3G Phones

[Harry Lime]

Has anyone had any experience with 3G handsets?

What did you think of them?

[mutiny]

My friend has one, Its the clamshell NEC and its on 3, He seems to have nothing but trouble. Hes convinced that there are real monkeys on the other end of the technical help lines and he gets poor reception in his area (so phone call cut out galore).

It also has bad video quality when video conferencing and cost him a packet. But then this is only a vey early attempt and he does find the download services where he can watch football free good. They were running that free as a promotion but im not sure if they still are.

[jim]

A few of my friends have phones on the 3 network and I have had a play around with both the NEC e606 and the NEC e808N.

The picture quality on both phones is poor it's hard to believe that they have 65k colour screens for example the Nokia 7650 and the SE P800 screens with only 4096 colour look more natural and my friends Panasonic GD88 (65k screen) blows both the NEC phones out of the water in picture quality.


The menu layout of the phones are difficult to navigate and are inconsistent in operation for example to access some of the features you have to press the soft key and on others you can press the 5-way button.

The video call feature on the phones isn't the best, the sound comes out a couple of seconds before you see their lips move and the picture isn't smooth it's very jerky.

I originally thought the jerky picture only occurred when you made a video call due to information having to travel from one phone to an other but when I tried the video record feature of the phones I found the picture to once again be jerky unlike my friends Nokia 7650 which was smooth flowing

My friends also said that they found the phones to be a bit big but could live with them. In my opinion the e606 was not bad in this regard it was long but you could live with it. The e808N on the other hand was just too wide to be used comfortably and when closed from a distance it resembled a womens purse.

My friends also said that the battery life of their phones were poor generally lasting them only a day before needing to recharge

In the end the main reason they did switch to 3 was for the caped voice calls

[wan pak hin]

hmm.. i love my NEC e606!! it is great, full of features! i get NO DROPPED calls! and can even get 3G reception briefly on the underground, the phone i admit is a bit on the hefty side but it is crammed with features, and ohhh.. my NEC e606 is one of the later models which unlike some of the older ones my phone is made in china! whilst all older NEC e606's are made in japan and reportdly their are some problems with many NEC e606's for being slow at text's etc.. but on my phone i have no such problem! and well the camera is not upto par with say the.... sony ericsson T610 and nokia 7250i etc.. but the camera is good enough quality for a quick snap shot if you are in a hurry! i mean instead of going through my bag to grab my digi cam, i could just quickly take a pic with phone camera that is only use for it i find! and of course video calls!, and englands price package compared to australia is very different i think! i get £10 of free content including video calls for first 3 months! and free premiership downloads for 3 months!, but their is another problem, if you leave the phone on AUTO 3G mode! everytime you come out of 3G reception it takes a massive bite out of what little battery time i have on it and goes to 2G which actually whilst on 2G the battery life goes quicker then on 3G MODE! so i leave my e606 on 3G MANUAL! but as soon as i loose reception that is it, it's gone! and i have to turn mt phone off and back on again! to get my 3G covrage back! which is kind of a problem, the video call quality is OK considering all 3G phones even in japan and south korea have same quality video calls so the quality is roughly the same in all countries with 3G video cabable phones!, so it is a great phone BUT and this is a big BUT if you want a "3" phone wait until JANURARY or FEBURARY!! for the sony ericsson Z1010 to be released! as it may be roughly the same size as my phone but.. it uses the space alot better! it has external lcd, memory stick port and will have a better camera!, but for me i have to wait until next july until i can upgrade to a new "3" handset! so i just hope more and more phones are released so i have a better choice to choose from when upgradeing!, also one last thing people may say it weighs the same wieght as a breeze block etc.. but it is actually lighter or at least feels lighter then many other phones! i can safely say it is much much lighter then a nokia 3330 and around the same weight as a nokia 3650 possibly!

[Harry Lime]

Thanks for all the feedback guys.