Wamberto
17-11-2004, 09:09 PM
I Got this last friday and took the Sony Ericsson V800 have been using the phone since and have been compling a little report of how ive found the phone and the network.
Battery Life - Vodafone advertise the phone to be :
Talk Time : Upto 180 Mins
Standby : Upto 280 Mins
Video Time : Upto 150 Mins (this i didnt fully test because frankly i feel the price is over inflated)
What i got from the battery * Full Charge & Power Sequence Followed *
Talk Time : 60 Mins
Standby : 32 Hours
Video : i only made a 3/4 min video call
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Camera : One of the best on the market....for now - with the 2.0 MP phone due out soon the 1.3 MP will soon be a distant memory. But none the less images are clear and crisp and better than other phones on the market.
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Pricing - Vodafone is eventually going to have to go some way to match 3 in terms of pricing or they are going to fall behind. Lets face it 3 may just be a new entrant and having network problems but sooner rather than later its all going to click into place and they will push harder.
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Memory - Upgradable to 1GB...since its a Sony phone its a memory stick
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Screen - Good size....good definition....what you'd expect nowadays
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Messaging - SMS : Same old Same old - 3G doesnt improve an SMS
MMS : Obviously with the speed increase over GPRS this is faster
VMS : Video Messaging - Same as MMS
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Video Calling : Don't know anyone on Vodafone to video call so i decided to give the old x-network video calling a try to a mate on 3. Got my mate over for some beers and we tried swapping phones to see the difference to be honest....they are so similar there is no difference. Well it costs more to x-net video call on vodafone so if your going to try this then it might be best to get your friend on 3 call you as its cheaper going from 3 to vodafone.
*note someone from vodafone may have tried to call on monday but read on to find out about monday*
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Ok now onto the 3G bit.........
Services - The Services vodafone offer on 3G Live are very similar to whats offered by 3. This to be honest will probably be the case with all the networks but i have heard from my mate that 3 did a live streaming of a concert by some band a few weeks ago and this might be a biggie for them.
The services are faster to load and there are some exclusive things on there for 3G like the games. Now this is a sticking point for me - i saw another review on here and i'll get to this later as somethings that happened to that guy kinda happened to me.
The football is good as well and the news service is top notch...as for the rest of the stuff i'll coin a phrase by shania twain "That dont impress me much"
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My Experience - As i said at the beginning i got this on friday and i took it home and charged it, left it overnight and went out on the town and left the "3G Experience" til saturday..ahem...afternoon...late saturday afternoon.
I powered up the phone and made a few calls and i found that i was getting around 2 bars of signal at home - the calls were made ok. I played around with the services, downloaded a few things and everything. Gave the thing a work out for an hour or so - put the phone down and i had 3/4 battery left and went out again for the night.
Sunday - Went to pick up the phone and the battery had died, i thought "fair enough" maybe my using it had taken more of a toal than i thought so i stuck it on charge and came back 4 hours later and the phone said the battery was full. Whilst i was waiting on the footy started i fired up the phone only to find that my signal was weak....way weaker than yesterday and it was constantly flicking between 2-3G so i switched it off/on and tried to make a call to get my mate round for the game and maybe try a video call. we got into a bit of banter on the phone and about 10 mins into the call he disappeared - looked at the screen and the call had dropped & the phone showed no signal. So i foned him back and his phone rang and when he answered i couldnt hear him, i hung up again and when i got through he was very faint and then he vanished again and the call had dropped and i had no signal on my phone.
Later on that night i managed to keep hold of a 3G signal so we tried the video calls like i mentioned above....my mate started playing a couple of the games and he was playing them for about 15 mins and the low battery thing pops up and the phone was hot so we switched it off thinking that it was a combination of the things we had tried so i stuck it on charge and left it over night.
Monday - Going to work : took the phone off charge after a good 10-12 hours of charging and got on the train to work so i decided to show off on the train with my new toy and have a go of one of the games my mate downloaded 10 mins into the journey the phone started to get really hot and FFS im getting the low battery thing again so the phone was off and when i got home i stuck it on charge
so monday was a write off
Tuesday - Decided i would test the standby....took my old nokia PAYG to work.
Still going strong when i went to bed - Please note i had no missed calls or messages recieved
Wednesday - went to work phone battery was half full....took the nokia to work again and when i got home the phone was on low battery alert and died when i pressed a button to clear it. so the full thing lasted around 32 hours.
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My Opinion - A good phone, faster services than 2G but the battery life is worrying and the overheating when playing a game is very worrying. Also possible coverage issues either with the phone or with the network itself
I think i'll be taking the phone back at the weekend and try again in a few months
Phone : Thumbs Up Network : Need more convincing
Battery Life - Vodafone advertise the phone to be :
Talk Time : Upto 180 Mins
Standby : Upto 280 Mins
Video Time : Upto 150 Mins (this i didnt fully test because frankly i feel the price is over inflated)
What i got from the battery * Full Charge & Power Sequence Followed *
Talk Time : 60 Mins
Standby : 32 Hours
Video : i only made a 3/4 min video call
---------------------------------------------
Camera : One of the best on the market....for now - with the 2.0 MP phone due out soon the 1.3 MP will soon be a distant memory. But none the less images are clear and crisp and better than other phones on the market.
---------------------------------------------
Pricing - Vodafone is eventually going to have to go some way to match 3 in terms of pricing or they are going to fall behind. Lets face it 3 may just be a new entrant and having network problems but sooner rather than later its all going to click into place and they will push harder.
----------------------------------------------
Memory - Upgradable to 1GB...since its a Sony phone its a memory stick
----------------------------------------------
Screen - Good size....good definition....what you'd expect nowadays
----------------------------------------------
Messaging - SMS : Same old Same old - 3G doesnt improve an SMS
MMS : Obviously with the speed increase over GPRS this is faster
VMS : Video Messaging - Same as MMS
-----------------------------------------------
Video Calling : Don't know anyone on Vodafone to video call so i decided to give the old x-network video calling a try to a mate on 3. Got my mate over for some beers and we tried swapping phones to see the difference to be honest....they are so similar there is no difference. Well it costs more to x-net video call on vodafone so if your going to try this then it might be best to get your friend on 3 call you as its cheaper going from 3 to vodafone.
*note someone from vodafone may have tried to call on monday but read on to find out about monday*
-----------------------------------------------
Ok now onto the 3G bit.........
Services - The Services vodafone offer on 3G Live are very similar to whats offered by 3. This to be honest will probably be the case with all the networks but i have heard from my mate that 3 did a live streaming of a concert by some band a few weeks ago and this might be a biggie for them.
The services are faster to load and there are some exclusive things on there for 3G like the games. Now this is a sticking point for me - i saw another review on here and i'll get to this later as somethings that happened to that guy kinda happened to me.
The football is good as well and the news service is top notch...as for the rest of the stuff i'll coin a phrase by shania twain "That dont impress me much"
------------------------------------------------
My Experience - As i said at the beginning i got this on friday and i took it home and charged it, left it overnight and went out on the town and left the "3G Experience" til saturday..ahem...afternoon...late saturday afternoon.
I powered up the phone and made a few calls and i found that i was getting around 2 bars of signal at home - the calls were made ok. I played around with the services, downloaded a few things and everything. Gave the thing a work out for an hour or so - put the phone down and i had 3/4 battery left and went out again for the night.
Sunday - Went to pick up the phone and the battery had died, i thought "fair enough" maybe my using it had taken more of a toal than i thought so i stuck it on charge and came back 4 hours later and the phone said the battery was full. Whilst i was waiting on the footy started i fired up the phone only to find that my signal was weak....way weaker than yesterday and it was constantly flicking between 2-3G so i switched it off/on and tried to make a call to get my mate round for the game and maybe try a video call. we got into a bit of banter on the phone and about 10 mins into the call he disappeared - looked at the screen and the call had dropped & the phone showed no signal. So i foned him back and his phone rang and when he answered i couldnt hear him, i hung up again and when i got through he was very faint and then he vanished again and the call had dropped and i had no signal on my phone.
Later on that night i managed to keep hold of a 3G signal so we tried the video calls like i mentioned above....my mate started playing a couple of the games and he was playing them for about 15 mins and the low battery thing pops up and the phone was hot so we switched it off thinking that it was a combination of the things we had tried so i stuck it on charge and left it over night.
Monday - Going to work : took the phone off charge after a good 10-12 hours of charging and got on the train to work so i decided to show off on the train with my new toy and have a go of one of the games my mate downloaded 10 mins into the journey the phone started to get really hot and FFS im getting the low battery thing again so the phone was off and when i got home i stuck it on charge
so monday was a write off
Tuesday - Decided i would test the standby....took my old nokia PAYG to work.
Still going strong when i went to bed - Please note i had no missed calls or messages recieved
Wednesday - went to work phone battery was half full....took the nokia to work again and when i got home the phone was on low battery alert and died when i pressed a button to clear it. so the full thing lasted around 32 hours.
----------------------------------------------
My Opinion - A good phone, faster services than 2G but the battery life is worrying and the overheating when playing a game is very worrying. Also possible coverage issues either with the phone or with the network itself
I think i'll be taking the phone back at the weekend and try again in a few months
Phone : Thumbs Up Network : Need more convincing