Firstly it is packed with features. There is a camera that is able to take videos, MP3 player (albeit with a max of 12mb storage space to hold songs), sound recorder and music DJ (ringtone producing function)to mention a few.
I have found that the texting aspect of the phone is brilliant; the predictive text is intuitive, and there is the option of creating whole slideshows to send to people, including pictures, text and music.
As for the criticisms of this phone:
Firstly it doesn't have bluetooth. This was a minor problem for me as it does have infrared, which basically holds the same purpose.
Secondly there are some issues with the camera; the quality is not amazing, (but then what do you expect for £50), and the noise that is made when taking a picture is fairly loud. The only remedy to this is to call a freephone number (I think 452 is the best) and then push the centre button twice to get to the camera. Then no noise will be made when taking pictures.
The third criticism I have heard is that the sound is fairly quiet, although I have found it more than adeqaute for me, both when making calls and when playing ringtones. The only time I have felt it lacking is in videos or sound recordings when the person speaking is standing far away from the phones microphone.
Overall I am very pleased with this phone, but would probably only recomend it to people on a budget, as I was when I bought it. If you are willing to spend a little more, then there are obviously much better phones on the market, but this phone is enough for any entry-level customer.
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I love the radio; the sound volume is not as bad as everyone says. Memory could be a bit larger too.
Buy a K600i instead as it's a good phone without all the badly performing Vodafone dross on it. If you happen to buy one of these go straight to the Sony Erickson site and download drivers that work properly as the Vodaphone disk has dodgy USB drivers on it.
The phone is also the size of a small car. It is not "ultra slim" as advertised.
Now, being a student I have several main priorities for my moby. 1) Quick texting 2) Clear phone calls [and audible in bars/clubs!] 3) OK camera/video recording for capturing those 'special' (and by that I obviously mean 'drunken') moments 4) Must look OK and take the occasional beating/dropping. My phone however barely accomplishes any of the above.
Text messaging is horrible! Predictive texting becomes extremely annoying after a while. I'm used to having a 1-key shortcut to take me to a blank text from the main menu. No, not on this phone, you constantly need to choose between MMS and SMS, and why MMS is first in the menu is beyond me! The dictionary has lots of words missing, and for some reason words such as I'll have started becoming H'll. Very annoying. When you add a word it also insists on the added word starting with an upper case letter. The list is endless...
Phone calls also seem to be exremely quiet unless you get your ear in exactly the right position. The internet browser button always seems to get accidentally pressed in my pocket due to it's poor positioning on the side [which luckily is free on contract, I'm not sure about PAYT however...]. Also due to the continual required pusing of the joystick 'down' position to scroll through menus, phone book entries and texts including predictive text options and the lack of an alternative it now only works 50% of the time. This is the same on all of my friend's phones of similar model so is something you WILL have to live with. The charger also seems to refuse to charge the phone occasionally. Oh, and you may think it looks good at first, but you soon begin to think of it as a shiny black brick! You could obtain exactly the same shape yourself by taking a rectangular block of wood and eounding off the edges on the sides slightly with some sandpaper! Also, the 3G seems slightly over-rated at the minute. The phone is FAR too quiet to watch clips of TV on without headphones!!
It does have a few good points in fairness. The battery life is quite good (As long as you switch the 3G network off) and the camera is OK for taking party pictures and the odd video of friends doing stupid things. There are better 1.3 Megapixel cameras out there by far, but for cheesy snaps it does the job. PC sync is also relatively easy as far as most phones go. It also seems to be happy to be dropped occasionally without showing too much damage.
I had to give up my Nokia 6130i for this phone and would swap it back in an instant given the opportunity!!
I am being quite harsh here admittedly and it is an OK phone, but it is becoming more and more unreliable as the months go past and there are better phones out there for a similar price (*cough* Nokia 6130i *cough*)
