Definitely follow david's advice and try out the spv. colleague of mine hates it after having it for 1 month. the phone crashes often without even touching it. I think microsoft has a website with about 100 bugs.

I had the exact same problem with my T68. I too had an early model and the T68i software upgrade. am using the 7650 now and am happy. I made a vow to never buy another ericsson product without trying it out first. no predictive text is so typical of sonyericsson products today. I thought ericsson was on to something when they came out with the the R380. the best feature about the phone was the landscape views for wap and sms. why pocketpcs, palms or the new p800 haven't followed through is beyond me.

btw, the reason the t68 is so slow is ericsson wanted to save costs when putting it out, so they used the same microprocessor as the t28.

There's a reason the MS phone platform - called stinger - is better known as stinker.

I would recomend the P800 any day.
A couple of friendt have got those, but my financial situation does not allow me to buy one just now...

Marius (Escort Cab + Mark II)

I have a question. If I were to buy the P800, what network would it be on? Would Sprint support it? Currently, I don't want to change my plan. I should think service plan would be a big deciding factor to people, but I'm suprised that this hasn't been mentioned a single time in this thread. Is that because phones can be supported by multiple networks now?

The biggest problem I have is that there are no suitable plans for me out there. I only see plans for $40 and $50 a month, and they offer something like 3000 to 4000 minutes. My problem is that I call a lot, but spend very little time on the phone. Consequently, I only rack up about 300 minutes a month total. Currently, I'm happy with my plan of $32 a month for 3000 minutes (200peak/2800). However, I'd like to use wireless web a lot more, and my plan doesn't allow for that.

All I've been able to find so far is that the P800 will be supported by T-Mobile. Has anyone else heard something? Also, does anyone know what the final US prices will be for this phone?

Pretty much every where besides the US (and japan, and a few other places) use the GSM standard, so that phones are interchangable between all the providers. Thus, no one worries about phones being compatible with providers except here in the US. We've got at least four different competeing standards, with GSM, CDMA, TDMA and whatever Nextel uses(iDen?). In short, sprint phones are sprint phones and you have to use ones the provided. If you want to use a P800, you'll have to switch to Cingular, T-Mobile or AT&T's new GSM network. (at least in california)

Matthew

Oh well, apparently the 7650 has been discontinued so it looks like my only choice is an spv.

Bastards......

The 7650 discontinued? Did they also tell you for what reason?

As I have just found out, it depends who you talk to. Carphone Warehouse say it's discontinued, Phones 4 U say it isn't and still have stock, Orange themselves don't think it's been discontinued but have no stock currently. It's driving me frickin' mad. I wonder whether it's worth swallowing my pride and paying the £75 early upgrade fee.

Apparently it's because they've had the phone for ages and it's time to stock an updated model. As long as they don't replace it with that horrible 3650. A rotary keypad, what kind of idiot would design that?

Apparently it's because they've had the phone for ages and it's time to stock an updated model. As long as they don't replace it with that horrible 3650. A rotary keypad, what kind of idiot would design that?

Replacing it because it's been out for ages? Over here it's only been available since september, and even then in very small quantities. I wonder what their norm is for tossing a certain model out : it's been out for 6 months?

I agree with you on the 3650. I've had a replica of the phone (the real phone is't available over here yet) in my hand yesterday and I hated it imediately. For one, it's even bigger than the 7650. Imagine a GSM phone of about 2-3 years ago and you've got about the correct size. It's about as wide as the 7650, but about 2-3cm longer. (oh, and it felt heavier too)

Ah, and that rotary keypad really stinks. The idiot that came up with that idea should be fired on the spot. I mean, we've been used to having the keys in a certain order for oh..say 20 years now, and some moron figures he has to bring change into this. I don't even want to think what a horrible task it must be to type an SMS on this phone. (blind typing like I can do now is certainly no option anymore)
I'm also taking into account that by the time it will finally hit the market, better options will be available. (or are in fact already available, such as the P800 from Sonyericsson)
Nah, this one gets a BIG 'thumbs down' from me. OK, so Nokia is the leader is portable phones now, but if they don't get their act together soon this could change very fast.

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I wonder what their norm is for tossing a certain model out : it's been out for 6 months?

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Orange have had the t68(i) for over a year and it's still available.

Just to let you guys know, I ended up getting a 7650, I managed to find an orange shop in manchester who still had them. Although Orange have officially discontinued it.

As for the phone, I bloody love it!

Yeah, aside from the fact that I still think it's ringing tones are too damn quiet, I also quite like this phone.
Overall reception is great, and this was my main reason for buying it. (my former phone was a Nokia 8810 which had pretty lousy reception).

Congrats on your new toy!

Be careful what software you install on it. One of my co-workers has tried all sorts of software on his and it is now very unstable, crashing several times a week. He's thinking about completely reseting it and starting again.

Yeah - how annoying was the upgrade!? Before - Tetris and Defender plus a hidden snake game; after - Battleships and uhm, that's about it but the text messaging was a bit quicker

Is it possible to completely reset the phone yourself? I know somebody that did something to his and the only way to get it fixed properly was taking it to a Nokia service center.
There's some code like *#7650# or whatever that apparently wipes it but I've never tried it.

- Trevor

Doesn't resetting it to the factory settings work?
(under settings -> phone -> general -> factory settings - The code is 5 times zero I believe)

Don't know, he hasn't actually got to the point of doing it yet. He has been distracted from his phone problems because he's just spent £8,000 on replacing his Fiesta RS Turbo with a Subaru Impreza WRX. He's a very happy 22 year old at the moment...

(though of course he is already planning which tweaks the engine is going to get)

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Fiesta RS Turbo with a Subaru Impreza WRX

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....and how is he managing to afford the insurance on that?

He seems to manage to get insanely low premiums for his age. His RS Turbo cost him 880 a year (which isn't much more than I pay for my MX5 and I'm 10 years older) and the WRX is only about 1300 a year.

And that is with at least three points on his licence! I don't understand insurance.

As long as it's not with the 'Dodgy Dave' insurance company. My brother had a Nova with a 2 litre turbo engine in it and his insurers where dodgy to say the least. I'm glad he never had to make a claim, but the premium was low!

He's with Tesco apparently.

Hmmm....

/me wanders off to the tesco website.....

Tesco's match the premium I pay on my MX5 already. On the same WRX as my co-worker pays 1300, they quote me 1100. And that is with full no claims.

Tried the MX5 owners club insurance for your MX5? They did me a very good deal, considering the turbo, suspension mods, etc. They even include trackday cover if you give them advance notice.

Hugo

Tried the MX5 owners club insurance for your MX5

I did use them one year, but dealing with them can be a pain in the arse. Sometimes you just can't get hold of the people at AON who know about the scheme properly. This leads to much confusion and frustration.

I only used them for one year as they put my premium up by 10% at the end of the year and I got a better quote with Admiral (which was 10% down on the previous year with AON). No doubt if I had gone back to AON they would have matched it, but I take the approach that if they don't offer me a sensible premium to start with they don't get the business...

I have still to match my first year's premium on my MX5, which was 399 quid. It was a special deal from Mazda for anyone between 25-65 driving an MX5. Of course on the second year they wanted 1500 quid, so I went elsewhere.

Mmm, ISTR I'm down to something like 350 for fully comp on my MX5 (though it is 13 years old now, garaged, me over 30, and limited to 6k miles a year) - and it wasn't dependent on any no claims either, which was good as when I got the NSX I wanted all the no claims bonus for that

Hugo