Do not let the lithe exterior of this phone fool you. The T39 can do
all that the R520 can and more...
The R520 broke boundaries with its feature-rich interior. But, while
the first GPRS, High Speed, Bluetooth, WAP 1.2.1 phone failed to deliver
exterior wise, this little beauty does it all.
Ease of use
Manoeuvring among the various features of the T39 is fairly intuitive and
as long as you keep your head on straight you should be able to access all
the goodies without too much trouble. However, because the phone is filled
with so many different treats there will be quite a bit of clicking and
scrolling before you reach your final destination, although this can
hardly be held against it. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. I
wonder, though, whether it was really necessary to submerge the alarm
clock quite as deep in the menu system, it takes a total of 13 clicks to
set the wake up alarm. Ericsson needs to keep in mind that although we
want all the goodies it is important not to loose track of the basic
functions.
The user guide, although intimidating in size, is well written and to the
point. While the manual for the R520 was illustrated by a fortyish,
handsome, businessman-like kind of guy, the T39 features a young woman,
pouty lips, Prada Sport and cool shades. Nokia, watch out, because it
seems like the old Swedish giant has some life in it yet.
WAP.com’s review of the R520 mentions the “option key”, which when
pressed provided you with shortcuts to the most obvious options from your
position in the menu system. This button is missing from the T39, and good
riddance I say. Its main area of use was setting the key lock, so by
providing the T39 with a flip cover it became more or less redundant.
SMS and e-mail are easily accessed under the Messages heading. Because
there is an e-mail option, getting to the SMS will take an extra couple of
clicks. Setting up the e-mail account took some time, and it was not self
evident that setting up the account was done, not under “e-mail”, but
under a separate “options” heading below it in the menu system, so
once again; looking through the manual could be worth your while. In fact,
most of the things I had problems finding were hidden under the various
“options” so I learnt to go straight for them in the end.
Design/style
Lose the antenna and this is the prettiest little phone on the market. It
comes in the pretentiously named colours: Classic Blue, Icecap Blue and
Rose White, meaning basically: charcoal, lilac and cream. The active flip
covers the keyboard, but the "yes", "no" and
"clear" buttons peep up suggestively and have been given
beautiful, slender curves. The back of the phone is completely flat and
some critics say it looks like a piece of the phone is missing. However,
this reviewer is putting it down to space economizing and quite likes the
look of it as well. If it hadn’t been for the in-your-eye antenna, this
phone would have been given a full score. However, the protrusion is
simply to irritating to be overlooked.
Vital Statistics
Dimensions: 90 x 50 x 18 mm
Weight: 86 grams
Standby time: 300 hours with standard battery
Talk time: 11 hours with standard battery
Colours: Classic Blue, Icecap Blue and Rose White
GPRS
HSCSD
EMS
Bluetooth
Tri-band
T9 Predictive text input
WAP 1.2.1
SynchML
PIM contacts and calendar
Screen savers
Infrared
WAP browsing
Before you start you will need to go through the sometimes painful, set up
procedure. Although Ericsson offers over the air set up via its Web pages,
WAP.com had to enter the uncharted territories, or so it feels, of the
manual set up. For some unknown reason the SMS set up failed to activate,
but we got there in the end and it has to be said: Wapping with GPRS is a
thrill. Not only are downloads faster, but you can weed out non
functioning sites easily and move on to better pastures, but the best of
all is the fact that you are available for voice calls even when receiving
data. Even if you are using your T39 to check out the tabloid headlines of
the day it is not at the risk of missing that one important phone call.
You can have up to five data profiles, which means that you can set up
accounts with different networks and if you choose to, you can have
regular GSM data transfer as well as GPRS. You can store up to 50
bookmarks distributed over your various profiles. It is possible to send
links via SMS and you have space designated for push services, ready for
when they start flooding the market.
WAP related features
The battery time is impressive. If you are planning to stay always-on,
that is, have your GPRS channel open at all times, you will find the
battery will not last you as long as if you log on and off from time to
time. Although I cannot vouch for the T39 delivering the 11 full hours of
talk time promised on Ericsson’s Website it comes pretty close. Wapping
is power intensive, but this baby can handle it, so if you’re the kind
of person who hates bulging your Prada Sport pocket with that troublesome
charger, this is the phone for you.
The T39 has a small display, but if you adjust the font size to small, you
get five lines of clear text. The phone supports EMS, the SMS big sister,
which will allow for animations, music and pictures to be added to your
regular SMS. The T9 predictive text input is mandatory, of course, and the
T39 has it. It also comes with wallpapers, a very popular feature of
Japanese i-mode devices. However, the standard background pictures simply
will not do. Although there is a wicked dragon (or is it a snake?) the
other pictures are corny at best and an embarrassment at worst. Hopefully,
better ones will be available for download very soon.
Overall
This is a wonderful device, appealing to all segments of the mobile phone
market. Priced at about EUR 470 this is a very good deal and although it
is in the upper price segment it should not scare too many. At any rate it
will be difficult to find a more feature packed device, in a better
package, at a better price.
This reviewer predicts that Ericsson will have to pry their test samples
from the fingers of reviewers; I know I will be holding on to mine for as
long as decency allows.
