Telstra T165i
Discontinued 7th January 2009
The Telstra T165i is a 3G phone
made exclusively for the Australian Telstra network
by ZTE. The T165i demonstrates a completely different
approach to mobile phone design from most mainstream
handsets, and with good reason.
Australia is a huge country, and most
of it is very sparsely populated. Mobile phone coverage
in rural areas is not great, but Telstra tries very
hard to make sure that as many consumers as possible
can get access to its "Next G" UMTS 3G service.
The Telstra T165i is specifically designed to be used
outside of regional centres and towns, and one immediately
obvious feature is the large extendable antenna which
helps the T165i to pick up a 3G signal.
The Telstra "Next G" network
replaced their old 850 MHz CDMA network, and one of
the conditions set by the Australian government to allow
the changeover was that the new 3G network should have
as wide a coverage as possible. One result of this is
the Telstra T165i, created as a result of these special
market conditions.
If
you find that the standard antenna doesn't quite give
good enough reception, then the T165i can be connected
to an external antenna via a patch lead or a car kit.
It seems strange to think that you might want to use
a mobile phone with a fixed antenna on a building, but
you can. Part of the reason for this is that the Next
G network can also be used as a relatively high-speed
way to access the internet in areas "normal broadband"
cannot reach.
Underneath the chunky exterior, the
Telstra T165i has a 2" 240 x 320 pixel
anti-glare display, a 2 megapixel camera with autofocus,
A-GPS plus Whereis maps,
an FM radio, MP3 player, basic web browser and an email
client. Of course, the T165i also has Bluetooth and
microSD expandable memory.
Telstra say that the T165i measures 117
x 51 x 16mm which makes it a little larger than a standard
phone.. what they don't tell you is that this
excludes the antenna stub which makes it around 139mm
tall, which is very large indeed. Talktime is around
3.5 hours with up to 10 days standby time.
It isn't an attractive phone, but in
terms of looks perhaps the best word we can find is
"purposeful". The T165i is clearly designed
to do a job, and from the reports that we have seen
it does this very well. Perhaps it would be nice to
see phones like this being more widely available, because
people in other countries often have coverage problems.
The Telstra T165i is available now.
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Telstra
T165i at a glance
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Available:
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Q1
2009
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Network:
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GSM
+ UMTS 850
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Data:
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GPRS
+ UMTS (3G) + HSDPA
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Screen:
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240
x 320 pxiels
|
Camera:
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2
megapixels
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Size:
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Large
monoblock 139 x 51 x
61mm (approx) / 119 grams
|
Bluetooth:
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Yes
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Memory
card:
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microSD
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Infra-red:
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No
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Polyphonic:
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No
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Java:
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Not
specified
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GPS:
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Yes
(A-GPS)
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Battery
life:
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3.5 hours talk / 10 days standby
|
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