Sony Ericsson R380S : Read reviews and compare prices at Ciao.co.uk

Author's product rating:

Look & Feel	Satisfactory
Durability & Robustness	Satisfactory
Battery standby time	Satisfactory
Value for money	Excellent
Range of features	Good selection

Advantages:	Phone and personal digital assistant in one relatively cheap unit
Disadvantages:	Can& # 8217;t upgrade the functionality available; comparatively large and heavy thus no & # 8220;pose& # 8221; value; multiple minor niggles (see opinion)

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Are you one of those people that can't live without an electronic organiser of some kind? If so, I'll bet you also own a mobile phone, and are sick of having to pick up and find space about your person for both when leaving the house. It was certainly a problem *I* endured until three months ago, when I consigned my old T10s handset and Palm V PDA to my technological graveyard, forever to keep the 48K ZX Spectrum company. Now I carry my Ericsson R380s everywhere. It's not a new product, having been out in the UK for about a year, but it does everything that I need. And not being the latest gizmo, it's now available quite cheaply; mine cost £100 on a pay-monthly contract. Let me tell you more.

The R380s is large and heavy compared to most modern phones, but still small and light enough to slip into a jeans pocket. On the up side, this means that no-one is likely to want to part you from your phone by less than honourable means. On the down side, it means that the R380s has all the sexiness and desirability of a small plastic brick.

With the flip closed, the keypad can wobble slightly when dialling, which gives the impression that the phone is actually less well built than is in fact the case. Reception is generally fine and the display is clear. If you’re bothered about such things, there is a wide choice of ring tones; you can even compose your own bleepy-bloppy masterpiece. These can be played at a choice of volumes between zero (the phone also features vibrating alert) and horrendously loud. But it is when you open the flip that this phone really comes into its own - through the simple-to-use menu on the 3"x1" (7½cm x 2½cm) touch-sensitive screen, you can access an address book, e-mail & SMS, a planner and to-do list, WAP (mobile internet) functions, a jotter pad (for preparing your Ciao opinions) and even a game of Othello (Reversi) for those dull, writers' block moments.

In all applications, character input is by handwriting recognition or by tapping the keys of an on-screen keyboard. In either case, you should use the provided stylus, which slots securely into the rear of the phone, as it is much more accurate than even slender fingers! The handwriting recognition is better than that of the Palm V, although it took me a month or so to get used to writing my i's and t's differently - they are more "natural" on the R380s but old habits die hard. A very useful innovation is that the phone follows your writing on-screen, making it much easier to be sure that the phone is keeping up. Entry of lower case letters is in the left half of the screen; numbers on the right. Upper case letters are entered by ensuring that your pen stroke covers both halves of the screen. This can be tricky for I's at first, but works well generally. Various symbols can be written in "normal" mode; there is also an extended mode that covers the full range. I should also mention that there are various ways to enter most letters and numbers; my advice is to write the alphabet out naturally when you first get the phone, and see what is missed. Unfortunately, there is no handy quick-reference - a map reproduced from the manual to affix to the back of the phone would have been very useful.

You don't have to enter everything from scratch of course - software is provided to link your new gadget to your choice of office application. I use Outlook under Windows NT, but it's possible to synchronise with Lotus Notes, Lotus Organiser, Microsoft Schedule+ and Microsoft Exchange (where appropriate) on different versions of Windows (Lotus Organiser is provided with the phone in case you don't use anything at present). I've had occasional synchronisation troubles, but switching the phone off and then on again almost always cures these, but on one occasion, I have needed to revert to a back-up. On a similar technical trouble note, I've experienced occasional "lock-outs" where an alarm sounds or the phone rings, but no keys work and the battery has to be removed, although the phone has always "rebooted" okay.

Administration menus are not exactly well organised - for a start system-wide settings are in two different places: Settings on the phone menu and Preferences/Global under Extras. Some items that really ought to be together are split between the two; for instances ring tones are under Settings/Sounds & Alerts but the key click sound is under Preferences/Global/Input. Now I can forgive this if there's a good index in the User Manual, but alas no. I had to live with the clicks for two days convinced that they couldn't be turned off until I stumbled across the setting in a trawl through all menus.

There are numerous other miscellaneous minor quirks that I've noticed; battery life is not great (it will last over a weekend in active use without a recharge if switched off at night) - this is probably not helped by the apparently random "automatic" backlighting which recognises key-presses but not screen touches; sort orders in the applications are pre-ordained (e.g. Notepad is date-only), and lists always reset to the top when you "come out of" an item.

So what are the alternatives? Well, there are only two other serious options. The first is Nokia's 9210, which adds colour, a (small) keyboard and the ability to download programs, plus full HTML browsing (i.e. you can view ANY website, not just those supporting mobiles). The biggest problem with this alternative is that currently will cost you FOUR TIMES more. The other potential is the Trium Mondo, which is much the same size as, and looks like, a Palm V with an aerial. It is even more costly than the Nokia at present. All three phones are currently only available in the UK on Vodafone and Cellnet, erm, I mean mm02.

Despite all the little niggles, I would recommend the Ericsson R380s to anyone wanting a relatively low-cost solution to the two-unit problem. Its abilities are hard-wired, but the range of functionality is good. Now all you have to do is get the right contract...