A Detailed Review Of A 3G Phone And Network

An anonymous reader writes "The NEC e606 and 3's recently launched 3G network has been reviewed at Mobileburn. They seem to be happy with the network, but the phone is buggy and unfinished. One cool thing is that you can download sample videos to see what 3G is really like."

Comments

3G Rollout

[aerojad]

Just wondering, I haven't really heard much more about in a while, but whatever happened to the huge rollout of 3G services that we were promised back in 1999-2000. I remember one company in particular, Qualcomm, had wonderful times in 99 on the 3G hype, but it never really delivered as much as promised, and only had a huge rollout in Japan. Is that finally changing, and are these 3G phones that we look at actually ready to be used nationwide yet, or are we still talking major-city-only deals?

Re:3G Rollout

[ChilyWily]

Well there are two major reasons why 3G hasn't taken off (atleast in the US):

* The spectrum sales were done in years when money was no issue - unfortunately the dot com bust hit and suddenly the operators who had spent all their dough getting the spectrum had none left to actually build the infrastructure. (that's not to belittle the whole other issue of a seriously fragmented spectrum range here in the US where getting enough band to support 3G is pretty difficult for large operators - and almost impossible for new entrants)

* 3G is a major step ahead as far as the wired backhaul of the cellular infrastructure is concerned. With major companies (e.g. Lucent, Motorola) still cringing from the shock of vendor financing it's upto the operators (Sprint, Verizon et al) to buy the (expensive) upgrades themselves. In this climate today that's increasingly difficult - though there is some hope with people adopting intermediatry technologies. (I believe Verizon is moving ahead steadily on that one too).

But the fundamental questions remain: Do we really need 3G? What is the compelling reason? And will it be cost effective for end users or so overpriced that no one will be able to get it?

Obligatory

[Wesley Felter]

That site was slashdotted so fast it must be running on a 3G phone.

Poor coverage?

[Archon-X]

A pilot friend of mine recently looked into getting a 3G phone, it'd be nice to be ableto see his wife and kids when doing long haul etc, but the major flaw that he could see wasn't the phone, but the covereage.. the 3G coverage is not global, in fact it's limited to a handful of countries apparently..

Re:Poor coverage?

[superpeach]

Make that a handful of cities in a handful of countries. 3 have different types of coverage, there is the voice only coverage (so, normal mobile phone) which is pretty much the whole of the UK and then there is the video coverage which you can get when you are in certain towns/cities.

Sample Videos

[Psychic Burrito]

This is a direct link to the 3G sample videos.

I think it's funny that one needs to install another video player considering that the videos are supposed to be .MP4 files which should just play fine with Quicktime according to the Apple PR department... especially 3G phone files... strange... :-(

Re:3G make for....

[tomstdenis]

Don't forget that with these higher speeds they can drop your calls quicker :-)

Hey instead of making phones with high speed networks can we make DSL/cable setups with high speed networks? :-)

Or howabout not charge an arm and a leg for anything todo with a phone. E.g. changing an ESN shouldn't cost money!

That being said I'd certainly love the privilege of paying 0.30$/min to download 160x120 worth of crap at HIGHER speeds than I can [9600bps current or whatever CDMA is]. It's amazing reading websites one word per line. Wow!

Tom

java

[akb]

The most intersting point I found in the article was the one about how the reviewer talked about being disappointed that it was hard to load 3rd party apps onto the phone and how much value he placed on that.

Its good to see phones supporting java, cell phones will be an increasingly crucial platform its good to see some openness.

Anyone have links to any development sites or places where 3rd party apps might be available. Ogg vorbis on a cell phone?

Re:java

[Anonymous Coward]

Look here

Re:3G make for....

[tomstdenis]

Actually I live in Canada. And I find all the extra doo-dahs totally useless. I make and receive calls. That's about it. I hate having to pay extra for the infrastructure used to entertain toys of the minute BS like picture phones, 10Mbit/sec 1X networks, etc...

Tom

3G is all hype...

[WIAKywbfatw]

Never have I seen a new technology that was more hyped up but less uselss than 3G.

The marketing people behind these products seem to have forgotten that the whole point of having a mobile phone is so that you can talk to people.

Why do I need video calling when audio calling works just as well at a fraction of the cost?

Why do I need picture messaging when text messaging (SMS) works just as well at a fraction of the cost?

Why do I need to be able to slowly download movie trailers, news and sports clips to watch on a tiny screen when I can watch those things on my TV or PC at a fraction of the cost?

Right now, with no decent applications, 3G is a joke. The only thing I've seen that even demonstrates a good use of this technology is doctors sending each other picture messages of patients' X-rays when looking for a second opinion. I guess it could be useful to other professionals too, such as estate agents, but for the price you pay to send a picture message right now you'd have to be mad to use it constantly like it was a digital camera.

If you've got money to burn then go ahead and buy one of these phones. But if you've got that much money to waste then you can send me some too at the same time.

Re:3G is all hype...

[Kenshin]

Why do I need video calling when audio calling works just as well at a fraction of the cost?

Why do I need picture messaging when text messaging (SMS) works just as well at a fraction of the cost?

Why do I need television when radio works just as well at a fraction of the cost?

Why do I want a phone when a telegraph works just as well at a fraction of the cost?

Yes, things are expensive and buggy when they first hit the scene, but give them a few years and they will go down in cost and go up in reliability.

Personally, I think a video cellphone would be wonderful. Cellular is the perfect platform to introduce it to, since POTS tech is kinda at its limits.

Did anyone notice

[headbulb]

That the camera is placed such that if you place the phone up to your ear. That the people could see inside. WOW your heads so empty.

My executive summary

[tftp]

• The phone is heavy, buggy and runs out of power in a day if left unused. If you talk a lot you need to carry spare batteries!
• The phone is badly designed, has tons of defects, and generally suffers from being the first.
• The audio quality is as bad as always (probably due to standard G.7xx codecs.)
• The 3G network has poor coverage.
• There is little to no content on the network.
• Video calls require handsfree kit and a head vice.
• The phone is no more useful than any other phone. Actually, it has worse coverage than AMPS.

So here is the question: who needs this phone and this 3G network? Am I alone in rejecting Web browsing on a tiny LCD, often paying per minute? Am I alone in treating this 3G propaganda as pure marketing that doesn't satisfy any real need that people have?

3G Distorts Gravity?

[Freddles]

From the article:

> Weighing in at 150g, the e606 is no lightweight,
> but it certainly didn't feel as heavy as other phones
> that weigh this much

Huh?

I have the sidekick

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

I have an excellent GSM phone. It's a 2.5G GPRS device. It takes photos, albeit low-resolution ones. It has a nice color screen. It has AIM and SMS. It has a great microbrowser. And, to top it all off, it has an excellent *real* QWERTY keyboard. None of that "T9 predictive text entry" garbage... I can type 20 WPM on this thing. Think Blackberry, but spaced more. It runs a custom Java OS with a nice SDK. And the user interface is excellent.

Add to that the fact that I get 200 voice minutes, 1000 weekend minutes, no roaming (anywhere in my country), no long distance (anywhere in my country).

I also get unlimited GPRS data. Yeah, that's right. Last month I transferred 130MB of data.

Oh, yeah, of course, and I can roam onto any GSM/GPRS network in my country (there are three major ones) and not pay roaming. And, of course, I can also switch to a different phone and keep my SIM card. Or switch to a different provider and keep my phone.

All for about $40 per month.
I paid nothing for the phone, but I had to sign up for a year.

Any guesses where I live? It's the country with the first EDGE service. It's also the country with the most GSM towers.

It's the USA.

I love 3G data services!

[Daniel Wood]

I'm typing this e-mail from my laptop connected to the net through my Sanyo phone and Sprint PCS Vision.
I pay $10/month for Unlimited data usage, and it is well worth it.
I have been using this setup since November 2002. The coverage is excellent and the speed is awesome, except on Sunday evenings.
My average download speed is over 100kbits. If I use multisource downloading I can almost always pull 138+kbits with bursts up to 250kbits.
Supprisingly the upload is much faster than the download. Average upload speed is over 150kbits with bursts of over 350kbits.
The only thing the service is not suitable for is low latency applications(games). Ping times average 1500+ in game, with over 50% PL.

This service is a roadwarrior life saver.

GPRS good enough for me

[d99-sbr]

I'm sticking with GSM/GPRS for a few more years. We now have pretty much 100% GPRS-coverage in Sweden, and it works very well. Together with WAP it is quite a decent solution. My phone is rated at 48kbps, and lives up to its promises. Personally, I'd rather have a stable 48kbps than a flaky 376 kbps. Data rates has got to come down further. I get 3MB free and then pay 19 SEK (~2.1 EUR) for every additional MB, which certainly does not allow for web surfing.

Re:Wrong idea

[ctid]

Are you in North America by any chance? The thing about "sounding like garbage" is not a concern in the UK where I live. In the cities at least, phones tend to have very good reception.

As for the PDA functionality, it's a logical next step, because virtually EVERYONE carries a mobile phone. If manufacturers want to sell us a PDA, it's going to have to have phone functionality otherwise we'll have to carry two gadgets.

Having said all that, my friend got one of these e606s and he's not been overwhelmingly impressed by it. "Early adopter syndrome", I keep telling him. "Yeah, but it was free", he tells me back.

Waiting for critical mass or killer app....

[amembleton]

Well, I'm waiting for more ppl to sign up for 3G. So far I know of one person, of course, they can't actually make use of the video call feature cos they've got no one to call. I'm gonna wait until it gets to a point where ppl want to video chat with me and then I'll go and get one.

Alternativelly I'll buy one if my network (Orange) shuts down its 2G service or if a killer app is produced for the phones. I can't think what though.

The first phones are always going to be poor, in three years they'll be far superior and probably worth purchasing.