Ericsson T68

When the Nokia 8850 and Motorola V.66 first launched, both drew a chorus of awe over their class acts. It's been a while since Ericsson's inspired the same feelings in the mobile-touting public. Will the T68 be its next crown jewel?

All The Colors Of A Rainbow, And More
Jewel or not, the T68 is basking in a splendor of colors. With the T68, real color has at last come to GSM phones in Singapore. Ericsson's latest mobile is capable of displaying up to 256 colors, which is more than adequate for a 101x80 resolution. You get a preview of the color the moment you switch on the T68. A black screen gives way to the image of a sun that surges up from behind the shadow of a planet, an interesting effect which scored a point in our books.

Having said that, the T68 doesn't appear to fully leverage on its 256 colors. Many of the features, which have been ported over from previous phones, seem to be simply touched up with color. While the use of full-screen background Gif images is excellent, there is only space to store one such graphic at any one time. The screensaver is unspectacular--a white digital time display against a black background.

Still, the T68 is pretty good for a first attempt at color. It does seem likely that future models will make better use of their color displays.

Ericsson Design Makes Good At Last
Other than color, the other thing that makes the T68 stand out is its appearance. Some users have never been big fans of Ericsson flip phones with their large protruding antenna. Now, it seems with an internal antenna and a more Nokia-like design, the Swedish phone maker may have a winner.

Looks wise, the T68 comes in a silver face-plate framed by a speckled-gray body. The reverse side of the phone, including the battery backing, is encased in stylish black rubber. All in, it is an impressive looking device, and relatively compact at 100 x 48 x 20mm, which is slightly larger than a Nokia 8210. Our only gripe here is that unlike the smooth, metallic frame of the Nokia 8850, the Ericsson T68 feels distinctly more plastic; which may account for the phone's lightweight 84g.

The keypad feel is generally average, although Ericsson does feature a unique mini joystick below the screen. While this protruding blue joystick looks out of place in the middle of the phone, it serves a similar function as a four-way navigation key in a smaller footprint.

This function was seen earlier in Alcatel phones such as the One Touch 701. With Ericsson adopting the same feature, we may see many more such implementations in other brands.

During our tests, the joystick was sensitive enough to navigate through the phone menus, but wasn't precise enough when it came to playing fast games, such as Tetris on higher levels.

Everything But The Kitchen Sink
When it comes to features, the T68 packs a mean punch. The phone has virtually everything that its T39 sibling has, and a color screen.

In a nutshell, the T68's significant features are: