Hanging on the telephone

[venta]

My mobile phone is beginning to disintegrate - if you ring me up, and you can hear me but I don't be able to hear you, then don't worry. This is currently one of its normal modes of operation. Some of the keys stick, and it crashes occasionally.

Yesterday I ran Vodafone to see what they might offer me as an upgrade. I can have another Motorola (no thanks, I'd rather use some tin cans and a bit of string), a Sharp (plausible) or the one I'm currently favouring, a Sony Ericsson V800.

Has anyone out there got a V800, or used one in anger ? Got anything to say about it ?

It seems to satisfy my major requirements, ie it's clamshell, it should function as a modem, it has an infrared port (woo, wasn't expecting that one), and it appears to make calls and send messages. I might like the buttons to be bigger (there's all that space, why make them so damn small!?) and I've heard reports from one user that the camera isn't nearly as good as you'd expect for 1.3 megapixel. The phone itself is pretty ugly, but then I think that about most phones - I have no idea why phone designers can't make a sensible, nice-looking unit any more.

I'd like to know if the V800's PC synchronisation stuff is any cop. And indeed whether it would actually do what it says (unlike my current phone, which doesn't do what it says.)

My memories of my last Sony Ericsson phone suggest that the predictive text should be competent (unlike the prediction on my current Motorola which sucks donkeys). The games stuff, downloadable ringtones, blah de blah de blah I don't give a flying stuff about.

Comments

[j4.livejournal.com]

FWIW (possibly not much, as this is a different model) I have a Sony Ericsson P900 -- its camera is rubbish and the synchronisation doesn't work at all with a Mac. It's entirely possible that they've sorted some of that out by now, but next time I upgrade I will be unlikely to go for another Sony Ericsson unless they can really convince me.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Are you using the most recent version of iSync? I've not had problems syncing with any of a succession of SEs (a t68i, a t610 or my shiny nu s700i), and yours is listed on the compatible devices page..

Oh, aside from all-day events only getting support relatively recently.

btw, Blondie of course :)

[j4.livejournal.com]

AFAIK I'm using the most recent version (I just do the updates when they come through), though to be fair I haven't kept trying to sync the phone every time an update comes through...

I tried following the "how to make your p900 sync with a mac" instructions [PDF] too, and no success, but that's geared towards a slightly earlier version of OS X than I was running by that time.

Maybe will try again, but the phone's falling to bits anyway by now (there's only about 1 square cm of space on the screen where the stylus will still work) so I may well be upgrading soon anyway. Tempted to go all retro & go back to a phone that just makes phone calls. 8-)

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Poo. Sorry to hear that.

As for 'just making phone calls' - I was tempted for a while after my t610 died, as I felt I'd made very little use of the features it had beyond those of the t68i. I already had a T105 that came almost for free with the sim card I got when deemigrating back to Australia, but after a month of that as my only phone I was really missing the addressbook and calendar syncing, and missed having a camera all the time too.

I was also getting bored of having to ask Jeanette for addresses - her Siemens S55 had them and none of my phones ever had .. until now :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

btw, Blondie of course :)

Of course :)

[uitlander]

The P900 and the P910 are both Symbian OS phones. The sync problem is because Symbian doesn't currently support use with a mac. I don;t recall whether it was on the release roadmap, but I do remember talking about someone in the SyncML dept about 2 months ago, whose attitude was 'well they dshould go and buy a proper PC is they want to sync' - so I'd guess not anytime soon. Don't think the one venta is considering is a Symbian one.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Ah okay. Thanks for the clarification! (Though now wondering how shrydar gets it to work...?)

Annoying that they're not planning to fix it, though. Seems particularly foot-shooting of Symbian, too, given that Mac users are probably more likely than most to spend shedloads of money on shiny tech...

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Seems particularly foot-shooting of Symbian, too

Dunno - what's the increase in development cost in supporting Mac, if Mac were supported, what proportion of total sales would be to Mac users who don't also have a PC, do the math. Symbian have never claimed to be in it other than for the money...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Though now wondering how [info]shrydar gets it to work...?

Shydar is a black-belt in geek-fu, and can write machine code with his teeth. Before breakfast.

I suspect his mobile devices are far too scared of him to do anything but sync perfectly.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

While it is true that I often write machine code before breakfast (6502 to be specific), I must admit that my phone (the S700i) runs SE's proprietary OS, and thus suffers not from Symbiassitude.

I do seem to have had a particularly good run with sync good behaviour though :)

*thanks venta for the compliment*