Sony Ericsson M600i

If you can, avoid the Sony Ericsson M600i phone. it is a lump of rubbish and with about 20 bugs that i found on it in the beginning (from general use, not hunting for bugs), i rate it as a dud. perhaps you should look elsewhere for a phone, like nokia or htc.

The Sony Ericsson M600i is easily the worst phone I have ever owned. It is so bad that I ask other people f I can use their phones because mine probably won't work. It is impossible to see the screen in daylight, it hangs during calls and during texting, it needs to be rebooted at least once a week and the battery life is the worst of any phone I have ever had since 1992. It also exhibits extremely poor signal strength. The stylus also falls out of its holder all the time. This is a case of lots of features and no substance, reliability or workable functionality. I have had the phone replaced once and the new one hung on me within the first three days. I replaced the battery and within the first week thereafter a message came up saying "replace main batteries". I find the best use this phone can be put to is as a paperweight. However, you can also use it to hold open sash windows and it serves well as an exhibit during a discussion on "what is the worst and most useless gadget you have ever owned" The Sony Ericsson M600i is always a winner in that game.

I've been using this phone for about a year now and it constantly fails to deliver.

During calls it has rebooted several times (This is a 3 to 5 minute process). It terminated the call without warning and then displayed a message saying that it had restarted to improve call quality!

I rarely switch the phone off as it takes so long to switch on but this then leads to the software getting screwed-up.

Bluetooth to the PC is a hit and miss affair and Bluetooth to my car system (Parrot) makes the car system lock up intermittently, yet when I have used a Nokia it has never locked-up.

Selecting call register from the menu for the first time after switching on takes you to the register and then straight into the dial dialog for a new number. Once this has been done one time the call register then works properly. Fixing this entails removing the battery as restarting it is impossible not good when driving so means stopping the journey and waiting.

I have had five SE phones over the years (including the best one that was before Sony's involvement) and they just seem to get worse each time.

Apart from the two Motorola phones that I've had this M600i has to be the worst ever... even worse than the Siemens.

The software on my phone is, from new, is dated Feb 1st 2007 yet despite appearing to have a lot of bugs has no update available that I can find.

IMHO should anyone offer you an M600i just run; run as fast as you can and don't look back!

I've had this phone for almost a year now, and have thoroughly enjoyed owning it - having come from other Sony Ericsson smartphones like the P800 and P910, this has been both a natural progression in terms of its smart features, and a revelation in terms of its size and weight - for a smartphone, let alone one with a full qwerty keyboard, this phone is really pocketable!

The M600i is a full office in your pocket, complete with a full email client (capable of using push email services like Blackberry), Office document viewers and editors for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, PDF files etc, and a full set of PIM features such as a calendar, tasks, notes and sketches. All of this info can be synchronised easily with your work or home Outlook, or Lotus Notes, using the suppled software.

This is a Symbian phone, which means there's a wide range of third party applications you can install on it, and it combines a touchscreen interface with a full keyboard, and scroll wheel for navigation. The keyboard is probably one of the most distinctive features, as it's quite unusual - each QWERTY key takes up one half of each button. It looks at first glance like some kind of variation on the usual predictive keypads you find on some phones, but it's not - each key is in fact two keys, on each side of a rocker switch. Hit the key one side and you get one letter, hit it the other and you get the other. It sounds odd, but with practice this is a really comfortable and accurate method of text entry. Compared to phones with standard qwerty arrangements, the M600i is much narrower and more comfortable to hold while you tap away with your thumbs, and the whole thing soon becomes second nature.

Typing is quickest when you hold the phone with two hands, and obviously using two hands allows you to use the stylus two which is the quickest way to navigate - but unlike previous Sony Ericsson smartphones, the M600i is quite easy to use one-handed as well. The lower part of the screen is used for soft buttons which you can tap directly with your fingers, and the wheel at the side allows you to move around the menus and select things.

The M600i excels at internet access, where it is blessed with both an Opera web browser, and a fast 3G connection. Combine this with the quite reasonable data rates now available on networks like T Mobile and Vodafone, and this is a very nice way to browse; you can scroll around web pages in full screen and/or landscape mode, or use "fit to view" to have the page reformatted for the device. The touchscreen allows you to click around links with the stylus just as you would with a mouse on your PC, which is much nicer than navigating with a joystick or joypad on regular phones.

The screen on the M600i is a good size and good resolution - it's great for fullscreen video, including streaming services such as Vodafone's Mobile TV service. It also makes a nice picture viewer, but of course there's no camera to take any pictures with. For music there's a well-featured media player, and the ability to use Sony's M2 memory cards for storage of up to 8GB. You can use either the supplied stereo headset, or a stereo Bluetooth unit, but I have to admit the audio - although detailed and rich - is marred slightly by a very low level electronic "warble". You can only hear this in quiet environments when the music itself is near silent, but it still shouldn't be there!

Battery life is very good - a charge will typically last me three to four days, with quite a few calls, some internet, some regular emailing, and some music playing each day - good going for a 3G smartphone of such diminutive proportions (and battery). This is testament to both the lightweight Symbian software, and the low-power design of the hardware.

Negatives - well, while the memory available for you to store data is quite reasonable (64MB, plus up 8GB on the memory card), the memory for running applications is quite meagre, and sometimes runs out. This can be kept under control if you use the task manager to shut down any programmes you're not using on a regular basis, but it would be better if you didn't have to worry about this. I would say though that the phone's memory handling was vastly improved in later software updates, so is nowhere near as bad as you might read in some older reviews.

There is also no camera on this phone - for many people this will be a positive, and for me I never thought it would be a factor, but in fairness I have missed it on occasion...

In summary then - the keyboard is a must have if you're a regular emailer (or even texter) and the software is excellent. There aren't too many phones that pack this level of sophistication into such a small form factor, so if you need the features but can't spare the pocketspace then this could be the phone for you. However, look out for the new Sony Ericsson P1i - it's a lot more expensive, but takes all that's good about the M600i and adds more memory, a camera, and WIFI for even faster (and cheaper) internet connections.

I read some other people reviews and some people have to ring Sony Ericsson to complain about whatever is wrong with the phone. First of all nearly everybody doesn't have phone insurance, only because most of us don't see a point of it. But since I got this phone, I got insurance. When I got the phone I knew it's got a lot going on in one small phone, it's basically a mini computer, it's more for business phone then average showing off phone, so why in the hell do people not get insurance? Surely you would guess the phone screen might crash or the tap screen might not work after a while?

I know when I need my phone fixing, I don't have to send it away, I just ring my phone insurance and they would send someone out to me to replace my old one, actually swap it face to face with me, instead of sending it off or waiting forever in a phone shop. so people, get phone insurance if your phone has too many features in it and touch screen.

(Oh and I have used my phone insurance service, they are quite nice people to deal with and fast service.)

Probably my worst choice of mobile phone ever.

Sony Ericsson M600i- Love this baby.

Well this Sony Ericsson M600i phone is excellent, it has everything you expect from this phone! The only two things missing are camera and Wi-Fi but there are many people that really do not need those things. The phone is very stable and has great 3D games, and you can also watch great quality videos in your cellphone. The mp3 quality is excellent (even better than many Walkman branded phones). Btw, having Word, Power Point and Excell in your phone is really great and useful.

Another high point of this phone is the keyboard, even though it seems not so comfortable, it is very comfortable and takes like 3 days to get used to it and after that, you can't imagine having a phone without that keyboard. Another great thing is the design, it is much more comfortable and prettier than the big ugly P990.

If you don't really need a camera in a phone and don't want to pay too much money for Wi-Fi, then this is the phone for you.

Hope this has been helpful.

I have had this Sony Ericsson M600i phone for 3 weeks and the touch screen cannot work. If M600i touch screen cannot work, that means this phone is junk. After a week, the screen saver cannot work, and the battery goes down very fast, it needs to be charged everyday.

I called 10 times to Sony Ericsson, but still cannot get this phone replaced or repaired, poor support!!!

The Sony Ericsson M600i mobile phone is designed for the beefy business user. It has internet, email, 64Mb of memory included, bluetooth and multimedia functions, but unfortunately, it has no digital camera. Apparently, us business types don't need one. It's thin and sleek looking, and it is pretty lightweight considering all its capabilities, and I like the phone on the whole. The weird keyboard is a bit aardvark though, as it's got these strange dual keys which you press on one side or the other, and there seem to be some problems with the power and the software still. But it's not a terrible phone, and I'm sure with the next model that Sony will have worked out the kinks.