It's upgrade time and I've got two choices, the Orange SPV at £150 and the Nokia 7650 at £25. Any opinions? Would rather have the SPV but the Nokia is SO cheap.

I'd get the SPV, especially if the ejector seat still works and you can get a supply of armour piercing rockets. Oh, make sure it has the jet pack as well - this was always the coolest bit.

A downside to the SPV is that you're not allowed to install non signed applications. According to Microsoft, it was Orange that decided to not allow people to install their own applications. People have worked out ways around this but it could be stopped in a later firmware revision. I think the main workaround was to use ActiveSync to overwrite a specific configuration file on the SPV during power up when all of the protection mechanisms haven't been started up yet. Microsoft could probably make ActiveSync start up later during initialisation to fix this particular bug.

- Trevor

For us North Americans: no, he's not trying for a brightly coloured spaceship, but rather, Orange is a PCS wireless carrier over there..

-ml

Is PCS the same as GSM?

- Trevor

Wow! I hadn't seen that Orange SPV before, or heard of it. I've been wanting a good cell phone/pda combo ever since my Rex6000 died. Might have to trade up as well...

ps - huzzah! carpal tunnel!

Damn! That's two SF references that have gone right over my head today. I need to bone up more.

Then again, my Gerry and Sylvia Anderson knowledge is pretty much limited to Supercar (from watching a lot of The Higgins Boys and Gruber back when The Comedy Channel was both The Comedy Channel and funny) and I think I'd prefer to keep it that way. (``Mitch the Chimp is dead! Mitch the Chimp is dead!!'')

If you had the choice between the Nokia and the SPV what would you go for?

Good question - I've been trying to decide the same thing. Do let us know which you get, and what you think of it!

It's not out yet (on Orange, anyway), but have you seen the Sony-Ericsson P800?

Bryan.

nokia's are the devil themselfs, step up and get the spv. either way your still getting a deal

I've got the Nokia 7650. It's not that I think that it's a crappy product, but a lot can be improved. First and formost the sound. It's just too damn quiet ! Because of this the hands free option is unuseable.

I've never heard of the SPV but I've looked it up and, going by it's specs, I think I would go for the SPV too.

Oh well, there goes another £150 then, I'll never be rich at this rate!

No, GSM and PCS are entirely different networks. PCS being mainly Sprint in the States. The phones are completely incompatible.

No, GSM and PCS are entirely different networks.

I think that's not exactly right. Although Sprint uses the letters 'PCS' in their service's name, I think PCS (Personal Communication Services) is a generic term for all digital mobile services. I think CDMA, TDMA, and GSM can all be called PCS. I may be wrong though.

Rob's right... here's a link that explains it a little better. However if your in the states and you see an ad for PCS phones it usually means Sprint.

Rob is 100% correct. PCS != Cellular is what the hub-bub was about when it was introduced. GSM (and variants and all frequencies), TDMA and CDMA are all "PCS" technologies.

Most companies no longer use the term "PCS" because consumers don't really give a rat's ass. Sprint uses it to differentiate between the new all-digital service an traditional CEL. That might work in some markets I supose. And it might work to promote thei service above the competition's to an unsuspecting public, but I don't know anyone still advertising or selling traditional cellular service in the consumer space. Sprint has some creative commercials, but they're mostly hot air.

In Canada we're starting to see more GSM service finally. Rogers/ATT has started a GSM service and seems to be promoting it with all their new product introductions. Let's hope this means the end to their abysmal TDMA service. Next we can only hope for CDMA to go down the crapper.

GSM is also the standard in Europe and much of Asia. Different frequency than NA however. If you want to be "global" get a Tri-Mode phone that handles al the frequecies (900,1800,1900).

I need to replace my Nokia 8290 soon (dropped it two times too many in San Fran last month). No other manufacturer makes an interface to rival Nokia yet, IMO.

Bruno

Im on sprintopcs, and im really impressed with there improvments on cdma and there 3g. I can connect my phone to my laptop and get 128k up and down, not to shabby for being connected by a cell phone. Gsm is really crummy in this area, it would be nice to have a standard, but the problem is when you have weak signal you have cut outs and the likes, with my phone u either get signal or you dont.

I need to replace my Nokia 8290 soon (dropped it two times too many in San Fran last month). No other manufacturer makes an interface to rival Nokia yet, IMO.

Get the Sony Ericsson T68i. It's about the same size, but better voice quality, longer battery life, and tons of useful features. Getting used to the UI does take a bit (took me a week coming from the 8290), but it's well worth it. It will read the SIM out of the 8290, but any caller groups will be lost. Setting them back up is pretty quick though, because Nokia used special characters in the name field to group them (thus all the people with $ are in one group, & in another, etc...).

I'll vouch for the t68i as being the phone to finally kill nokia's lead in cell phones. In the US, nokia doesn't hold a candle to the t68i. Now, the GSM networks all suck in the US, so you have to make the cool-phone/good-coverage trade off. I've heard this is because everyone uses 1900mhz for GSM here and that it "doesn't penetrate buildings" but i'm not sure if that's an old-geek's-tale or not. If it's true, I hope AT&T finishes up their conversion and starts switching on 800mhz GSM like it's rumored they plan on doing.

Matthew

I've already got a T68i, I've had for nearly a year. Should have mentioned that in my first post!

Be sure to test out the SPV first - a client of mine was interested in using it for a mobile ordering system for their sales team and rejected it because the interface was too slow and it had a tendency to fall over.

I've got the Ericsson T39m -- the precessor to the SonyEricsson T68i. Before that, I'd had two different Nokia phones. Honestly, if you love the Nokia UI, then all other phones will suck in comparison. I've been using the T39m for 1.5 years now, and I still miss things about my former Nokia.

At this point, I'm quite interested in the forthcoming Nokia 6200, which is a tri-band GSM phone, only it has two U.S. bands and one European band! With the U.S. and Canada finally killing off TDMA, those old frequencies will be going to GSM, and thus you're starting to see phones supporting "850MHz GSM". In about a year, you'll see quad-band GSM phones that will work on absolutely anybody's GSM service in any country.

If I lived in Europe, I'd just get myself a Nokia 6100 and call it a day. It's lightweight, supports all the relevant standards, and apparently does a nice job of being a speakerphone.

I've already got a T68i, I've had for nearly a year. Should have mentioned that in my first post!

My comment was more towards Bruno about his 8290, but on your side, I have seen a few good reviews of the Sony Ericsson P800 unit. One of its main advantages seems to be the size compaired to other recent PDA cell phones. (Though I haven't seen the size of the 7650 or the SPV).

One disadvantage is that it's apparently going to be much more expensive compared to a Orange SPV or Nokia 7650.
Just in case people don't know, the SPV isn't actually made by Orange. Orange is a mobile phone network over here and branded the SPV with their logo and changed the firmware slightly. I can't remember who makes the SPV hardware itself.

- Trevor

The P800 seems very expensive compared to the other ones mentioned here - the Nokia 7650 and Orange SPV being about £150 (with monthly contract), but the cheapest I've seen the P800 was about £350 (with contract).

Bryan.

I've got a SIM card for NA and one for Finland and I just swap em out when I travel there...no problems, and local billing in both countries

Wish I was able to visit there more...

Get the 7650 (or a P800.. though I've never tried one).

See www.my-symbian.com for a list of 7650 goodies you can get... I've got a fairly decent web-browser with https support ("Doris"?!), a multi-protocol messenger client (tipic ME) and some games. Plenty of toys

Of course, the P800 is triband and also has Putty (ssh) ported to it...

The 7650 works pretty well as a phone IMO. I don't have a lot of time for things which don't do the basic job well - like the O2 xda, for example. The thing frightening me about the P800 is whether the keypad-over-the-touchscreen flip bit actually allows me to text as fast as I can with real keyswitches.

The T68 is bloody awful - well, mine was, and I know plenty of other people who regret getting one. Triband, yes, colour, yes (well, a bit washed out) - but forget signal, actually making calls without reboots and texting so slow that I could end up two lines ahead of the screen and have to wait for *10 seconds* for the phone to catch up. And yes, I did get the software upgraded on it to see if it helped.

Hugo

The T68 is bloody awful - well, mine was, and I know plenty of other people who regret getting one. Triband, yes, colour, yes (well, a bit washed out) - but forget signal, actually making calls without reboots and texting so slow that I could end up two lines ahead of the screen and have to wait for *10 seconds* for the phone to catch up. And yes, I did get the software upgraded on it to see if it helped.

Odd, my T68i so far has been better with recepion then my Nokia 8290. I get crappy reception at my house, but am now able to talk without being outside, or right next to the doors. I have seen a few times where it has gotten a bit slow, but only when I have an active GPRS connection. Did you have the T68m or the T68i? (And of course there is the T68ie, but I can't figure out what it is). I also have never had it lock up or need a reboot to make a call in the 4 hours I have talked on it, and the month of owning it now. And as far as I know, my friend who has his 4 months now also hasn't had any problems. Maybe they made some improvements before bringing it stateside.

I've had two replacement T68i's so far, I can't wait for my contract to finish.

The T68 hardware is identical for all versions; when the 'i' came out, someone on a mobile forum tracked down the FCC declaration for the new model, in which ericsson confirmed that there weren't any hardware changes.

I had a vanilla T68, one of the early ones (November 2001, I think). The "not calling" problem was the worst - try and dial a number, you get the "calling.." screen, but instead of moving onto "connecting..." it just cleared the screen as if you'd never asked it to call at all. Power cycling usually didn't help, either. Battery out for 10 minutes would usually fix it. The software update didn't help, but the new one removed tetris (arrrgh!) and replaced it with battleships (whoop-de-doo!).

Never used GPRS on it, so it can't have been that slowing it down. Do you text much?

I just heard that the P800 doesn't have predictive text - I mean, is that just a huge gaping omission in anyone else's eyes? I don't fancy having to get the stylus out or tap a message letter by letter when I need to send a quick text! I was planning on getting one, but I think I'll just wait for Nokia's next Symbian-based toy - at least it'll be designed to work well as a phone...

Hugo

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.

In reply to:

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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)

In reply to:

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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