The T68i is a smart phone that does extra duty as a voice and text messaging device, and Web browsing. The phone is a good choice if you need it mostly for voice, but still need to send an occasional text message or to read an news headline while waiting for the bus.
It has all the best features of a PDA. As a WAP browser, it lets you browse the Web for news, weather, go through e-mail and send e-mail with attachments. However, the newshound on our staff found the news and weather sites a bit underwhelming. The one-inch screen lets you read a sentence at a time. You can also send SMS (short messages), MMS (messages with multimedia -- audio, pictures etc.) and chat with your buddies. An optional add-on camera lets you take pictures to send to your friends. And, it is compact to boot.
The phone offers clear instructions, a reasonably intuitive menu, and a wealth of call and data management features. But the T68i did nothing to dispel our suspicion that a phone keypad would be a bad interface for e-mail. The touch pads are small, and you have to pay close attention while you are keying in the letters or numbers. It's very easy to make a mistake, and, even with some practice, it took way too long to send a simple e-mail message.
The sound quality is fine. The phone was always roaming during its Boston test but we never had trouble getting a connection. There are some nifty features, including a facility to find out the time and cost of a call (with subscription), and support for two telephone numbers on the same phone (to handle business calls and personal calls separately, for example).
The PDA end has a calculator, clock with alarm, stopwatch, notepad, sound-recorder to record your musings or calls on the phone, and games. You can download games through the communication and data-transfer facility. There is even a 5-way joystick. And the display is in customizable color.
Different situations, like in the car, at home, in the office and so on. The sound can be turned off in one profile, for example, that you can select when you are in the theater and want to be buzzed by the vibrating alert.
Bluetooth allows it to communicate with the PC or other devices, and infrared communication with your PC is also available.
For its size, the T68I is an extremely smart device, and can be useful across all age ranges. That is, if one can put up with the phone and ISP charges or put them on the company account.
