Steve Eddins has written a nice php script to generate images of chess positions. The images look very nice. Everything in the image, like color of the pieces or color of the squares are configurable. For example here is a position with eight queens on the board without attacking each other.

I waited for more than 3 months before this phone was offered on cingular. I had used SE T637 previously and was happy with it. So I hoped this one from the same company will also be good. I was not disappointed. I now own this for about 3 weeks and have tried most of the features.

Battery life
I am very happy with the battery life until now. The first charge lasted for 4 full days with about 3 hours talking time and 1 hour of listening to music and several snaps using the camera. On the fifth day it started making noises that it needs to charge. I still let it continue without charge and after a few hours it started continuously emitting a low frequency sound which was a bit annoying. I had to put the phone in silence to stop it. Finally after another few hours when I started recharging with the battery indicator showing fully white, the screen still came on without problem. Currently I am charging once per 3 days even though it is not fully down after the 3rd day. I am not sure how accurate the battery indicator is. Because during this time I noticed once or twice it showed a higher value than the previous check.

Locking
With automatic keyboard setting the phone seems to go into locking mode pretty fast. Some times this is a bit annoying. I haven’t seen any control of the time it takes to lock.

Walkman
The audio player is easily accessible with a single shortcut button. The audio can play without interruption in the background while you are looking at address book or use some other applications in the foreground. As many other users of the phone have mentioned in different reviews the hiss is definitely a problem. If you listen to loud music then you won’t notice much. But if you listen to some classical music with lots of silence in between and if you have good ears then it is very much noticeable and annoying. SE fixed a problem with clipping and introduced the hiss problem. It looks like they have got some fixed quantization steps and they have to trade off dynamic range versus quantization noise. There does not seem to be any plan for them to fix the hiss.

The audio player remembers last stop which is very useful for listening to audio books. The headphones are connected to the phone via an adapter. Normally while walking or not moving this setup with headphones connected to adapter works fine. But some times when I am in the fitness center running, the adapter’s end which is connected to the headphone pulls the left side of the headphone plug down and keeps sliding out of the ear. You can possibly avoid this by using the clip in the wire to attach to your collar (if you have one while running). But you will have this adapter end jumping in front of your neck like a chain while running. It wont be pleasant on your ears either if this continues to pull the plugs with every step. I probably have to get a different headphone with a longer cable or try bluetooth.

For the audio player why would anyone assign the + button to go back one track and – button to go forward?

I also heard some sputtering noise when switching between tracks. I have to listen more to decide whether it is a problem with the phone or the audio files. You can also listen to FM radio with this phone. But I did not try that much. The headphones need to be connected to listen to FM. I did not get good reception indoors. But I have not tried a good FM receiver to compare at the same place.

The 128 MB plan which comes with the cingular plan is definitely not good enough if you plan to use this phone to listen to music. I bought a 1GB memory stick from ebay. If you keep looking sometimes there are very good deals there. The cover to the socket where memory stick is inserted is too flimsy. The first time when I opened it I though I broke the cover.

The games included in the phone are crappy. One of them just hung and did not respond. I had to restart the phone. They are all demo versions and ask you to buy the full version.

One of the prominent buttons is assigned to cingular media net. Too bad for people who do not use it. It is very easy to press it accidentally. Without any intention of downloading any data I already have used 1kB. I cannot wait to de-brand it and assign the button to something else.

The transfer of files from computer to phone is painless. Once connected with the usb cable the phone card shows as external drive. Anything can be easily copied into the phone card after that. I with there was a better documentation of the folder structure in the memory card. For example if you want to install a java application/game in the phone it needs to be in the directory MSSEMC\Media files\other. Otherwise the phone does not recognize that file. But it seems that music files can be present anywhere.

The camera is pretty good for a phone. The pictures are very good. The camera can be started with the camera button quickly if the phone keys are not locked without going through the menu. Now I don’t have to carry my digital camera with me. Update: The pictures are very grainy and noisy in low lights. I think the camera automatically increases the ISO to very high values when the light is low.
When in standby mode the time is shown only after pressing any of the buttons on the side. Not a big problem unless you want to watch the time continuously.

The tab feature in menus are nice. Much more easier to navigate with the options categorized in different tabs.