Sony Ericsson Doraemon J300i (Limited Edition)

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Doraemon fans can now bring their favorite cartoon/manga character wherever they go with the Sony Ericsson Doraemon J300i (Limited Edition). Equipped with a minimal set of features that includes neither an onboard camera nor FM tuner, the limited-edition J300i is, however, expected to appeal only to the younger crowd.

Design
Sporting a small footprint, the Doraemon J300i is very handy, whether it's put in a pocket or hung round the neck with a lanyard, although we found the keypad a tad too small and cramped. The phone's unique plastic design and interchangeable faceplate feature are probably targeted at the teenage audience who tend to customize their mobiles.

	The limited-edition Doraemon J300i comes with a cushion pouch and mobile phone strap (click for larger image)

The Doraemon J300i's design includes an interesting arch with a thick handle that we can only assume makes it easier to hook the phone onto a clip, besides giving it more curves for a better grip. With the speaker mounted on the back of the phone, the arched design also ensures that sound reproduction is not blocked when the handset is placed on a flat surface.

For this limited-edition mobile, Sony Ericsson has bundled two sets of interchangeable faceplates: A light-blue Doraemon version and a plain dark-blue option. The company has additionally released a pink Doraemon J300i edition but this will be available only in selected markets, Singapore not included. Do note that the full bundle also throws in a mobile phone strap and a black cushion Doraemon drawstring phone pouch. The quality of all the accessories is mediocre at best, with rather large silkscreen dots on the face plates.

Features
You won't find fanciful features such as an integrated digital camera, Bluetooth or even IR connectivity on the Doraemon J300i, but its main features and user interface remains similar to that of other Sony Ericsson phones such as the K700i and K500i. The J300i includes two soft keys, a five-way navigational buttons as well as a back key and cancel/on-off button.

For non-Sony Ericsson users, text messaging requires a bit of getting used to as the usage of the Back and C button (unique to Sony Ericsson handsets) can be rather confusing at times. The good thing though is that the phone comes with a tutorial of sorts that'll guide new users on how to use the different keys on the terminal.

The Doraemon J300i comes with the standard set of wallpapers, animated emoticons and ringtones available in most of the other K-series Sony Ericsson phones. We were slightly disappointed to find that the user interface didn't include any customization with the Doraemon character. Neither was there any Doraemon-themed ringtone or wallpaper.

For a basic phone, we were pleasantly surprised to find an onboard media player that handles both MP3 music and MPEG-4 video files. The dualband handset also supports Java downloads, voice recording, picture gallery and video streaming, though all these multimedia features are likely to be limited, in some way or the other, by the paltry 12MB memory onboard. No memory expansion slots are available on the phone.

Performance And Battery Life
During our tests, the J300i worked reliably with no reception or call issues. On a full charge, the battery lasted approximately 2.5 days under normal use. The phone conforms to SAR requirements and has a top SAR value of 1.02W/kg out of a maximum allowable value of 2.0W/kg.