Gimime a simple international cellphone dammit!

December 6, 2005 8:11 PM

Wanted: Phone for T-Mobile. Must be GSM triband (for international roaming), have Bluetooth, long battery life, unlockable and * Simple Quick operation *

I have a sony erricson T610: Bluetooth and triband. However, it has a dumb UI – it tries to be all windows-esque, but when I select things these days, it pauses for a second. This is annoying when you’re dialing on the go or trying to multitask as it acts as if your keypresses haven’t happened and then does them all at once, and this screws everything up.

It also crashes every week, forcing me to remove the battery and restart it, This is INCREDIBLY annoying. A phone, crashing! Gah!

I don’t need fancy icons telling me what to do. I do need a phone that responds instantaneously to the simple commands I give it: namely : make a call, store a number, back my phone numbers up to a computer and set simple alarms for myself. My old nokia 8290 series was great: text menus and keyboard shortcuts – instantaneous response. I could operate it without looking and it performed well. It didn’t have Bluetooth and wasn’t triband, which meant me upgrading to this POS.

I don’t want a PDA, camera or 3d holographic buttplug, I want a phone dammit!!

Advice?

PS Ideally, this phone would be easy to unlock. Better yet, it would come unlocked.

posted by lalochezia to technology (16 comments total)

The Razr V3 is all I can suggest. I've got one, upgraded from a T610 as well, and it's been pretty nice. Buy the insurance, though.

It's nearly impossible these days to get a phone that Just Plain Works (tm). All the manufacturers keep competing on features, when most consumers simply want reliability.
posted by SpecialK at 8:27 PM on December 6, 2005

I second the razr. Also, I reflashed it "non-branded" with the Vodafone image (www.motox.us). It seems to run even faster without all the Cingular or Tmobile branded stuff.
posted by thilmony at 8:35 PM on December 6, 2005

How would you want to back up your SIM? If you could accept going out and buying a SIM reader kit, then you could buy a good older phone, like the Ericsson T-28 (check which one it is though - I believe the tri-band one was the T-28 World).

Advantages being that without all the newer features, older phones can be pretty rock solid, plus they may be before the era of carriers locking their phones.
posted by djgh at 8:55 PM on December 6, 2005

Gah. Just read saw the "must have Bluetooth" bit, which rules the T-28 out. Some other older phones may have it though
posted by djgh at 8:57 PM on December 6, 2005

I'd suggest a newer SE phone (like the Z520a or the S710a, which both have BT and are a good bit faster than the 610), although the people I know who've had the razr like 'em (except one who said it was slow). as someone who went from a T610 to Moto phones I must say I miss my T610, although my biggest complaint about Moto phones is the software. you may want to head to a Cingular store and try out the phones they have, then price them through expansys, who will sell you an unbranded phone. it'll be a good bit more expensive than getting a phone from T-Mo though. T-Mo's supposed to be good about letting you unlock them, though. never tried with mine (I hate my current phone so I don't care to try unlocking it).

FWIW, the Ericsson T39 is the same form factor as the 28 and includes Bluetooth. It's eBayable pretty cheap, but it's older.
posted by mrg at 9:09 PM on December 6, 2005

Anyone who is recommending the Motorola UI has clearly never spent time with the alternatives. Moto's interface is slow, unintuitive and, in my opinion, far worse than SE. For simple phone functions (calls, texts, phonebook) the Nokia Series 40/60 UI is as good as it gets. Which isn't perfect, but is still a great deal easier to use than either Moto or SE. Grab a Nokia 6610/6620- small, good battery, simple to use, doesn't crash.
posted by blag at 9:28 PM on December 6, 2005

I just want to second the lousiness of the Motorola UI. Shoot the designer. Take no prisoners. And then beat their corpses.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:15 PM on December 6, 2005

hey blag thanks.....any other suggestions on the nokia 40/60?
pref w.bluetooth?
posted by lalochezia at 10:18 PM on December 6, 2005

What you want is a quad-band phone if you're going to be roaming internationally. There are four GSM frequencies now. The US uses three, but Europe uses a different three. Thus tri-band phones meant for the US are going to leave out one of the common European frequencies, and vice versa.

That said, an unlocked Ericsson R520m ought to be pretty cheap these days. I have one of these and it's not as snazzy as the later SonyEricsson models, but it also doesn't feature Sony's legendary "reliability," a definite plus. The most useless feature on it is a couple of games buried deep in the menus. Well, that and the proximity sensor that automatically deactivates the speakerphone when you hold the phone to your face, that's kind of useless.
posted by kindall at 11:34 PM on December 6, 2005 [1 favorite]

Have a look at the 6230 - it has bluetooth and triband yet isn't overloaded with features. As a bonus, most nokias are easy to unlock, unlike the Motorolas.

Kindall's point about quad-band phones is a good one but sadly most quad phones are of the smartphone variety since they're aimed at travelling executives.
posted by blag at 6:23 AM on December 7, 2005

I second the Nokia 6230. I just switched to one from a Motorola v600 (man, I hated that POS) and it's awesome. Excellent sound quality, good battery life (~3 days with bluetooth on, 4-5 without,) fast, clear UI and much better reception. The v600 used to be practically useless inside my house, while the Nokia gets at least two bars even in the basement. I also bought a speaker stand from eBay, which turned it into the best alarm clock I've ever had.
I'm on Cingular, though.
posted by Finder at 6:59 AM on December 7, 2005

It's worth pointing out that the Razr is simply a slimmed-down version of the v600. Same technical architecture.
posted by blag at 8:13 AM on December 7, 2005

If the government and/or church allowed me to marry a phone I would marry my Sony Ericsson K750i. I bought an unlocked, gray market version of it and love it. The downside is it won't be "supported" by any carrier. It also means you're buying the phone vs. getting a subsidized one. But the phone just works. It is a 900/1800/1900 worldphone which means I can use it anywhere except in some Cingular markets. TMo USA will never carry this phone since it and SE have some relationship issues. TMo in Europe sells its own version called the D750 which is identical inside but has a different case design.

It does have a hell of a lot of bells and whistles you don't need, but it works really well for voice calls. It also has decent battery life.

The camera is 2MP and takes surprisingly good pictures. The MP3 player and FM radio, again surprisingly good. It has a slot for a Memory Stick which can hold up to 2GB of stuff. The software for the music functions is the same as the W800 phone but without all of the Walkman graphics [or orange color]. The other cool thing about the Memory Stick feature is it will mount as a drive on a PC or Mac when you plug it in with the USB port. Or you can use Bluetooth to be files to you computer w/o wires.

There's a bright LED lamp you can use as to light photos or as a way to read a map or find your keys in the dark. [the cigarette lighter charger has this feature too, nice touch].

The UI is similar to that of the T610 but it is much much faster. I happen to think the Moto UI is an abomination and quickly jettisoned my V600 and RAZR phones.

It doesn't have a 3D holographic buttplug but it should be offered in the spring. You'll probably have to get it from expansys though.
posted by birdherder at 9:01 AM on December 7, 2005

My wife and I each have a Nokia 6230. We both love our phones. Although you said you aren't interested in fancy features it does have a small video-capable camera but more importantly an onboard MMC card, which you can load with your favorite mp3 or aac tune to use as a ringtone (no more shit MIDI, and no more paying for someone to create a polyphonic version of your favorite song). So that's fun, and because the MMC card is removable you can stick it in any MMC card reader to upload/download songs and pictures, without having to buy some type of sync cable or pay to send them as messages. I think the newer revision (6230i) even has a built-in USB port.

Bluetooth is good, we both have Bluetooth headsets for the phones which are great while driving. The built-in FM is nice (although you can't use it unless you have wired a headset) and it also has a good loudspeaker option and infrared. The Nokia suite (free) allows easy backup of contact info and MMC card data from any Bluetooth-capable computer.

Signal strength is great, battery life is excellent, and despite my initial hesitation to ditch my old Sony Ericsson I have to say that the menu navigation in the Nokia is the simplest and most intuitive I've seen.

Most Nokia phones can be unlocked using a simple code entered on the phone. Most other phones can only be unlocked via a firmware upgrade using some sort of sync cable. I saw a website last night that offered Nokia unlock codes for $5. You might even be able to get them for free if you know who to ask. I haven't unlocked mine, but think doing so would be nice.
posted by caution live frogs at 11:10 AM on December 7, 2005

(wired a headset --> a wired headset)

oops
posted by caution live frogs at 11:11 AM on December 7, 2005

You may want to check here for a feature comparison:

www.mobiledia.com
posted by quadog at 11:15 AM on December 7, 2005