Ignore Ericsson A3618
Written: Dec 13 '03 (Updated Dec 22 '03)
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Pros: Looks like a cool phone (though in fact it's not!)
Cons: Li-Ion 650 mAh battery, some menus and options (or the lack of them).
The Bottom Line: Don't recommend to take a chance on Ericsson.
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| kuuleimomi's Full Review: Sony Ericsson A3618 Cell Phone |
First, let me point out that it's not Sony Ericsson A3618, but simply Ericsson A3618, standard GSM 900/1800. It's less than 90 grams and relatively small in size. It features an external antenna (a slight minus for me). I've been actively using it for five months now and have more than a couple of issues that I'm willing to share.
When you look at it, you might say it's perfect for the first cell phone. It has nice design, four colors of display light you can choose from, you can even set different colors for different people in your phone book. My phone is graphite silver (as opposed to ice silver on the picture) and looks really cool with blue background light. It gives space for 100 records in your phone book plus whatever the space your provider reserves for you.
Eric has preset melodies and space for four you can create yourself (not download, as far as I understand it). It features two screensavers (which I never use) and a distinctive Ericsson melody, which you can set for a welcome message or any ring alert.
A3618 features standard Calendar, Alarm Clock, Timer, Stopwatch and Games. BUT it doesn't have a calculator, which is crucial for me. Yeah, I know, first you don't need it from the phone but then you start missing all those things, especially if you're in college and your major is Economics.
A3618 has three games: tetris, erix (game featured in most of Ericsson phones), pulldown/same. First is self-explanatory, second is a brainless relaxation and third is a brainteaser. Frankly, I had set a few records back in summer and now I wonder how I got all the passion to do it. Never play them again.
Cool thing that I love about my Eric is T9, which makes SMSing a fun AND fast activity. Though I don't write messages since I follow the notion that calling is cheaper than sending a message and expect the other party to reply and then reply to their reply, so that your conversation has at least some value. My phone has English, German and Turkish T9, though I honestly would prefer English and Russian. It also has the regular abc and 123 modes. Your phone’s T9 option will depend on the country it was manufactured for.
You can preset up to 10 shortcuts on the phone. If you push one of the keys with an arrow for a few moments, then the first option on the shortcut list comes up. The keys, by the way, are nice and comfy and logically arranged (as opposed to some Nokia, i.e.), just as the whole menu (as opposed to Siemens). The thing I don’t like is that the display has only three lines, very annoying when using the SMS option.
Generally, Eric lives up to the expectations when it comes to the calls. Occasionally I do have problems, but I tend to blame the service provider. My major concerns are the following.
First of all, Ericsson doesn’t have an option of setting your own number. That means, when you call someone your phone number might not show. That also depends on provider, but many of them set your number on “don’t show” and it’s either you identify your number in the according option (which Eric doesn’t have) or you have to use *31# before every number in your phone book. However, you can’t send SMS on that number, so you have to have two entries for every single person in your book (if you want to use SMS option actively).
Second, with the problem above, I basically can’t use the call list, since all I see is “*” and nothing else. It doesn’t show the name of the person I called, even though they are in my phone book, or the number, only “*”. Also, I don’t like the way Eric presents the Inbox menu: it shows the date, not the author.
Third, Ericsson doesn’t have “a delivery report” option. Only a week ago good soul mentioned it on the forum that wasn’t even related to Ericsson that you can put a question mark in the beginning of the body of your message and only then you’ll get a delivery report. But that was NOT indicated in the manual.
Fourth, and this one is the major one, I HATE Ericsson Li-Ion 650 mAh battery. It’s the worst Li-Ion battery you’ll find. First of all, 650 should give you a hint that it’s not the best of a kind (I suggest at least 720). Then, if you make a phone call you’ll see that it’s loosing power pretty fast – according to the battery indicator on the display, even though it really shouldn’t. After the battery on the display is almost powerless, the phone starts indicating that the battery is low – even though you know for sure it’s been only a few hours since you charged it and you only spend ten minutes on the phone. After you finished talking, you’ll see that the battery will gain the power again (full, almost full, half, doesn’t matter), but the phone will keep telling you that the battery is low. As an experiment, I did not charge my phone, but let it hang like that for a while. It survived the total of 30 hours. What I do, when I know that the batter is almost full and it keeps telling me that in fact it’s low, I just turn off and then on the phone. But that annoys the hell out of me.
It says that it's good for use after four hours of charging, but I give it the whole night. I charge this Ericsson every day, because otherwise it’s a piece of trash. I would not suggest it to people who spend at least some time on the phone every day (meaning you don’t carry it around as an accessory, but actually use it). It’s trash for business people, it’s OK for school kids, I’d say (though I’d not allow them to use the phone, but that’s not the point). It especially becomes a problem in the north (Russia, for example), because Li-Ion batteries don’t survive in cold weather.
All of my friends, though, like my phone. It’s really nice, especially not the one you see on the picture, but the silver one. However it’s nice only if it’s used as accessory. I need a phone, though.
(Don't mind "Recommended for..." they made me choose one.)
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 80
Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable
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kuuleimomi
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Member: Finn (with 2 n's)
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