"Three" Phones

[Former]

Has anyone else wasted money on these clunky, battery-hungry, user unfriendly devices?

Mine spends half its life plugged into the wall. In the swanky shop the NEC e616 is displayed with the ultra-light battery. Unfortunately you'd be lucky if this lasts you until lunch time if you use the phone for more than two or three calls.

To get a full day's use without swapping batteries you need the included triple-sized brick of a battery. They are kind enough to include an extra wall charger, but no car charger.

The coverage is ridiculously unreliable. My phone spends more time out of a 3G coverage zone than in. It reminds me of the early days of Optus.

Video calling is fun for, oh, the first 30 seconds but then you wonder why people would bother apart from calling their spouse and videoing the racks at the video rental shop.

E-mail is incredibly slow, even for the smallest of messages.

This technology is definitely not ready for general use. I'm unhappy to have donated nearly $800 to this mob for our two phones. Still, the $99 talk cap is good and SMS is only 15c a pop. $19 of free video calls a month is good but will probably never be used as my house is in a bit of a 3G blackspot.

Call costs are slightly less than Vodafone and Optus. Probably half the price of Telstra, but I haven't checked that so don't quote me.

 

[djgk53]

Hmm

And just when I was thinking about buying one. I'll heed your warning.

 

[Former]

Trust me - wait a couple of years.

 

[jim boy]

In any new introduction of technology you need as many people with more money than sense and hooray harries to purchase the over-priced and under-performing early units so that the price can tumble and the content/usability goes up for everybosy else.

So thank you Adrian for doing your bit.

 

[Former]

I aim to please.

 

[Former]

Oh, and I prefer the term "early adopter".

And I don't think this was the case with the iPod. A bit pricey but the beast worked from day one.

 

[lioness]

My brother has one of their phones and when I saw him the other night I was asking what he thought of it and he seemed to be quite happy with it. He uses his phone a lot and yeah he said he hadn't had many problems with it!

 

[jim boy]

Originally posted by Groves
Oh, and I prefer the term "early adopter".

And I don't think this was the case with the iPod. A bit pricey but the beast worked from day one.

Yeah I was really thinking more in line of the first cell phones, cd burners, televisions etc. You spend a fortune for (by today's standards) extremely poor performance.

Ipod's while great, aren't really a technological breakthrough.

 

[melbournemartin]

i think a 40 gig hardrive that fits in ya pocket is pretty breakthrough

i was considering a three phone but i saw the coverage map and said "NO WAY"

i wanted to get a nokia 6600 but it was too expensive at telstra which is wat i was with before

so i got it for $480 on a 33 plan at optus

awesome phone with video and camera is ace

it comes with a 32 meg SD card which is accompanied by a 6 meg memory on the phone.

im gunna buy a 256 meg one for like 130 bucks

i already can fit 2 simpsons episodes which are awesome and when i get a 256 meg card iill be able to have loads of simpsons episodes (full and bout 15 megs) and also have some music

yeh im rapped with it

only things im a tad dissapointed about is the loudspeaker quality and volumme but the ear peice is good

also the battery is not superb but the phone does a lot more than normal phones

well yeh i know this is a subject bout 3 phones but the nokia 6600 is awesome and you can get it at optus or telstra whjo both own 3's coverage

 

[RoosterWedgie]

Im actually very happy with mine.
I swtiched over to 3 with both of my mobiles so myself and my spouse can ring each other for free (on 3 you can ring other 3 customers for up to 10 mins for free). I havent used the video calls ($19 free a month) yet but the $100 per phone credit (on the 3rd bill) is excellent incintive (not to mention the $50 in Myer vouchers).
Calls are cheap, sms's are cheap and what a great gadget to play with! I admit the battery life is a pain in the backside but you get 2 batteries and 2 chargers with the phone (so I have 4 chargers). I bought a car charger for $15 so with 2 chargers at home, 1 in the car and 2 at work battery isn't an issue.
I think the phone ends up costing about $456 ($19 a month), similar phones I was looking at with similar features on other networks were $50 a month or at least $800 straight out.
Coverage in Adelaide I have found was on a par with my Telstra coverage, I havent been country yet though.
I couldnt be happier with 3.

 

[melbournemartin]

dont expect much in the way of coverage outside of suburban areas