vB Easy Archive - best basic keitai?

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best basic keitai?
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Posted by: mrcrispin

Ha! I knew that I would get your attention with that subject line!

We all love our keitais, whichever model we have. But the keitais which we have may not necessarily be the "best basic keitai" as I define it below:

[1] Must support UMTS/2100 (well, duh!) in Japan and overseas.

[2] Must support GSM 850/900/1800/1900 (many keitais fail on the GSM 850 requirement).

[3] Should support UMTS 850/1900.

[4] Should be unlockable without hacking the SIM.

[5] Must work reliably with any SIM after unlocking.

[6] Must allow use of all phone hardware features (e.g., camera) after unlocking.

[7] Must not demand provisioning from the Japanese carrier after unlocking (it is acceptable if the provisioning can be disabled or switched to manual provisioning).

[8] Must be usable by mere mortals to place a call without fumbling through menus. Put another way, it needs to be something that you can give to your non-gadget freak wife to use

Going through my keitai collection, I find:

V801SH: passes [4], [6], [8]. Fails [2] (no GSM 850), [3], [5], [7]. Reportedly fails [1].

V801SA: passes [8]. Fails [2] (no GSM 850), [3]. Unknown [4], [5], [6], [7]. Reportedly fails [1].

812SH: passes [1], [8]. Fails [2] (no GSM 850), [3]. Reported to fail [4], [6]. Unknown [5], [7].

X01HT: passes [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. Fails [8] (miserably!!!!!!!).

Comments:

The V801SH and V801SA were forcibly retired by SoftBank due to "network changes" that supposedly would prevent the phones even from making voice calls. However, my understanding is that they never worked on overseas UMTS 2100 networks. My guess is that Vodafone Japan's UMTS 2100 network was subtly incompatible from world UMTS 2100 networks, such that foreign phones could roam in Japan in 3G mode but the V801SH/V801SA could not roam overseas in 3G; and when SoftBank took over they made the network compatible which had the effect of breaking these phones.

I unlocked my V801SH after I got my 812SH replacement from SoftBank. The unlocking changed the IMEI (!) and US T-Mobile and AT&T SIMs don't work in it (the phone repeatedly reboots). An old Dobson Cellular One SIM works, as do some non-US SIMs that I tried. It's also very obnoxious with its repeated demands to be provisioned.

My V801SA is still locked. I don't have any good leads on unlocking it, and the bad experience with the V801SH makes reluctant to put much money/effort into it.

My 812SH is still locked. I'm not hacking it since it's my registered phone with SoftBank. However, I've read in numerous places that it needs a HyperSIM and the camera won't work.

The X01HT passes all the technical requirements with flying colors, but Windows Mobile is a user interface disaster. I've used Windows Mobile for years (since it was Windows CE 1.0), and I still find myself fumbling about to do such basic things as make calls and go through the call history. It is more of an Internet PDA than a phone.

ANYWAY...

In looking through some of the postings, it seems that the 812SH situation is pretty typical of keitais. It's probably too primitive for many of the people here, but it's fine for the non-gadget freak wife. For what it's worth, she used to use my V801SA with a rental SoftBank USIM in Japan, but apparently we can't do that any more.

I've thought about buying a second 812SH with HyperSIM, but before doing that I thought that I would ask and see what other choices might be out there. I know that she would not put up with being nagged to provision the phone, and she does use the camera on her RAZR from time to time.

Of course, for Japan-only use with a SoftBank USIM, a second 812SH is fine. But it seems to fall short for use in North America, even with a HyperSIM, due to no provisioning, no 850, and loss of the camera.

Posted by: aw614

Quote:

[1] Must support UMTS/2100 (well, duh!) in Japan and overseas.

[2] Must support GSM 850/900/1800/1900 (many keitais fail on the GSM 850 requirement).

[3] Should support UMTS 850/1900.

[4] Should be unlockable without hacking the SIM.

[5] Must work reliably with any SIM after unlocking.

[6] Must allow use of all phone hardware features (e.g., camera) after unlocking.

[7] Must not demand provisioning from the Japanese carrier after unlocking (it is acceptable if the provisioning can be disabled or switched to manual provisioning).

[8] Must be usable by mere mortals to place a call without fumbling through menus. Put another way, it needs to be something that you can give to your non-gadget freak wife to use

older vodafone toshibas, they dont have the usa umts and gsm850 and they dont have reprovisioning, it does come up sometimes, but change to another sim card and put the original sim card and it works. 803t, 903t,902t, 904t can be software unlocked and are fairly usable,

and really reprovisioning isnt that bad, I use my 903sh on jp fw everyday and the repro doesnt bother me at all, especially if you use the shortcut key instead you can do most everything without going into the menu

Posted by: mrcrispin

Quote:

Originally Posted by aw614

and really reprovisioning isnt that bad, I use my 903sh on jp fw everyday and the repro doesnt bother me at all, especially if you use the shortcut key instead you can do most everything without going into the menu

For what it's worth:

The V801SH nags for reprovisioning on every key except for the rocker, digits, send, and end. Yes, it nags on the clear key!

The V801SA only nags on the menu and live keys. Unfortunately, that means no way to get data, audio/video, or Java without going through a nag. It doesn't nag on the camera key.

In both phone, nags are triggered by any change of SIM (even to another SoftBank SIM), and nothing makes the nag go away. Even with an active SoftBank SIM inserted, reprovisioning doesn't work any more on either phone.

Maybe newer keitais are better behaved on reprovisioning nags?

Posted by: aw614

it seems to depend, some sharps like 904sh, 705sh using hypersim do not give any repro nag, but on a locked 703shf and 804sh it has the nag. the v801sa nag seems similar to the newer vodafone sharps actually. The toshibas it seems to be on the newer 3g only models. But the gsm ones with japanese firmware happen randomly, from what I find, when switching sim cards a lot, and setting up data, but once data is set and you switch sims and switch back to the original sim it works ok.

Posted by: Darthchilli

x01ht isnt considered keitai in my mind

Posted by: yangj08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darthchilli

x01ht isnt considered keitai in my mind

Not really basic either, for that matter.

Anyway- Toshiba 904T is a good idea. Meets all requirements except for 2 and 3 (it really hurt when I went to Nashville, TN for a little while; I only got 2 bars of signal downtown and just the antenna icon where I was staying). Pretty cheap too compared to the new ones.

Posted by: BMWFilms

850 must be the farthest thing from the designers` mind when developing these phones. Up until now even GSM was merely an afterthought.

Posted by: Sturmtruppen22

heres a simple solution,

move to T-mobile

Posted by: mrcrispin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sturmtruppen22

heres a simple solution,

move to T-mobile

That isn't always an option. There are parts of North America (e.g., most of Alaska) where there is no T-Mobile and no 1900; if there's GSM it's at 850.

Posted by: Sturmtruppen22

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrcrispin

That isn't always an option. There are parts of North America (e.g., most of Alaska) where there is no T-Mobile and no 1900; if there's GSM it's at 850.

the SE Z750a isnt necessarily considered a keitai, but its like a blend of the so704i and so702i. But it does have its roots from SE Japan. It pretty much meets all the criteria

Posted by: murdoc2k

The Easiest Docomo Phone to use

Docomo D880ss

http://www.funponsel.com/blog/archi...rom-ntt-docomo/

Posted by: jacka$$1

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sturmtruppen22

the SE Z750a isnt necessarily considered a keitai, but its like a blend of the so704i and so702i. But it does have its roots from SE Japan. It pretty much meets all the criteria

I agree with Sturmtruppen22. The SE Z750a is the PERFECT phone for true global roaming. I was even able to unlock it legitimately through AT&T at no charge. See my post here:

http://www.howardforums.com/showthr...52#post11074952

I've already purchased an international SIM card through Telestial and it works!

http://www.telestial.com/view_produ...CT_ID=MSIM-PP01