Customer Reviews

Sony Ericsson T616 - Cellular phone - GSM - bar

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(31)

 

 

IMPORTANT: This phone is marketed as a world phone. It is NOT a world phone. (The European version - T610 - is a world phone.) The T616 is for the North American market. The GSM standard in The States isn't yet as far reaching so there is now an 850mhz frequency to supplement the 1900mhz. The T616 is equipped with this "filler" frequency as well as the standard N. American 1900mhz. The third band (1800) is used in Europe and other places as well. So, this is a tri-band phone, but it is not a world phone. True world phones us 900mhz instead of 850. 900mhz is used in Australia and New Zealand. If this important to you, DO NOT purchase a T616. World phones need 900/1800/1900. Keep in mind, most salespersons aren't aware of this.

That "said," the T616 has a clean, elegant design. It's very well equipped with lots of functional features. Fits anywhere. Holds a decent amount of photos, even more if you delete excess ring tones and games. Picture quality is as good as camera phone photos are. It has both bluetooth, infrared and USB connection. The phone also allows callers to conference call with up to five other parties... and even click one aside for a private while the others chat. Great feature if you need it.

The screen is hard to see in the outdoor sun light.

A speakerphone would be nice, but for the price and size, it's a VERY well equipped phone. As it is not a flip phone, it can be answered with one hand and the body integrity is solid.

Aside from the world phone lie, this is the best of the seven mobile phones I've had over the years. Because it has the additional N. American frequency, it probably gets better GSM coverage than other tri-band GSMs with only the 1900.

....I would have to agree with most of them.

In the interest of saving you some time (if you choose not to read all of the reviews), the phone itself is of excellent quality, well-designed with aluminum and high-quality plastic construction.

The T616 has almost all the features you might want, probably more than you are going to use. Lacking is speakerphone capability and the ability to see the screen in bright sunlight.

One reviewer suggested getting a quality Krusell case for the phone and I agree. What nobody mentioned is that you can get free (no charge at the time this review is being written) incoming daily alerts for news, weather, sports, etc from mobile.msn.com. (Go to the web site and input your cellphone number and specify when and which alerts you want.)

Of course, no phone is any better than the network it is on, and your mileage may vary. For me, living in NYC, I get excellent reception from my 27-floor apartment building. I've also used the phone upstate and had perfect reception there in what would be called "the country".

So what's not to like?

Customer service. As you will find in some of the reviews, mostly going back a few months, ATT had embarked on a project to "upgrade" their customer service capabilities. For _months_ nothing worked right. The customer service reps couldn't find the information you needed to know and, worse, you couldn't even access the ATT web site to find something as basic as minutes used. (Yes, you can also find minutes used through the M-mode feature...and be billed for data charges.)

Now a suggestion, and I am being deadly serious, before you consider the phone and the network, I want you to make a phone call to ATT Wireless Customer Service. If you are pleased with the time that it takes to get through to a human who can answer your questions, fine. Otherwise, consider another service.

I hope this review helps in you making your decision and I thank you for reading it.

My seventh mobile phone and easily one of the best. The reasonable price combined w/ the small size make this the best featured phone on the market.

Sony spared no expense in giving the the T616 both bluetooth and infrared, a camera, email client, 65k colors screen. One of the neatest and rarely mentioned features is an alarm/calendar system which can be programed to alert even when the phone is turned off. Save your juice and still get. Of course it has all the too fancy ring tones and games which only take up memory and might be better in a teen flip phone.

The design - modern, sleek and simple. I'm not a clamshell fan, so a small, solid, one-piece unit with a large color screen is right up my alley.

On the down side, AT&T's service does not allow for one-touch voicemail pick up. You must enter your password w/ evey call. A security feature, I guess, but annoying. Additionally, the screen is difficult to read in bright sunlight. My only other gripe is that there's no speaker phone. Sony was clearly going for sleek and small and for the money and size, how much more can one expect?

As for AT&T's service, keep in mind quality of service depends on the region you live in and where in the region you live. Every company has cities where their service is great and where it is lowsy. So these sweeping generalizations about AT&T's service should be taken with a grain of salt. Additionally, this phone operates on a GSM network which isn't yet as all-encompassing as TDMA/CDMA... but unlike the 'DMA's allows for international use. So, whether T-Mobile or AT&T, GSM service is GSM service. On that note, only AT&T offers both GSM and DMA, though the Ericsson is designed only for GSM.

Be ye warned, although this is a tri-band phone, it is not a world phone. World phones include 900/1800/1900 mhz frequencies. The T616 carries 850 in place of 900. 850 is a second N. American frequency at the expense of the standard 900mhz which covers Australia and New Zealand. If you're jonesing for this unit, the T610 substitutes 850 w/ the standard 900mhz.

I highly recommend this phone for style, quality and features. As for AT&T's service, it's as good as any other similar system depending on where you are.

FIRST, this is a great phone. my only real annoyance is that i keep the phone in my pocket and the faceplace has quickly become slightly scratched. can imagine if i was not being careful of quickly and majorly scratching the screen. sure, i can change the faceplace anytime to get a fresh screen but still, a little disappointing.

people should know that at&t is upgrading their customer service applications. what this translated to is instead of being a 1 week upgrade at the beginning of november, they continue to have major outages (hours) each and every day. their ability to access accounts has not been, in my mind, acceptable. further, after being a customer with verizon, i have to say that the level of professionalism that the AT&T customer service reps AND their resolution specialists (their version of escalation) has been quite low. this is a big enough issue that i would say you should WAIT until they have completed their upgrade to move, if you move at all - they do not have an estimate as to how much longer it will take, which translates to me that this is an ongoing problem and they don't know what the exact problem is (or at least, how to fix it)!

I live in new york, so you'd think that there is plenty of coverage but believe it or not, there are some dead zones. I'm "ok" in that the phone works in my office and at home. may seem small but this is a big thing for me!!!

hope this helps in your decision...

Pros:
- Very stylish design
- Excellent connectivity options, including fantastic Bluetooth implementation
- Very good battery life
- Automatic timer-based keypad lock
- Highly portable

Cons:
- So-so signal reception
- Poor LCD quality -- virtually impossible to read outdoor
- No EDGE, no speakerphone
- Slipperly chassis, prone to finger prints
- Calendar lacks all-day events
- Comparatively dated UI is slow at times
- Keys can be small for larger hands
- Somewhat high radiation

T616 is AT&T's version of highly popular T610. Generally speaking, T616 is better suited for US residents than T610, which had generally worse RF reception on 1900 MHz GSM than T68i that it replaces. T616's reception should be comparable to T68i now. It is worth noting, however, T616 drops the 900 MHz GSM band popular in Europe while adding 800 MHz GSM.

While T68i wasn't exactly lauded for RF reception quality, it was adequate. In areas with good to excellent signals (3 to 5 bars), T616 should be equally capable of high quality phone conversations. But deep inside the building where 1900 MHz signals have trouble penetrating or in areas where signal is low, T616 will generally perform poorly. For instance, Nokia 3650 sounded fine in areas where T616 stuttered or dropped out entirely.

Signal quality aside, T616 is a good phone. If anything, it is arguably one of the best looking phones. While slightly larger than T68i, it is still strikingly thin and tiny. Turn the phone on, however, you may be disappointed by dim LCD output. It is virtually unusable outdoor. You must vary the angle of the phone to see anything even with backlight turned on.

The UI sports pretty icons rendered with rich color. However, it remains largely unchanged from T68i, which could be positive to former Sony Ericsson users, but disappointing for those wanting latest and greatest. Worse, rapid key strokes will cause T616 to lag quite a bit.

It would be unfair to ignore T616's greatest asset: Bluetooth. Whereas Nokia and other manufacturers add Bluetooth as a mere marketing feature (poor Bluetooth signal quality, incomplete support for many Bluetooth devices), Sony Ericsson took the time to do it right. It will sync and communicate with pretty much all applicable Bluetooth devices out there with virtually all the functionalities intact. It also syncs beautifully with Apple's iSync software.

Although built-in camera results in decent enough pictures for MMS or quick email, it will not replace standalone digital camera. Considering 99.9% of the camera phones are also poor, I will not single out T616 for this weakness.

It is worth noting that upcoming T630 will fix much of T616's ongoing issues: much brighter LCD, larger keys, less slipper body, and improved RF reception. The chassis is resigned a bit, which sort of resembles Apple's iPod look and feel.

This is a sleek little phone. Wonderful to the touch - smooth finish. Almost too smooth, as it tends to slip out of your hand or pocket if you're not careful. Camera is simple to use, photos look good if there is enough light. I have the bluetooth synched with my Lexus - makes the car my phone when I'm in the car, with the phone still in my pocket.
With such a big screen in such a little phone, something had to give; that would be the size of the keys, which I have to press with my fingernails (I have big hands).
The menus are easy and intuitive. Everything is easy to find. The color screen is really hard to see in daylight. In a room it's great, but look for a shady spot to read it outdoors.
All in all, I'd buy it again, mostly for the way it feels and fits elegantly in my pocket.

I shopped a long time for my next cell phone hoping to get a nice phone with a decent camera to snap impromptu pictures. After much research, I chose the Sony Ericsson T616 because of it's rich feature set (camera phone, bluetooth, infrared, mMode, joystick navigation) and teensy weensy size. I had seen the model in an AT&T Wireless store, but when it arrived from Amazon I was still surprised at just how small and compact the phone really is. I immediately started exploring the phone's features and was very impressed with the beautiful LCD, polished interface and nice features and games.

Buzzkill time...when I was done playing with the non-phone features and started making calls I got complaints from the other end about poor voice quality. And that was when I actually had enough of a signal to make a call. I'm in the greater Boston area and was surprised by the lack of strong coverage. I would rarely have more than 2 out of 5 bars of signal strength any place I took this phone. Granted, this is a knock on AT&T and not the T616. Every time I looked at, and held, the phone I made up reasons to justify keeping it. Unfortunately, a nice phone with poor service is really a poor phone. The phone gets a 4 (a higher resolution camera might get it the 5th star) but the packaged AT&T service gets a 0 -- net rating: 2.

I sent mine back today and got the LG VX6000 from Verizon. Verizon's coverage is nearly perfect and the features of this phone are attractive: full VGA resolution camera, flip design, and a nice LCD screen and operating software (but not quite as nice as the T616).

POSITIVES:
- very small size
- great price from Amazon with free bluetooth headset
- excellent connectivity with bluetooth, infrared or cable
- convenient and intuitive joystick for navigation
- great LCD screen (seemed to flicker a little bit though)
- very nice looking and feeling operating software
- java support
- nice additional software and games
- IMHO, quite a good looking design

NEGATIVES:
- very poor AT&T service
- very poor AT&T service
- very poor AT&T service
- camera is low resolution and not very good (only 288 x 352 pixels)
- almost too small for calling comfort
- hard to keep clean
- did I mention the very poor AT&T service?

I did a lot of research before switching service and purchasing a new phone before I decided on this one. I was wrong. The phone has a lot of wonderful and useful features, but...
* it is very, very small.. constantly checking pocket to see if it's there
* the little nav button in the middle is very easy to use... but you end up dialing into m-mode every time you move it and
* I found that I was constantly putting it in to silent mode if I didn't wait long enough for the keypad to lock before putting it away
* CANNOT see the screen outside or in the car here in Phoenix, shaded or not, I guess we have just too much sunlight.
* volume is very low on highest setting
* Extremely poor reception and/or signal. ATT service bites the big one here. I live and work in the central Phx area and am lucky to get 2 bars anywhere. Large number of dropped calls and have to redial several times to connect.

I am still within my 30 day trial period and I'm taking the phone back and cancelling service with ATT. Problem, is there isn't anything else on the market right now that has the features I actually want...bluetooth and/or speakerphone, camera, flip phone... don't want or need the data stuff.

Caveat Emptor

I bought this phone because it seemed to have every widget that I could ask for at the time (big hi-res color screen, camera, small size, bluetooth, GSM, huge contacts lists and calendar, etc). Since I received this phone I've had problem after problem.

1. I can't get my Outlook to sync with the phone using Bluetooth, after SEVERAL fruitless tech support calls and going over every manual with a fine-tooth comb.

2. Signal is awful. Maybe it's the GSM, I don't know. I had a Nokia through ATT and it got great signal at work and home. With this phone I dont even have enough signal to get text messages most of the time. I can be standing in the same place and watch the signal indicator fluctuate from 3 bars to 0 and back in a matter of seconds.

3. Sound quality is poor, my friends on the other end complain that I sound like I'm in a wind tunnel when I'm talking to them even if I'm sitting in my living room. Also the "sweet spot" on the speaker is hard to find.

4. The display is almost impossible to read in direct sunlight, the contrast goes down to 0. Combine that with the smear/fingerprint/scratch-magnet surface and you're left with a comepletely unreadable screen.

5. The ringtone starts out quiet and increases in volume. Basically this means that if the phone is in a pocket or another room you won't hear it until the 2nd or 3rd ring. There is a control in the phone to disable this but it doesn't work.

In short, DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE. There is a comparable Nokia (3650, I believe) that is much better, or if you have the extra cash go for the Motorola MPX200.

I got the T616 to replace my aging LG phone because my new apartment is in a no-service zone of the Verizon Wireless network. I wanted a GSM phone to have a chance of using it outside the US. I wanted Bluetooth so I could sync it with the calendar and address book on my Mac, and also so I could use a wireless headset. I wanted a decent user interface (UI) for sending and receiving text messages. I didn't care about the camera or the web stuff or the games. I was initially delighted. The T616 synchronized beautifully with my computer, had good sound quality, and a generally excellent UI. The color display was nice for photo caller ID. I even found myself playing the tiny preinstalled Q*Bert game. All these features were wrapped in a small, light, attractive shell. But the reception wasn't very good. Calls in my apartment were dropped or garbled while my neighbor used his AT&T GSM phone without problem. I dismissed complaints I'd read online about the display in sunlight... until I got my first call outdoors. I pulled the phone out of my pocket and the display was unreadable. Not difficult to read, unreadable. I might as well have been looking at the phone's backside. The B&W display of my old phone may not have been pretty, but I could always read it. The UI was well-designed and responsive, but text input was sometimes less effective than on my clunky old phone and the tiny keypad didn't help. AT&T was good about accepting a return.