HTC S710

I really enjoyed this phone when I bought it last year. The slide out keyboard worked really well. It has quite a slow processor and would often hang. The camera is ok and comparable to other phones.

However, after 6 months of use, some of the keys stopped working - intermittently at first, and then permanently. One of the first keys to go was the 0 key. This was very frustrating as you could not dial any numbers without opening up the slide keyboard. I telephoned the service line and no body picked up. It took around 30 calls before the phone call was answered. I know from experience that they have now changed this system, and the call is now always answered- perhaps because of the high volume of complaints about the build quality of this phone.

Anyway, the operator took my details, and said I would receive an email with further instructions. The email came, but there were no instructions on it. I waited a month before contacting them again, and they answered straight away, and gave me the instructions over the 'phone. The phone went off and I received an email a week later, telling me that the phone had had abnormal use and was therefore out of warrantee. It had not been dropped or even got wet.

Are these phones only built to last 6 months? Is anything over 6 months abnormal use? I have a friend with the same phone as me, and they are now on their 3rd phone in 6 months - Luckily they had Orange care, and did not have to go through HTC.

In summary, a well designed phone let down by build quality and lack of customer service in my opinion.

I would recommend this phone for someone who wants a small, functional email phone.

I believe the HTC S710 is a very good phone, lots of functionality and features - specially the wifi. The only downsides i found are:- battery life goes down rather fast if you stay connected at all times on wifi - but this should rarely happen for the average user- windows mobile is rather slow, specially at start up. After start up, after it builds some cache, it's okay.

Overall, a good purchase. I bought my HTC S710 to replace my Nokia N80, and it's the first non-Nokia I've had since '97. It's done me well so far and the pull-out keyboard does look impressive, even if the keys are tiny. But I like it and it certainly feels good to use.