Nothing impresses us more than a solidly built handset. You can have the most wonderful features, but if the device feels cheap and plastic, it just wouldn't make our cut. Perhaps that's also one of the reasons the simple yet elegant Nokia 6300 is immensely popular with the general crowd. The Sony Ericsson T650i evokes the same kind of feeling with its clean profile and stainless steel body.

Design of the Sony Ericsson T650i


We have an inexplicable affection for the sensation of cold hard metal, which is partly the reason we like the weighty feel and solid build of the T650i. The phone is not made entirely from stainless steel, though. In fact, only the top half is. Compared with the LG Shine KU970 which has a thoroughly metallic chassis down to its back plate, the battery cover on this Sony Ericsson is still primarily plastic, except for a layer of steel over it.


One of the main grouses with recent Sony Ericsson mobiles has been the choice of buttons on the alphanumeric keypad. We were skeptical about it, too, but suffice to say that on the T650i it wasn't as much of an issue as we initially thought. We had no problems thumbing long messages on the keypad and the buttons provided the same tactile feedback as larger keys, even though the former occupy a much smaller surface area.

We even tried typing blind like some people would as they go about their activities, while at the same time staying in touch via text messaging. We got away with it (most of the time, anyway), though it's a mite tougher to type this way because of the additional spacing between the keys.


On the whole, we didn't have many (if any) complaints about using this Sony Ericsson from a design perspective. The mineral glass LCD was a bonus. We tried scratching it with our house keys and it remained unfazed by the violation. If we had to nitpick, the tiny slider clasp to remove the battery cover would have to go. The main reason for this wasn't that we like to change the Lithium-polymer cell, but because we had to take out the cover to access the Memory Stick Micro card.

Marketed as a design-centric phone, the Japanese-Swedish company has certainly spared no effort in making the T650i look as good sitting on a desk as in hand. Our review unit came with a desk stand that complements the handset and it even has a holder for the charger connector head. It's a really nice touch, though we had to figure out how to set the thing up. We should have looked up the user manual from the start.


Features of the Sony Ericsson T650i

This would have been part of the design review, but we thought it worth mentioning as a feature in itself. If you've read our take on the Sony Ericsson S500i, you wouldn't find this a novelty. The fancy lightwork on the S500i has taken on a more elegant outlook on the T650i. When we spoke to Sony Ericsson representatives, we were told the lighting effects on the T650i are meant to be very subtle so the user won't find it obtrusive during use. The term subtle is, of course, very subjective, though some of the effects like the gradual "flowing" of the lights on the keypad and the illuminated strip at the back of the phone when a text message comes in are pretty nice to look at.

There are four themes that come preinstalled with the T650i and, like the earlier S500i, these work on only the designated model to maintain their exclusivity from the rest of the mobiles in the lineup. The animated wallpapers change according to universal festive dates: Hearts when it's Valentines on February 14, snowflakes on Christmas December 25, and fireworks on New Year's Day January 1. Obviously, we cheated by changing the built-in date on the mobile. After all, we had the phone only for the weekend.


While the T650i isn't part of the Cyber-shot series, it comes with a 3.2-megapixel autofocus camera and LED photolight. What we're worried about was scratching the surface of the camera module since it's not protected by a lid, nor is it flush with the back of the device. Fortunately, it doesn't protrude out enough to cause concern. A secondary camera sits on the front above the 1.9-inch QVGA LCD screen for 3G video calls.

On the multimedia front, there are no surprises. The onboard music player sorts out our music by artists, tracks and playlists, and supports popular audio codecs like MP3, AAC, AAC+ and eAAC+. Bluetooth stereo (A2DP) is also available on this triband handset for piping music wirelessly to external headphones.


16MB of onboard memory is rather pathetic. Fortunately, the T650i has an expansion slot of external media. Other features which we won't go into are the Access NetFront Web Browser with RSS feeds, FM radio, onboard apps for quick correction of images and putting together short video clips, voice recorder and Bluetooth remote control facilities.

Performance of the Sony Ericsson T650i

The Sony Ericsson T650i is currently available at S$838 (US$551.05) without contract and S$738 (US$485.97) with a two-year plan in Singapore. Look out for updates to this section.