Despite my previous protestations, I finally got around to getting rid of my Sony Ericsson T68i phone and upgraded to a T610. I had been holding out for the Nokia 6600, but when I finally managed to see one in the flesh it was too chunky and a bit plasticy looking. It also had a much shorter battery time, and cost more money than I was willing to spend to make calls – and ultimately that’s more or less what I do – I make calls. I buy phones for all the great features and hardly use any of them, so I went of the less costly and altogether cooler T610.

So far (I’ve had it about four days) I’m really impressed with it. Not only is it small and perfectly formed, it’s a lot easier to use than the T68i I was previously using. The interface is slicker and more responsive. The bigger screen and reorganisation of the navigational buttons help a great deal. In fact, I think it has the same number of buttons as the T68i, but it feels like it has about four more. The ridiculous logic of the T68i’s Yes, No, Cancel and Menu buttons is only now becoming apparent. No wonder I could never use the thing, I was constantly battling between when to use No and when to use Cancel. Cancel also doubled as Back and Delete, and No as Off, which would result in me frequently either deleting things I meant to keep or turning the phone off by accident.

The T610 has a dedicated Back button, a dedicated Cancel button (hardly ever needed) and then two ‘soft’ keys which relate to the items at the bottom of the screen. It has a joystick as well, of course, and this feels a lot more positive than that of the T68i (no false clicks yet).

For the first time ever, despite my previous two phones allegedly having the capability, I have successfully set up the T610 to both send and receive email. I’ve even taken pictures with the built in camera and emailed them to my co-workers. I know this stuff shouldn’t be hard, but I’m impressed because it was so easy. It just worked.

My only slight concern at this early stage is that the battery seems to have run down quickly. However, I’m not too worried because I’ve been playing with it loads browsing WAP sites and all sorts, so my general level of usage has been much higher than normal. Also I gather that these batteries don’t reach their full potential until they’ve been charged a couple of times. Couldn’t find the estimated TTL on this phone though, which was easy on the T68i. Anyone know where to find out how many minutes of battery remain?