Customer Reviews

Sony Ericsson T610 Phone (T-Mobile)

5 star:		(138)
4 star:		(110)
3 star:		(64)
2 star:		(86)
1 star:		(103)

 

 

(...)I been using this phone for a few months now and think it's pretty good. The phone is not however without its faults.

The Bad:

On of the most annoying thing about this phone is that when you have it locked any key pressed will turn on the screen (at reduced brightness). This means that back light spends a lot of time on reducing stand by time.

Something that will bug many people is that this phone is not that fast. The user interface is easy to figure out and is faster then a Motorola T720i but slower then a Nokia 3560, both of which I have owned before.

Another annoying thing is that the buttons are very small. Which is the price you pay for such a sleeking looking phone I guess. In my opinion it's worth it.

Speaking of buttons, they are not reprogramable as with some Motorola phones that I have had in the past.

This phone looks great but scratches easily. Also Sony Ericsson includes a soft terry cloth to clean it off because they know that this thing picks up fingerprints easily.

The reception is one of the best features about this phone. I have used in the throughout the Los Angeles area and in New York City recently. In fact I got a call while on the subway in Brooklyn!

The camera is a gimmick. It's basically useless. But if your subject is about a foot away from the camera and very well light the picture may come out ok. The screen can display much better images then the camera can take. I've used the infrared port to send high quality images to the phone and used them as wallpapers, and this works great.

So for anyone considering this phone I would have to say that you probably couldn't do any better, and at this price (...) I know you couldn't.

What can I say that hasn't already been said before about this phone. Simply put, it's one of the best phones currently out there. Yeah, some people on Amazon have touted how much they love the Nokia 3650 (which I might add is simply too large a cell phone, IMHO, compared to others currently available like the T610). I thought long and hard about getting the T610 and compared it to the Nokia 3650 and I am so happy I went with the T610. If you're on the fence, do yourself a favor: go to your local phone dealer and compare the two side by side. Hold them in your hand, and if you can, switch them on and compare screens, etc. For me, the 3650 just felt - well...like I was holding a very big phone in my hand - too big for my tastes and too big to put in my pocket. I also don't like Nokia's user interface. Nothing out there beats the Ericsson GUI (graphical user interface). It's so intuitive and straight forward that one can master this phone right out of the box in minutes. Design wise, it's simply a work of art. Smooth lines, fits nicely in the hands, buttons are well spaced (although small - but not a problem), all features and functionalities are nicely executed. Bluetooth with the Jabra headset is simply awesome. Very cool and works well. Voice commands work for the most part (I've yet to see it work with ANY phone 100% of the time which is a result of the technology itself and not the phone), infrared (IR) is cool too - you can send contacts or your business card to anybody with a Palm, Handspring, other phone with IR, etc. A very nice feature. Picture associated caller ID is a wonderful feature as are custom ringtones. The ringtone composer (DJ feature) is extremely cool and allows you to completely compose and customize your own individual rings from scratch and they're not wimpy tones, they're like real music thanks to the Megatones feature - this is cooler than it sounds because virtually every phone out there today has annoying standard ring tones and this allows you to freshen yours up if your old one starts to grate the nerves. As for the camera, YES, it's not a 5 megapixel digicam but, like others have said, -- IT'S a PHONE - and just happens to have a camera built into it - it's not a camera with a phone attached. If you really want to take high quality pictures, get a camera. The built-in camera is suitable for what it's used for plus it does have some extra cool features (nite, sapia, etc.). Finally, it feels like a solid phone as it's constructed of aluminum and hard plastic. Nothing cheap about this phone except it's price (FREE!!!).

Good job SonyEricsson - T610 is a well thought upgrade to T68i.

So about a year ago I wrote a review about Samsung S100 and Sony T68i. I opted for T68i for all the features it had to offer. You bet T68i was SLOW! But 610 is much faster and slick! For all those who have had T68i, you will love T610 and for those who are new to the Sony Ericsson world here is a detailed review for you.
I'll speak more from a usability point of view rather than feature listing - you can find features on various websites.

Let's start with Pros:
- Its small, light and easy to carry (even in your shirt pocket)
- Keys well lit / well spaced (important for small phones)
- Large screen and pretty clear (some people complain about reading under direct sunlight - its not convenient under sun but is usable)
- With phones entering the PDA/Camera/MP3 player market and having too many features, SE has done a good job of organizing all its features under 12 icons. (Pictures & Sounds and Profiles have overlaps and could be handled better)
- T610 introduced a back button which can literally take you back to any previous screen!
- Bluetooth / Infrared makes life easier - easy integration with your windows networking and MS outlook
- Very useful "options/more" button: so imagine having the options you need at every point available at the press of a button. Very good planning as phones become more complicated and have only 16-18 keys for user input!
- Glad they swapped the button for space and punctuations while writing messages from T68i. Makes them in agreement with the other mobile manufacturers.
- Reception / battery : "just acceptable" but not top of the line.
- Audio pretty clear
- Polyphonic ring tones can be unheard till few seconds
- Pretty clear indication of new msg / bluetooth / IR / missed calls / battery / signal : all placed in one line on the top of the screen (much better design than previous sonys / nokias / samsungs / etc.)
- pretty easy to use msging (text is more intuitive then picture msging)
- can delete/edit the words that you add in T9 msg writing mode
- cool concept of default number for every user
- great concept of unsaved numbers list.

Ok now for the cons:
- Firmware issues : a big one that many people are not aware of. Firmware is the software running on your little phone. It is a HUGE task to get a firmware upgrade. The one that comes originally from t-mobile is some ancient build (I bought my T610 few weeks ago and I have R1S and R6C is already out, 6 revisions behind !!). Newer firmware fixes problems and sometimes adds more features/options. My previous experience with T68i was that with firmware upgrade the reception improved by a significant factor and other features added were helpful. I am wondering how to get a firmware upgrade for my T610 now.
- No way to keep a track of time of multiple missed calls from same number.
- 2MB is definitely small for a phone with camera and java game
- The t-zones-wap button on the side is not the coolest idea. Could have used that button for better purpose (maybe bookmarks, the current style forces u to go to tzones website)
- Like many other pointed out : screen gets dirty very easily and needs constant wiping.
- the voice-notes is not a very useful feature. it forces u to send it via MMS and not just save it.
- Like T68i : if you want to change one speed dial, you have to copy your entire phonebook AGAIN to your sim card - very poor design

- given how much improvement they made after T68i - camera picture size should have been 640x480 and minimal flash should have been included !
- Some people are not happy about a single call list for outgoing/incoming/missed. Well thats the way SE likes it.
- FINALLY, phones are evolving into PDAs: it has important information such as your contacts, messages, pictures. It needs to be locked - password protection on messages/picture or maybe the overall phone. My cordless sized old sprint sanyo used to have that !!

To wrap up, I would be very satisfied with this phone if the reception was a tad better and the battery lasted a bit longer. I hope the firmware rev would do it (like it did to my T68i)

I replaced my Nokia 3650 with a SonyEricsson T610 after two 3650s up and died. I am delighted with the T610. It's ultra-small, ultra-sleek, and it works very, very well. I miss very few things about my disastrous 3650...

Pros:
- Tiny, compact, solidly built, beautiful
- Loud earphone and good voice quality; better ringtone volume than 3650
- Intuitive, attractive, and polished interface
- Excellent organizer
- E-mail client automatically connects at intervals
- Syncs with Mac OS X and can control Mac computers via Romeo, Salling Clicker
- Excellent Bluetooth implementation
- Good RF*

Cons:
- So beautiful you'll lament every smudge and scratch it accumulates during everyday living
- Reception meter fluctuates wildly and doesn't give a good representation of actual signal strength
- Camera for fun only
- Memory is limited
- Poky Java performance
- Message warnings aren't persistent enough

*One of my main concerns in buying the T610 was that the reception would be worse than the 3650's, as some people complain about the radio on SE phones. I have not found this to be the case; the radio has the same range, dead spots, and clarity in various locations as my old 3650, and even receives SMS and MMS messages in places my 3650 had no signal at all. The signal meter, however, is completely insane, and I've learned to more or less ignore it. You can't compare signal strength by the bars the phone shows, since every manufacturer uses a different standard. In all, I've found the T610's RF to be very good and it holds on to weak signals better than my 3650 did.

I recommend this phone over the 3650. It's MUCH smaller, has a better speaker, seems more solidly built, has an easier keypad, and a much better implementation of BT than the 3650. Things I miss from the 3650: memory expansion, somewhat better camera, speakerphone (though it was too quiet anyway.)

Got one from amazon. Nice promotion, no cost. Received it yesterday, returned it today.

I have AT&T wirelessin SF Bay Area with an older Nokia 6100 phone. It was getting bad signal near my work location (Sunnyvale, CA), so I decided to take the plunge and switch to T-Mobile

Impressions on the phone
1)It is tiny! Still big enough to hold it in your hand (I have small hands)
2)It is more plain-looking than 68i. The screen is nice. But it had greasy spots right off the bat
3)I found the charging process confusing. When fully charged, it still says 'charging...', but the battery stops blinking. I test software for a living, and this counts as a USABILITY BUG: MISLEADING BEHAVIOR:) I thought it was still not charged fully after I left it plugged in overnight
4)The tiny plug of the charger connects to the bottom of the phone. You need to kinda tear it away when done. This does not feel right and will result in damaged plug after some time
5)The battery sits inside the phone under a sliding lid. I found the lid hard to open
6) You have to press a tiny button in pretty deep to turn the phone on and off. I used my fingernail. A paper clip would be more appropriate. The dial keys are also tiny and it is easy to misdial
7) The manual is very primitive and does not cover product features
So I have charged the phone, inserted the smart card, turned it on and... Nothing! After a while it did signal me that it received a couple of text messages with phone number, etc. NO INDICATION that it was initializing the serive... Then I tried to place a call... It flashed Connecting and then nothing!
Then I realized I am getting NO SIGNAL. The row of tiny dots at the top of the screen are actually a signal strength indicator (go look for it in the manual). So it got no signal at my house. I went outside and -- no signal again. Now, my AT&T phone gets full 4 bars in the same location (Campbell, CA).

I talked to T-Mobile tech support, and they called me. I heard the ring but we could not really talk, signal too weak. I guess the anthenna in this Ericsson is tiny, probably 1/3 of my old Nokia's. I have moved to work location and could get 3 bars outside of the building, and place calls. There is a distinct hissing noise. Inside the building I got 1 bar. Same as AT&T

So my question is: who needs all of this? Do you really want a phone with WAP and Bluetooth and games? Can't you play games and surf the web on your PC? And do you really need it to be tiny? Would you want to drive around in a car or maybe get a moped, it is much smaller? Do you want to travel 300 miles before refueling -- or you want to do it every hour? Now, a cell phone is for talking, and it must grab the signal really well, it must fit in my hand and have a good grip, I should be able to dial easily, and it should have good battery life, esp. standby time. My ancient Nokia stays up for a month.

So: no switch this time. Sorry, T-mobile, might want to extend coverage to cover ALL of the silicon valley? How about guaranteeing 3 bars in supported areas -- or money back? Sorry, Sony/Ericsson, next time make a tool, not a toy

Since I got lots of help from reviews, I felt I obliged to contribute some. I want to make it real simple and to be very objective. I got family plan of which my wife's choice was Samsung V-205. Everyone has their own crieteria to choose a phone. Mine is battery life, call quality, siginal quality, and other miscellanious. I am comparing both phones side by side in a same room.

1. Battery life: Sony is comparably good to last 4-5 days, but Samsung hold half day longer under same condition.

2. Call quality: Samsung is definitely better than Sony. It makes bigger and clear sound. It is very difficult to hear the other party's voice with T-610 on busy street, or even in a car. The sound is so small that you will be annoyed at some point. I tried to raise the volume and couldn't find where to on menu.

3. Signal quality: In a same room and same spot side by side, Samsung always has one or two more signal bar. Normally at home with T-mobile in Sourthern Jersey, Samsung would have 3-4, while Sony has 1-2.

4. Menu: Both phones are very intuitively designed to browse around. Samsung is more like Nokia (meaning numbered) while Sony is more like Windows. To me Sony has winning edge.

5. IR and Bluetooth: Sony wins because Samsung has no bluetooth. IR on both phones works very good. It was cool to be able to sync with Outlook so easily.

6. Maintenance: Sony is scratch prone. Though I always carry it with my eyeglass cloth wrapped for last two weeks, it already scratched in several spot, which made me unhappy. Though Samsung, on the other hand, was in my wife pocket or purse, it still look like new.

My judgement is for Samsung v-205 though I really liked the way T-610 looks and bluetooth and Windows like menu.

It took me months to check this phone and T-mobile service (while I was waiting for my Sprint service to expire) and I read most of the reviews here before I bought this phone. At some point I was just about to change my mind not to buy it because of some consistent reviews on serious problems, however, I made my mind and got the service with t610. I have not encountered any problems mentioned here except some shortfalls of the phone. Here are my experiences on the phone and the service:

1. T-mobile coverage is not as good as Sprint in my area.
2. My impression is that customer service is doing a good job.
3. I have not been charged more than $35 for activation fee (i just checked my bill again)
4. 3 band GSM compatibility is great.
5. the phone has seemd to freeze once as was mentioned by many reviewers, however, one of the keys was stuck (thanks a lot for those reviewers who pointed this out), I popped it out and the phone ran with no problem. no need to shut it off or take out the batteries. (it's been 2 months and have not opened the case yet)
6. yes its camera is no good, but u need a phone anyway.
7. bluetooth is great with Jabra freespeak (good deal)
8. under sunlight, the screen is not that visible. this is true. still you can see it, screen doesnt disappear entirely. this may be problematic if you wanna use the camera too, u dont see what u r taking.
9. all the menu system is complicated (compared to nokia's practicality), however there are some shortcut keys you will discover, too. I totally agree not to buy this for your grandma. But again, the menus are not impossible, i did not need the manual to figure out how to input a contact info.
10. battery goes for about 4 days (obviously depending on usage time) and charges fast (about 2 hrs I guess)
11. this phone is not as big as you might think, it is relatively small, but has a bigger screen than many cell phones (that's why it looked big to me on the web) and joystick is very convenient.

this is a great, feature-rich phone, in a very small and sleek package:

pros:
- great voice quality - folks i talk to using the t610 couldn't tell i was using a mobile phone.
- tri-band (GSM 850/1800/1900) world phone.
- very small and very light (you can put this in your jeans pocket and no one will know you're carrying a phone).
- gorgeous 65k hi-res screen.
- excellent battery life.
- both the charger connection and the headset connection on the phone appear sturdy and built to last. much better than the samsungs i've had before where the charger connection was flimsy and bent with normal use.
- this phone has an intuitive interface but to really get the most out of this phone, a quick read-through of the owner's manual will help.
- has bluetooth which is really, really cool when coupled with a wireless headset. can also be used to sync and exchange files with your bluetooth enabled computer.
- also has an infrared port. i used this to download my contacts from my (non-bluetooth) PDA.
- wireless web ready.
- built-in camera.
- voice-activated dialing.
- large color display, 65k colors.
- supports MMS.
- polyphonic ring tones.

cons:
- internal memory support up to 510 numbers - i could use more.
- screen could be better in bright daylight.
- don't expect to take high quality still shots using this phone.
- smudges easily.
- only three games included (not a big deal for me).
- no built-in speakerphone.
- headset connection is proprietary.

bottom line: if you're in the market for a new phone, check this one out. with amazon's rebate offer and free bluetooth headset, this is definitely a great buy.

i hope this helps you with your buying decision. peace.

First off, i had the phone on tmobile for roughly 9 months, i have gone from loving it to death, realizing it small faults(quirks), to liking it, and then completly falling in love with it all over again. Tmobile service/Customer service has been excellent in NJ, only a few dead spots, but great coverage overall.

Everyone here has mentioned the faults, i'll just reinterrate what annoys me personally...

1. screen is basically useless in bright sunshine images are drowned out, but amazingly crisp in darkness.

2. No speakerphone

3. weak ringtone speaker, and increasing rings(cant shut off) easy to miss calls

4. Caller id, does not indicate names unless they have been manually added to phone book, also doesn't display time of call if call was made any other day than the present.

5. Occasionally freezing, would say once every 40 days of continous use( must remove battery to reset) works fine after.

6. Signal meter is very conservative, competitive models show 5 bars for best signal, but SE 610 shows 1-2 bars if in the same location. reception quality is still excellent at 0-1 bars... strange, also is the rarity of seeing 5 full bars.

7.Adding names to phone book is more complex than many other competing models, but calling contacts on the fly is so simple and quick.

8. Internet button can be pressed on accident while still in pocket, waisting minutes, thats assuming you didn't lock phone

9. Display lights up when an button is pressed while still in locked position.

10. camera is a gimmic, and is of no use to me, images are only ok to look at on the phone, not for prints.



LIKEs...


1. the phone has an amazing following, and is customizable beyond any other phone i've seen, case all the way to the themes, to the custom ring tones. Google it and see what i mean.

2. Phone can be used on any GSM network and is very popular in Europe, thus one of teh best phones for travelers, just be sure to unlock it first.

3. the clarity of the phone calls, far superior than any other cell i used

4. Durability, it has been sat on, dropped on countless occasions, thrown across rooms, and yet there is barely any marks, looks almost as new as the day i got it(light scratching on aluminum, but no dents, dings etc).It feels solid, when held, and has a good weight for its size

5. BLUETOOTH, THIS IS WHAT MADE ME FALL IN LOVE WITH IT ALL OVER AGAIN. AFTER PURCHASING A BLUETOOTH ADAPTE FOR THE PC, I LEARNED ABOUT FLOAT MOBILE AGENT, A MUST HAVE FOR THE SE610, IT SYNCS WITH THE PHONE, TRANSFERS ALL DATA ONTO PC AND VICEVERSA, WORKS GREAT WITH OUTLOOK. AND CAN CONTROL THE PHONE FROM TEH PC, EASILY SEND TEXT MSGES OR CONTACTS FROM PC TO PHONE, INSTANT OVER BLUETOOTH.

6. CAN OPERATE MY PC FROM 30 FEET AWAY WITH SE610, USING FLOAT MOBILE AGENT. (OPEN POWERPOINT, WINAMP, OUTLOOK, DVD, MOUSE, YOU NAME IT, THE SUPPORT IS THERE) NEVER THOUGHT I'D EVER USE MY PHONE TO CONTROL MY PC, AND WITH THE COMMUNITY SUPPORT FLOAT HAS BECOME EVEN MORE AMAZING WITH EVERY NEW RELEASE, TOTALLY FREE TOO.

7. small size, fits perfectly in any pocket

8. For the price, there's no phone that i know that can compete with this phone when combined with float mobile agent.

9. Whatever everyone else said....



And finally would i get another Sony Ericson phone? YES

The potential of this phone is beyond what i expected, thats why love it.

Final rating:
Without float mobile agent it would be a 4 outta 5 stars, with it, it easily becomes a 5 star phone.


thanks for reading and good luck with your phone search.

i was a little hesitant about getting this phone due to sony ericsson's bad rep but once i got it, i was amazed by it's performance. it fixed most of the problems of the previous ericsson models.the camera is ok and a little grainy but most camera phones are like that, it's nothing to get excited about but when i uploaded the pics onto my powerbook via bluetooth, there was a HUGE difference in picture quality...it looked alot better. the sound quality of the phone is a lot better compared to the nokia 3560 for AT&T TDMA. the sound was very clear where as my nokia had a lot of background noise that was very light but still there. the menu takes some getting use to compared to nokia's super friendly one but it's nothing too difficult.it picks up better signal than my motorola v60 did. even when there's only 1 bar, my call is still clear and isn't choppy where as on my moto i hardly understood what the other person was saying.it's a great phone for people who have other devices with bluetooth. the size is perfect...it's not to big and it's not too small. the screen is a great size especially for viewing pictures because everything doesn't come out all microscopic.T-mobile's customer service is great compared to AT&T's rude customer service. the only thing that bugs is having to clean the phone because it gets fingerprints on it soooo easily other than that i highly recommend this phone.