Let me say it here itself. At first, I was a Nokia fan. Then I became a Sony Ericsson (SE) fan for a while, before going back to my old love, Nokia. Why the shift back? Simply because SE is now spitting out devices that have nothing new from their past siblings. I am in the market for a new mobile to replace my aging SE Z610i. Of couse, I’m considering what manufacturers have to offer NOW, not in another quarter in the near future. I have to say, I am not pleased with SE and the others.

My actual budget was something below $500 if possible. I want a feature phone that will be future-proof for around 1-2 years at least. That will not break in my hands. That is not flip, cuz I got tired of the constant flipping and unflipping each time. Oh of course, I’m looking for a mobile, a portable phone. I don’t want a brick inside my jeans pocket and then find that my pants are compressing important parts.

So, let’s start with SE. What do you have to offer that can match what I am seeking (these are what I considered)? One by one please!

• G70s (slider): A good phone I must say. It does have the features I wish. A small thickness of 14mm. It has wifi, which I am looking for. A good battery providing around 400 hrs of standby and 10hrs of talking before a recharge. GPS is included, though not useful in Mauritius. The price is ok too. Around $350. But what the hell is this phone? G-series are supposed to be smart phones. Or the G705 is not smart. It’s not a Walkman phone. Then what is it? A sort of hybrid? And what’s with the ridiculous 3.15 MP camera? What, does SE have a lot of those and need to pack and sell those? Apart from those, the features are very standard. Music player, TrackID, bla bla. Nothing worthy. Except! A Youtube player! That’s nice. Too bad reviewers say it doesn’t work with the WIFI connection. Streaming Youtube vids via your network is going to kill your charges for sure! They also say the slide mechanism is a bit stiff. So go sleep in a corner, G705.
• G715 (slider): It’s not out yet, but I am including this to make a point. Go to GSMArena, and compare the two phones: G715 and G705. I did it for you, so check out this link. Notice similarities? Too many of them for my tastes. That’s what I was saying. SE is just giving us phones that resemble existing ones in terms 0f features! They are not adding anything really new. Not only that, they are not upgrading their features. What’s up with those 3.15 MP cameras? And those 240×320 256k colors screens!I mean, my Z610i had a 240×320 256k colors and a 2MP camera. It’s been what, 3 years since I bought it? It was a fantastic phone, really solid and useful. It’s time for its replacement to come, and SE offers nothing really amazing that warrants an upgrade. Either that, or they are exclusively targetting the lower/middle classes only. I want an upper-middle phone! Please! But let’s move on.
• G900 (bar): Ahh! A smartphone with respectable features! A touchscreen! A 5MP camera. Wifi included. But wait! What do I see! NOOO! The 240×320 256k colors screen makes a comeback! A thin phone with the features I need, but weak screen! There’s also a couple of issues pointed out by reviews which are very significant. 1st: there are no physical call/end-call buttons. You need to tap the screen to answer/end a call. People have said that sometimes, the screen doesn’t respond and you can’t take the call. This is unthinkable: unable to answer a call with a phone! Next issue is that the device is kind of slow, considering that an old processor (if I remember correctly, the one that powers the P1) was used in the G900. Sorry G900, go stand in your corner too.
• Any other SE Phone: I’m tired. I’m grouping everything else here! What I didn’t like what the recurring 240×320 256k colors screens everywhere! Isn’t it time to switch to something like 16M colors or something? We want quality! Next is the recurring features. When I was looking through SE offerings, I kept seeing the same things recur in most models. The camera was 3.15MP for most new offerings. The same features advertised on and on. It almost seemed to me that SE was selling one phone under different shells and models!

I’m sorry SE. I really loved your phones. The Z610i was nearly bug-less. It worked very smoothly and had tons of nice features. And best of all, it was user-friendly. Don’t want a call? Press the volume button on the side. It mutes the ringer/kills the vibrator but leaves the call on. Press it again, and it sends the busy tone. A very nice touch,. in my opinion. There were loads of features like that which I really liked.

But lately, your phones seem so generic, so bland! I don’t find anything worthy to replace my trusty Z610i. All the new devices look so similar, the features are not impressive. A real pity I should say. RIP my old loved brand.

Let’s go to my ex now. Nokia baby, here I come:

For Nokia, I considered relatively few models. Those really amazed me, but they are not really cheap. I wanted a good, lasting phone. One that can survive for 2 years without replacement. For that, I was ready to fork out Rs.10k if needed. That’s around $400.

• E66 (slider): A business phone. For a student. Doesn’t really suit, no? But I really loved the features. 3.15MP camera again (it’s a conspiracy or what?) but it has 16m colors! It has Wifi! It has document reader, something which I don’t think the SE’s have! It has VOIP support! And it makes great use of its accelerometer, with stuff like turn-to-mute. $400 on Amazon. Not bad. Again some reviews say it’s not good enough, with a weak battery. A friend also reported that his E66 went bonkers after a fall. I’m a bit cautious about that one.
• N96 (slider): Awesome phone. But a heck of a price. The N96 is already well known, and I’ll not elaborate on that one.
• N85 (slider): This one, I really want. Why? Cuz it’s a good balance in features/price. It’s almost like a mini, and thinner N96! Seriously, this device is a killer! 16m colors screen, OLED please! OLED quality is really amazing with really vivid colors. Built-in accelerometer for turn-sensing. A navi-wheel which acts like the wheel on ipods. 8GB MicroSD support (8GB card included). Has Wifi, a 5MP shooter with flash, auto-focus and all the gadgets. Has GPS in-built, a 3.5mm audio jack (I need!), TV-out (not really needed for me), an FM-transmitter which is really awesome – I pause here for a minute. The FM Transmitter allows you to broadcast the music you are playing on your mobile to an FM receiver. Like your car radio. Very few mobiles have that, and that’s what I really call an innovative feature. Has a document viewer and plays Internet radio. No seriously, what more can I ask of? Probably a better battery. The talk-time is around 6hrs and standby of 350h. With the FM transmitter and other power munchers, it’ll be much less. Oh, did I mention that this baby is a dual-slider? Like the N85? And its very thin. 16mm for you!Take that SE! That’s what I call an amazing phone. Price? $450 something on the Internet. I wish I had somebody going near China to pick this one up for me!
• N97 (touch-screen / QWERTY) – Similar in features to N85 but with a full touchscreen and QWERTY included. But hell, that’s one hefty price tag. Around $750. Too much for me, but I can dream! 😛

Others I have considered are the Samsung Omnia and the Innov8. Truly awesome devices, but at what price! Out of my league, I must confess.

Ah I’m tired of reading reviews. I’m ending this article here. Do you have any mobile phone recommendations for me? Let’s hear those. This was my first mobile-phone related article btw!

Ps. Did you notice that Google changed its favicon again? This one is more Google-like! 😛