I'm looking for MORE features. My T68i crashes about once a month, which is totally unacceptable for a phone! It is already feature-bloated. Please, be a phone first and best!!
the new Nokia 3650 (came on sale here two days ago). I just bought one and I must say it's the nicest phone I've used. It comes with all features of the T610 (minus DRM) and then some. The most important features in my opinion of the 3650 that T610 lacks are: more memory (3.4MB internal memory + memory card, mine came with 16MB card, vs. 2MB of T610), bigger screen (176x208 vs. T610's 128x160) and video capture. Also the 3650 looks nicer than the T610 IMHO. On the other hand T610 is smaller and lighter at least on paper, although I have to say that the 3650 is by no means "heavy".
Other than that there are many similarities between the phones. Both are tri-band, run the Symbian OS, both have a camera, bluetooth, infrared, Java, e-mail etc.etc.
Of course these are just my opinions, but you should at least check out the 3650 if you're considering the T610.
With java support, is there a a java ssh client that would work on this phone (or any other small java phone)?
There is scant online documentation about using ssh on a java phone.
" These combined devices are too big and the battery life typically sucks. I think that you make too many compromises by throwing everything into the same device. I think that it is better to split them up.
The phone should be as small as possible with awesome battery life. Simple email, contact list, and calendar access is a must. I always carry the phone."
You've obviously never seen a T68i. It's about as small as it can be whilst allowing me to actually press the buttons. It will run almost a fornight on standby (ie on but not transmitting phone calls) and even using the clip on MP3 player I generally only have to charge it once a working week.
It has bluetooth and IrDA, uses GSM and GPRS standards and works fine with my PDA both as a modem for internet usage and synching it's phone book and calendar via OBEX.
Erm, exactly what you're on about!
Now, I really don't mean this as a troll. I looked at the phone, and I tried to think of what I could do with it and what it provided me over anything else, and I couldn't really think of anything.
Yes, bluetooth is cool. I can get behind that.
But a standalone PDA is going to be better than the built-in PDA, if for no other reason than it has more memory.
A standalone digital camera will be better because it'll have more memory and a better lens.
A standalone phone will be no worse, and from the looks of it, it'll be easier to talk on and handle because it's smaller.
Half decent versions of all these things would probably even cost less. They didn't have a price on that page that I could see, but the T68i was pretty pricy. Is it all just a space/convenience thing? Are people that anxious to free up some space that they'll use a somewhat inferior all-around package instead of 3 high quality individual pieces? Do geeks really not want to carry a bag around?
Now, being a programmer, I've never really had a use for a PDA (no meetings or things to remember...I never used the PDAs that I had), I'm only starting to want a cell phone (and even then, it's mostly because I bicycle on my own a lot) and I've been doing okay with SLR film cameras (though a digital would be awfully nice with a couple good lenses...) Maybe I'm missing everything about this phone except the 'cool' factor of owning a high-tech cutting edge phone.
This is the t68i replacement and its supposed to improve on it in every aspect. It has a 16bit color screen
Am I the only one who tried figuring out what the heck t68i and 16bit were in script-kiddish before my brain took back over...
--
Some days it's not even worth uploading my consciousness
Here is some shareware to control PowerPoint and Keynote from your S-E.
http://homepage.mac.com/jonassalling/Shareware/
Pretty slick stuff. You can also control iTunes with it as well. And it has a "proximity sensor" so when you and your phone are out of range, iTunes will pause. When the phone comes back in range, iTunes starts playing again. It's all mac-based right now. Bunch of AppleScripting going on in the background as well, I believe.
Yeah, 'cause as we all know, before DRM was invented in the last few years, no content existed. All those movies, music, works of art, books, and software created before the existence of DRM are just a big collective hallucination. After all, we all know people would never create anything without absolute total control until the end of time, right? This website is a perfect example. Would slashdot even exist if DRM wasn't stopping us from cut-and-pasting the slashdot headlines, blantantly stealing Malda's content? Would Linus Torvalds have ever created Linux without DRM to protect it? I think not.
I don't...only because I just got a P800 on Friday, but it does look to be a SCHWEET leetle tang!
Seriously, the cam IS very helpful - I snap the photos of people when I grab their phone numbers, so when a call comes in I can see who it is. Mounted in my car, it's great - I can instantly associate the photo without having to actually read anything, which makes driving alot safer.
The polyphonic ring tones can be as annoying as anything else out there, but it can also be a hell of alot less harsh on the ears. Boss calls, theme from "Empire Strikes Back" softly plays. 'Nuff said.
I love my Sony - I immediately replaced my Siemens SL45i and Palm Vx at once and never looked back. The new Sony line is kickass...
I have a t68i, and I can't wait until my contract is up in a month or two so I can renew and get a Nokia phone. (So I don't have to pay full price for the phone)
I bought the t68i based on features before actually testing the phone.
1) It was slow until I got a refurbished model which is faster.
2) The microphone is WAYYY too sensative, nothing but background noise! My girlfriend hates it when I'm in a car or airport.
3) Bluetooth-schmootooth, there's nothing THAT cool about it yet...sure there's a few tricks, and maybe sync-ing address books is all right...but there's not enough practicality in it yet.
3) The antenna is horrible, you put a finger on it and the strength goes down a notch or two. And that's not just because it's GSM...I've used my phone in 10 different cities by now...some have better signal than others, but the antenna is putrid.
4) Not a rugid phone. Anytime it has ever been dropped, I'm worried I'm out of luck!
5) Anytime I go out of range, it takes more than 5 minutes to re-establish -- it's faster to turn the phone off and turn it back on -- what kind of crap is that?
I can't wait to get a nokia phone again, I've been searching eBay -- but I want to test the phone first.
It might be feature-rich, bluetooth, and a good battery -- but as a phone IT SUCKS!
Okay, it doesn't look anywhere near as pretty as the T68i, but that's hardly a big deal. The thing is, like the T68i, it has an internal antenna, which means it's reception is going to suck as bad as the T68i's did. You can tack on all the features in the world, but when you keep dropping connection in iffy areas, I'm just not impressed.
I really hope that SE has improved the antenna on this model. The t68i has mediocre reception, especially for initiating a call or sending an SMS. This has proved true both on T-Mobile and on foreign networks I have tried. I appreciate a lot of the features on the latest SE phones, but why does it seem that every phone that comes out now builds in a digital camera? They have no optical zoom, poor resolution, and occupy lots of silicon real estate. I'd say SE needs to tilt their R&D budget a few more degrees toward usability over bells and whistles.
Have you seen my stapler?