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“I switched back from SonyEricsson T68i to Nokia 8310....”

written by Kamal. on 22/02/2003

Good Points
30 min voice recording, Joystick navigation, Attractive, Small

Bad Points
Calendar notes not interactive, bugs in eWallet (Code), Phone book got fixed slot for numbers, Bad texting, Not tactile keypads, Fixed covers

General Comments
I switched back from SonyEricsson T68i to Nokia 8310. 8310 is the first mobile phone I ever owned. I read every review on every mobile set available before zeroing in to 8310. I was specially attracted by it's look; whole body changeable covers and small pocket size. I am not the kind of guy who would carry mobile covered in a protective thin plastic case. And I don't like to carry scratched gadgets. Hence, changeable cover was the first criteria in my selection. Second criteria was pocket size. I'm not a high ranking businessman and I seldom wear coat with hefty pockets to carry mobile. It must go inside my pant pocket. Well, 8310 met my second criteria too. Finally, I bought it. I was a proud guy with privilege of carrying 8310 during the time it was just released in the market. Gradually, I got used to with Nokia style of operating system. My contacts went in one by one. All the birthday, anniversary reminders went inside my 8310 one by one. By few months, I had become dependent on my mobile completely. I realized what I had been missing in my life before I had this mobile. Then color mobiles came to the market. I was taken by T68i's look and list of long features it offered. After thorough research on T68i, I finally decided to switch to SonyEricsson's color baby. Hot pluggable camera (to be bought separately), COLOR screen, joystick, color background, screensaver, POP IMAP4 email protocols and client, 30 minute voice recording, list of popular card games in color, image composer, tone composer, Month-Week-Day view calendar, Scheduler, eWallet, IrDa, Bluetooth bla bla... features in T68i got me into buying this set. The next day, I was an unhappy guy. Though T68i had so many features, it failed in few places. In computer term, I would say - lack of R&D in user friendliness and software design. First blunder mistake in - Calendar Scheduler. For whatever event you select between Call, Meeting, Note, Anniversary, you have to enter start time, and end time, then follows if you want to be reminded etc. Come on man, every event may not have start and end time. Like Birthdays/Anniversary are yearly reminders and they don't have to have start and end time. Okay, I tried to get going by entering whatever time. Now, the reminder for Anniversary is set for that date and for that year ONLY (so you got to enter all the birthday reminders in yearly basis). In Nokia 8310, calendar notes input parameters are dynamic depending upon type of event you select at first place. Next blunder mistake in phone contacts. There are fixed slots for Phone, Work Phone, Mobile Phone, Other phone, email, Company etc. Many of my contacts have either two home numbers and/or two work numbers. Here you have to get going by entering second home or second work number in the next slot (and you have to devise something by yourself to figure what actually that number is). Nokia 8310 don't have fixed slots like one home number, one work number etc. SMS typing was a mess. I frequently have to switch between T9 input and normal input as my msgs are mixture of English words, native language words and place names. To switch between input modes, you have to press menu, scroll through input selection, then click the option to change. Horrifying, all the punctuations are placed in two buttons. If you want a ')' brace, you have to hit the key 10 times and it's all frustrating. I tried to make use of Wallet (named Code) feature by entering passwords of my office Servers. And most of the password are not new bee kind of - with only alphanumeric characters. First not all standard punctuations are available, next my password beginning with '<' would get saved (must be a software bug). The color screen when screen lights are turned off is hardly readable. Requiring to press some button to bring screen lights on to check whether I had missed calls/messages turned-me-off from color screen. That's the same reason why I didn't buy 7210 or 6100 instead after getting rid of my T68i. I once thought of 6510 but the blue backlight didn't catch me on though it has week view calendar. Finally, I switched back to 8310. No mobile would look this cute and I guarantee it. I have learned to live without month view in my 8310.