Sound Quality

Voices are clear, and are suitable for everyone's needs. There are no major flaws in sound quality. However, in very quiet listening environments, noise was noticeable. It's not so noticeable in noisy environments, however this background noise seems to happens quite often to GSM phones. A repetitive hissing sound will be heard in the background caused by vibration within the earpiece of the phone. As a phone aimed for the value market, the sound quality will sound as good as any for most people. With a trained ear the unwanted noise is noticeable, but avoidable.

Outgoing calls calls were also very clear and crisp. When talking in noisy environments, the voice comes through pretty clearly. People who are used to flip may not like how the T300 sits on their face as they talk. Since the phone is straight, the mouthpiece can seem further away than a flip phone that curves close to the mouth. However, background noise is filtered out pretty well, leaving you to talk without having to shout.

The earpiece volume was very good. It's sufficiently loud even in noisy environments while talking to soft spoken callers.

RF Performance

The T300 performed average in RF performance. One reason that the reception may not be great is that there is no protruding antenna, and when conducting our tests we found some flaws. Although the look of no antenna may be stylish, an antenna that comes out still increases reception by spreading out the area to heights the head does not reach.

The phone's ability to hold on to weak signals is above average when information is being sent. However, calls are dropped quite easily when idling. When receiving weak signals, there were frequent error bits sent that were not corrected. The dropped calls did not happen very frequently, but a dropped call is always annoying as well as a hassle for both parties.

Overall we give the T300 a reception rating of:

It should be noted that our tests were performed in a standardized lab environment, regardless of tower signal strength, weather conditions, or other varying conditions.

Pros

· Excellent color screen and contrast. Good clarity and size.

· Superb value. Sony Ericsson's meaning of "lower-end" entails color screen, MMS, etc.

· Improved joystick. Harder to press directions by mistake.

· Long battery life. Talk for hours. Go days without recharging.

· Large memory size. Store 510 phone entries and lots of pictures, ring tones, and other multimedia.

· MMS. Send pictures, animations, and sounds with your text messages.

· Great for text messaging fiends.

· T9 Predictive Text. It completes words for you as you're typing them.

· Incredible set of software applications. Themes, calendar, stop watch, composer, etc.

· Great versatility and customizability. Faceplates, backgrounds, ring tones, screen savers, and themes.

Cons

· The minimalist appearance may not be for everyone. The design is simple and clean, but it can be viewed as plain.

· Menu requires a learning curve. Not the most intuitive, but once you learn where the functions are then it is effective.

· Average RF performance. Good voice clarity and quality, but unable to maintain or get a small signal.

· The buttons and joystick are small.

· Lack of message summary information. When you get a lot of messages you can't tell them apart without opening each one.

Conclusion

We enjoy what Sony Ericsson has produced. It is considered a value phone, but to the average user the features are more than plenty. Search for deals on this phone; it can be found for free. As of this writing Amazon.com was selling the T300 for $150, but with $200 in rebates. Since the phone has so many features and a color screen we rate the T300 as:

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