Customer Reviews

Sony Ericsson T226 Phone (AT&T)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Wow, unbelievable amount of negative reviews for this solid, compact little guy.

Where to start...After two years im moving on to another phone, this was my first cell phone ever, I was stoked as hell to get such a tiny moderm marvel, I quickly dove in to see what this phone had to offer...and realize it has MUCH more than meets the eye if you probe it for a bit...

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Pros -

- Durable DURABLE DUURRABBLLEE!!!! - Did I mention this phone was durable? I've dropped it in a hottub for 20 minutes at a time without realizing, dropped it 20 feet from a top riser at staples (im an employee), and also driven away with it on the top of my truck in the middle of a fight with a girlfriend and had it land in a ditch full of water in 3 pieces only to find it 30 hours later...all of which the phone instantly booted upon me putting it back together. Id be happy to ever have another piece of electronic equipment that was as durable as this phone.

- Tiny, sleek, compact, non flip (I prefer non flip) - The way I can throw this thing in my pocket/truck/bookbag is great, its not too bulky, and looks cool...plus no flippin it open, just look...

- Ability to download own ringtones, pics, games - This is where it really stands out, if your a techie, you can set up your own WAP server / website (which i did), and host all the ringtones, games, and pics that you want...and also, I did some research, and took the ability to put your voice as a ringtone, and figured out what the file format was, and found a way to convert .mp3's to be able to play as a ringtone on this phone! But I guess thats only useful if your a tech nut.

- Battery Life - I dont know what everyone else is raving about, after nearly 2 years, im finally seeing my battery life start to deteriorate...This phone has gone through 3 Phone hungry girlfriends and sometimes id be on for hours at a time, 5-6 days in a row with one charge...

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Cons - Very few...

-Life - After 2 years, battery life is growing bad, and the buttons are all washed out, even some of the paint is coming off, but hell, thats after 2 years, its almost expected.

-No camera / mp3 support - These arent even an issue for me but I thought I'd throw 'em in there anway...who the hell needs a camera on their phone? Thats what my uh...camera is for...and frankly, I find most .mp3 ringtones obnoxious anyway...

-SOMETIMES slow OS - Sometimes the menu will lag up when I get too fast for it, but that could just be the tech inside of me flying through the menu's and tappin away at the txt menu screen.

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Overall, I give this little guy 5 out of 5 stars no question. I'd recommend it to any first time cell user, teenage, or even tech buff, it covers all the areas that all of those would require.

And for the next phone? Should be here soon, Im sticking with sony and purchased a Z520a...

-Andy

Unlike all the other reviewers - almost all of them, anyway - I really like my phone. I got it for Christmas 03 and it has always worked beautifully and never broken even when I dropped it in a parking lot. Doesn't scrach easily and the ONLY probs are that sometimes (once in a blue moon) it will black out. AND you have to attach the camera which irritates me. :(

~Sock

I've had my T226 phone for a couple weeks so far and I have had nothing to complain about. Reception in Fresno and LA has been very good. The phone is very light and compact, it easily fits in my pants pocket. Checking the weather forecast and sports scores is quite easy, an unexpected bonus. The only downside that I have observed is that in bright sunlight the color screen can be difficult to read.

This phone is being used with Cingular Wireless.

1. long lasting battery (you don't have to recharge it as frequentyly as some of the flip phones)
2. The screen color is not as great as what I was looking at online
3. Its kind of smaller than I thought it was
4. Nice ringtones
5. I would perfer Verizon, but Cingular has rollover minutes, and if Verizon had rollover, I would definitly get Verizon over Cingular. But Cingular is still an okay, phone company.

I've had this phone for 7 months, and for all seven months have been pretty diappointed. I live in an area that gets fine reception on every other phone I've had. This phone, however cuts out just about every 3rd word from the person on the other end. I have to just figure out what I think they probably said for the conversation to flow and am constantly saying "what, what?". It has gotten to where I just don't even use it unless I have to. I use a land line when I can - very inconvenient. It seems rather sensitive too - I dropped it once from about 2 feet up and it wouldn't work for 3 days, which was when I took it to Cingular to fix. They were quite helpful. I realize you shouldn't drop a cell phone, but I've dropped most cell phones I've had numerous times, and none of them ever missed a beat.
I would not recommend this phone to any of my friends or family. I was thrilled when cingular sent me a letter the other day saying I qualified for a new phone. I'm sticking with Nokia or Motorola from now on!

I've read lots of bad reviews of this phone used with the AT&T Network but I've had no problems using it with Cingular. The phone does indeed appear cheaply made (the look of the plastic they used is unfortunate) but apparently looks can be deceiving as it's taken all kinds of abuse over the last year and I've had no problems. The color display is so-so but I've enjoyed using the free software from the Sony Ericcson website to turn my photos into wallpaper. The ringtones are nice and can be uniquely assigned to contacts in your phonebook. Most importantly though, reception is excellent everywhere I use the phone and standby time is absolutely amazing (greater than 2 weeks.) The phone was free with my plan and I have no major complaints.

THIS BY FAR THE BEST PHONE. I HAVE HAD THIS PHONE FOR ABOUT 2YRS AND IT WORKS BETTER THAN MOST OF MY FRIENDS NEW PHONES. I HAVE HAD VERY FEW PROBLEMS WITH THIS PHONE.

**December 27 2003**

Once I had laid eyes on this phone, I was set to buy it. I admit it is sort of a woman's phone because of it's small size and color, but I am going to change the face plate. But I love small phones, especially the flip phones. I purchased this one from Cingular for $130 because I lost my other phone and I had already signed a new contract. The minute I took this phone home,I was quite disappointed by it's features. For one the phonebook is ridiculously horrible. The only things I can store is a person's name and only 1 phone number for them. With my old phone, the Motorola V60i, I was able to store their name, cell, house, work, and main number in addition to their email. So you can imagine how disappointed I was with my new phonebook. I am also saddened by the fact that I can't download ringtones onto my phone, instead I must compose them onto my phone which takes time. But this is a great sounding phone and the color screen is great! I can admit that the buttons are extremely small although it hardly bothers me except if I start playing a game on it. The phone's other features are quite great though, the MMS messaging, the email, chat and text messaging. Overall, I would give this phone a 6.5 out of 10

**Tuesday August 10th 2004 UPDATE REVIEW**

By now I've mastered the inner functions to this phone and must say that it has a handful of options not immediately open to the eye. One must get to know this phone quit well in order to actually use it to the fullest extent. Although now I would rate this phone at about an 8/10, I still would prefer a different phone. A disappointment here is the lack of speakerphone, and a larger variety of games and modern song ringtones. I must say nonetheless that the size is great and compact and is a modestly good phone for those not willing to spend the big dollars on full scale camera phones.

It's not that this is a bad phone. It just had a lot of glitches, freeze spots, processor slow-downs, etc. I guess Sony Ericsson didn't quite test this one as well as it should have. There are plenty of free phones out there, but avoid this one. It has an updated counterpart, if you want to look into that.

I've had this phone for a year and for the first few months it worked perfectly fine. Then in May my text messeges started delaying by a few hours. A friend would send one at 6:30 pm and I'd get it at 2:30 at the morning! I told cingular about the problem and they said it would be back to normal within a couple weeks. Five months went by and it just got worse. Soon I wasn't able to even send anything. But luckily it works now but I'm not sure how long it will. Overall its a good phone. Its small and easily fits in my pocket or backpack. Its simple to use too. I like the bright color screen, and the ringtones are okay but I wish there was a better selection. You can also record stuff to use as a ringtone or make a personal memo. Like I said: Good phone, bad service.