Your cell phone manufacturer?

[Snyder]

S-E T610 for me. I like it, got pretty much all the stuff one wants from a phone and it looks cool too. Only thing that's lacking is it eats quite a lot of battery with bluetooth enabled (recharge every four-five days perhaps with very light useage). Also, the camera is pretty rotten. Res is low, and sensitivity isn't too good either, but it works.

Oh, and the camera DRINKS power, like a thirsty camel too.

I use the T610 as well (company phone). It's true that BT and camera draw lots of power, but: Speech time is awesome. I haven't measured it scientifically, but 6-7h (with good reception) are easily possible. Much better than most other phones I've used, which usually have good standby time, but are drained after 2h of talking.

Another big plus of the T610: Build quality. Apart from scratched surface (which is inevitable if you keep it mostly in your pocket together with the keys) its almost like new. No creaking, no loose parts, no problems with buttons or anything. In this regard it puts Nokia to shame.

Only gripe I have with it is the often unintuitive menu. Nokia still is king I guess when it comes to that.


A question at the end: I want to replace my private cellphone (Nokia 3510i) in the near future - and I'd love to have a phone with MP3 playback. I'm aware of the shortcomings (battery life, mediocre sound) MP3 capable cellphones have, but still:
Which ones can be recommended? Nokia 6230 comes to mind - are there better alternatives?

 

[Dave Baumann]

How's the battery in that thing, Dave? I got a UK friend with the XDA2 model and he reports it doesn't last particulary long if one actually tries to use that thing.

I've used each of the XDA versions over the past 2-3 years now so I can't really give a comparative battery life response as my useage pattern is entriely tuned into using these type of phones/PDA's. Because of the way I use it, and bought it to use, as soon as I get home it sits in the cradle, sync'ing with my PC, and hence charges whilst doing so.

However, If you just had it on standby, I think you can get about 4 days out of it. With general use (PDA / Phone / GPRS Web) it'll probably get a couple of days use out of it (although, as I said, its rare that it'll not be charging at some point for me). If you leave the GPRS on then that can suck the battery life up (and its not massively obvious that its still on if you are fairly new to it), likewise the new Xda IIs I have now has WiFi built in and that does appear to suck the batteries up a bit as well.

 

[JCLW]

I just got a Nokia 3205i and I love it (it replaces a Samsung SCH-T300) I must say Nokia has the best menus of any phone I've ever used. No Bluethooth but full IR - it synchs fine with Outlook and my Palm Pilot so I'm happy. The Nokia phone browser works really well - just point the phone at your IR port and drag&drop pictures, ringtones, videos, contacts (Vcards), etc into or out of the phone. The phone holds aprox 4MB as far as I can tell. For those that havn't seen it:

 

[mkillio]

Sanyo

 

[_xxx_]

I hate huge phones, especially with external antenna. I had a SonyEricsson T600 (the smallest phone I've ever seen, loved it for that), now I got a Siemens SL55, which is also small and handy, but has the worst UI ever. Still better than most "bones" I see people using...

 

[jb]

Since I work at one of these companies... My is also not on the list...because its not annouced yet

Good thing: Working for a phone compnay allows you to play around with all of the new phones during their development

Bad thing: some of these phones need a lot of work and at times I had to have a back up phone because the new stuff was sooo bad I could not count on it to make/receive many calls....

 

[RussSchultz]

Since I work at one of these companies...

Care to share which?

 

[Dave Baumann]

My magic IP button on the forum gives me a BIG hint!

 

[jb]

My magic IP button on the forum gives me a BIG hint!

Oh shush I thought I told you who I worked for a long time ago in a PM? And how come I dont see this "Magic IP button"?

Care to share which?

Maybe...its one of the companies listed. Also doing what I have done here has allowed me to spend some time working in most all areas of our business..including semiconductors....