14 DAY TRIAL // There has been a lot of talk on the mobile phone market from the moment Sony Ericsson T650i has been launched. The main reason for all this talk is the high SAR value featured by the "incriminated" device ? 1.80 W/kg. This erases any chance for the phone to be approved in the USA and Canada, because of the 1.6 W/kg limit. Furthermore, the fact that Sony Ericsson didn't bother to make it quad-band network compatible suggests that they knew from the start that the phone will have such a high radiation level. Nevertheless, in Europe, the accepted SAR value is 2.0 W/kg and users may think twice before buying this device. Are they going to accept this high radiation level for such a good looking phone, or health comes first? There's certainly more cancerous stuff out there that people don?t really care about, so why should we bother now? Let's remember that the phone is still within the legal limit of radiation in Europe, Asia and Australia where most buyers come from, which means that Sony Ericsson will not be hurt too much by the restriction on the USA and Canada market (if any).
Sony Ericsson T650i was announced in May 2007 and has been launched on the market at the end of August 2007. The handset can be acquired in three different color versions, Growing Green, Midnight Blue and Eclipse Black, for a hefty price of almost USD 500$.
Design
Sony Ericsson T650i is a fashion series handset, thus expectations should be high in terms of design. Only after you've been able to get one of these little toys, will you be able to notice the skilled craftsmanship that has been used for manufacturing it. With a touch of "retro", but still keeping a straight modern line, T650i rocks in terms of look. Sleek and made from a durable stainless steel compound, the phone impresses through simplicity and sturdiness. Perhaps its measures (104 x 46 mm) and weight (95 grams including battery) won't make the phone stand out from the crowd, but the slim look (only 12.5 mm thickness) will change its status into an "eye-catching" fashionista?s magnet.
Sony Ericsson kept the same small keypad that has been embedded onto the latest of its models for a while. In the end, I believe it's not about the size of the keys, but about how large the space between the keys really is. Because no matter how big your fingers are, you'll still be able to text with ease and maximum efficiency as long as there's enough space between the keys. The keypad features some marvelous light effects specific to every theme included in the phone. The themes embedded look very much the same as those included in the S500i model, which is also a fashionistas phone. The upper part of the phone is made of stainless steel, which ? unfortunately ? is very easy to scratch, so I suggest you use the leather pouch that comes in the sales package if you want to protect your investment. What's left from the bottom part of the phone is made from a stylish plastic, which is very well polished. Everything has been carefully crafted, so you won't have the "cheap plastic" impression.
The phone has a metallic stripe that surrounds it, which also embeds some helpful keys such as: camera key and a dual volume key (also shows Status of the phone) placed on the right side of the phone, while on top of the handset you can find the Power button and the locking mechanism. There's only one universal port on the left side of the phone, which is used for charging purposes or simply for attaching the earphones that come with the mobile. Right above the display, there's a secondary camera, used for video-call purposes and a light sensor. The bottom back of the phone integrates an external speaker, while near the front bottom you'll notice the small and unprotected 3.2 Megapixels camera, featuring flash. Overall, Sony Ericsson T650i will certainly attract buyers through its stylish and sleek design, but also for its good performances in all fields.
Display and Camera
Sony Ericsson's T650i features a TFT display that supports 256k colors and 240 x 320 pixels resolution. Much better than Samsung's displays, the screen looks crystal clear, even in strong sunlight. Benchmarks revealed that SE's T650i display is a little bit better than K850i?s screen, and that it could rival Nokia's screens. The screen is surrounded by a metallic case and is protected by a special cover against scratches.
Just to rise up its value, Sony Ericsson included a 3.2 Megapixel camera with flash, autofocus and 3x digital zoom. The latter is not available in Normal mode, so if you want to take advantage of the zooming feature, you should set mode to Panorama, Frames or Burst.
Since only a 3.15-megapixel camera is available for the user, the maximum resolution of a picture taken with one of these handsets is 2048 x 1536 pixels, that's about 800 KB in size. The phone features a wide range of camera options and settings, such as: White balance (Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent and Incandescent), Effects (Black & white), Negative, Sepia and Solarize) and Scene modes (Twilight landscape, Twilight portrait, Landscape, Portrait and Beach/Snow).
Autofocus can be disabled if you want, but you won't be able to do the same with the Shutter sound. The only way to "silence" the annoying sound is to simply change the Profile of the handset to Silent mode. Sony Ericsson T650i can only record clips in a low QCIF resolution, so there's no talk about quality.
As you can see from the samples below, pictures are a little bit above average and are strongly depending on the light conditions. Without being one of the best-integrated module cameras, Sony Ericsson's T650i 3.15 Megapixel camera can satisfy most of the users that will buy the phone.
Menu and Software
Except for the nice themes and light effects that will amaze even the most NOT interested mobile user, the phone's menu is no different than what we've got until this moment. The phonebook is pretty simple and can record up to 1000 contacts and features 5 info slots for every new contact that you add. There's a call log which can held history of up to 30 calls. The same Phone status function that displays info about the status of the phone (battery, memory, profile, phone number) can also be easily accessed from the dual volume keys.
You can find a wide range of applications embedded in the Entertainment category from the Main menu, such as: VideoDJ, PhotoDJ, MusicDJ, Remote control, Record sound. You can set up to 5 alarms on different days of the week. The Organizer contains some of the basic applications that every modern mobile phone usually contains: Calculator, Calendar, Timer, Stopwatch, Tasks, Notes, Light or some that are a little bit more complex like Code memo and AccuWeather (weather forecast).
You can easily browse through different folders of the phone with the help of the File manager, which has become a common application included in a Sony Ericsson handset. The phone also features an RSS news feeder through the embedded web browser, and the usual TrackID function. The phone is fully compatible with POP3 and IMAP4 email accounts and has only one Inbox for all messages received.
Communication
Superior to its S500i brother, Sony Ericsson's T650i tri-band handset features UMTS network compatibility, but lacks EDGE connectivity. Surely that's one step forward for Sony Ericsson, which decided to include high-end features in a fashion candy-bar phone.
While 3G (101 Kbit/s download and 102 Kbit/s upload) and HSCSD (61 Kbit/s download and 30 Kbit/s upload) data transfer speeds are a bit lower than we expected, the techs are there and if you get lucky, you might exceed these numbers.
Bluetooth connection is A2DP compatible and registers medium data transfer speeds of up to 55 KB/s. You can synchronize the phone with the PC through the USB cable, but be careful what kind of connection mode you choose if you want to transfer data from your memory card. As stated above, besides SMS, MMS and EMS texting, messaging capabilities are limited to POP3 and IMAP4 email accounts. The NetFront web browser offers some nice features like: Zoom, Landscape mode, Full screen or Text only.
The tri-band (GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900) network compatible handset has a medium GSM signal reception. The sound is pretty clear and loud enough for you to be able to talk on the phone in crowded areas with no problems. It's strange? but there are times when you might get some weird noises into the in-call speaker or you won't be able to hear your friend on the phone for a second or two. Anyway, these strange things happen very rarely and are most likely caused by the weak signal reception.
Processor and Memory
Sony Ericsson T650i embeds an ARM9 family processor running at speeds of up to 197 MHz. The mid-level CPU enables this fashion phone to run any Java application without any lag problems. Furthermore, even with 2-3 applications running in the background, you won't experience lags like some well-known models (K850i or P1i).
The good-looking candy-bar phone comes with only 16 MB available internal memory, but fortunately, it includes a 256 MB M2 card in the sales package. Even so, you should probably need to get more of this as the big size pictures will eat a lot of storage space.
Multimedia
Users will be pleased to find that the Sony Ericsson T650i handset includes the Walkman player version 1.0, which has been used by SE in almost all of its latest models with the exception of Walkman series. The latter contains the 2.0 version, but the differences are only a few and mostly regard the equalizer, which doesn't support the MegaBass mode in version 1.0.
The music player recognizes MP3, AAC, AAC+, E-AAC+, WAV, WMA, M4A and MIDI file formats. The sound is very good as long as you don't use the headset found in the sales package and attach better ones. You can also opt to listen to the FM radio, which can store up to 20 stations. The external speaker sounds nice, but a little bit too low, even with the Stereo widening function ON. Overall, the multimedia experience exceeded our expectations through its sound quality and easy to use interface.
Battery
T650i handset features a 930 mAh Li-Polymer battery which has a stated autonomy of 300 hours in standby mode and 7 hours of talk time. Actually, we have been forced to charge the phone every 2-3 days on a heavy use. That will probably reduce the talk time to no more than 5 hours of talk time, but that may depend on the network. Anyway, we already know that Li-Polymer are better solutions that Li-Ion batteries overall, so we shouldn't expect less from this phone's battery.
Impressions
I'm pretty sure that the phone already made lots of "victims" through its classy look and high-end specifications. Even if the phone wasn't meant to enter the market as a high-end product, the price almost makes it so. Sony Ericsson has turned back to the roots of its mobile phone designing process, and that gives T650i a retro look, which seems to attract more and more buyers.
The Good
Sony Ericsson built a stylish candy-bar and embedded some of the high-end technologies. This might seem curious, because the phone was meant to target fashionistas. Perhaps these will be more satisfied by the powerful camera and multimedia features. Besides its great design, I have noticed that it?s a balanced handset, which scored "above average" overall (camera, music, design, battery).
The Bad
Like I said in the beginning, the negative side of the phone is the radiation level (SAR), which will certainly decrease the number of fans. Perhaps a lower price would've balanced this, but Sony Ericsson decided the other way around. In the end, we have a pretty expensive mid-level phone with a high radiation level.
Sales package
Sony Ericsson T650 phone Battery Li-Polymer 930 mAh Desk stand Stereo headset Soft pouch USB cable and software 256 MB Memory Stick Micro (M2) User guide
Photo: Tudor Raiciu for Softpedia.com