3 Skypephone S2 Comments

Ok, first of all, hands up everyone that swap their memory card in their phone on a regular basis. For most people I think it's a none issue as long as the phone has a USB 2.0 interface and supports drag and drop of files.

Secondly, why don't you advocate 2.5mm headset jacks instead? They are standard and there's a wide range of headsets on the market that relies on a 2.5mm plug standard. There are very few 3.5mm headsets out there and although I understand your urge to be able to use headphones, it's still easier to find a 2.5mm adapter with a built in mic and a 3.5mm socket for your headphones than it is to get the same with a 3.5mm plug on the phone side.

Can you please find something else to complain about, as I'm getting fed up reading the same stuff in every single phone review you write.

Can a 3 broadband SIM be used in this phone to use Skype? Does it work?

just a question, does this phone get unusually warm when making calls? my mum has the original black skype phone and it gets unbearably hot when making calls - so much so that she has to resort to using the handsfree or loudspeaker.

although anybody else i've asked with the white version didn't share my complaint, i think it must just be the phone itself.

anyway, personally, any device with the ability to play music should come with a 3.5mm headphone port - the phone's built in speaker stinks, and the bundled usb headphones stink, and i was unable to switch the usb headphones with another make, say, motorola because it wouldn't pick it up. plus i haven't personally seen usb to headphone adapters. in this day and age...

@HY i'd presume not, as they block 'x-series' programs on my broadband sim from three which is currently in my phone. It's a pain because that blocks orb, and i'd expect it does the same for skype too.

I've tried contacting 3 to get it added to my account but they say the x-series addon cannot be added to a broadband contract. sucks!

I quote from the original blurb on this site: "... the Skypephone is intended to help you make use of Skype’s free VoIP calling...."

On PAYG phone, the cost of a skype call is free .... Ah yes, but not quite. If you want the skype service you have to top up £10 every 3 months with Three. No credit bals carried forward. So that's £40/year if you want to use the skype service. Three salesman said, no top up no skype.

This isn't going to be a feature review as such, more of a "having had it for 3 months, these are the bugs three deny the phone has and apparently have no plans to fix". It's also to let you know "you're not alone" if you had the same bugs or experience trying to get support from 3 customer services.

It's not all bad - I think the phone itself, an Amoi 8512 is actually a well-made, robust and fast phone. Also, the built-in modem works excellently via bluetooth and the cable - I easily get a sustained 1.3Mb down and 400k up, and it works fine for downloading BBC iPlayer stuff. It also allows me to use the "£5 for 3Gb" package, rather than the "£10 for 1Gb" package with other "mobile modem" users appear to be stuck with (correct me if I'm wrong) and with a 2-pack for £99 I'm not complaining on price!

Major Bugs:
Phone rebooting - I think this is a problem with the battery voltage sensor, because I was on the verge of taking both back and giving up (3 CS had "never heard of this" before!!) when they started behaving. I assume a few cycles of battery charge had done the trick (it was rebooting even with full battery).

The Gmail application was one of the selling points of the phone, and there is actually an inbuilt preset to download it. Until very recently, it didn't actually work (just giving square blocks for text). There is finally a working download of gmail and google maps, but before, When you called three CS, all you hear is that "no-one else has reported this problem" or "please reboot the phone" or "your signal is poor" or "please send it back for reflash" - and yet, both handsets are identical and I can find over 20 other forums posts with the same problem. Just me, eh? Maps still has a problem in that after about 600k, it says "out of memory", despite having 20Mb of phone memory and 1.8Gb of card memory left.

Other little annoyances are the lack of testing - when using the inbuilt browser, the error messages are less than helpful - how about:

"Received response with status code other than 200 that does not have body part However, notification is not given of redirection unless settings is to display body part when dialog is canceled."

When you send a message, it says "message has been sent to...", but when the other person reads it, it says "message has been sent to...", so it's difficult to know whether it has actually been received - it should, of course, be ""message has been received by...". Also, when selecting multiple items for deletion (pics, messages etc), it says "delete the marked?", which is poor English. Spelling mistakes pepper other areas of the phone, too. Not a problem, just not very polished.

When in text message function, the message count takes 20 mins (to do 400 messages)

You can't uninstall the useless pre-installed junk that clutters up the applications menu, and you can't remove Sky Sports from the feeds list. It also won't accept passworded feeds.

Java rendering problems - one of the first things I did was download Opera Mini which beats the pants off any other mobile browser, however they phone has a java graphics rendering problem with causes vertical stripes one pixel or so wide down the screen, so although it's readable, K for example would end up looking like <

Strange phone book error - or perhaps it's just me not understanding how the phonebook works:
I have set the phone to display "contacts displayed on SIM and phone", and I have copied the phone contacts to the SIM. However, there are just a few contacts which don't show in the contacts list, either when browsing or adding to an sms. But when you try and add the contact again it says "contact exists - overwrite?" (or something) and when you get an incoming call, it displays that caller's name. BUT I can't find it in the phone book!

Back button "bug" - I've seen several posts with people complaining that the back button is broken and causes the screen to break into blocks - actually, that's the way it's meant to be - the "blocks" are preview windows of page history, and this is quite a good feature, although it caught me out at first.

Here's an annoying which has nothing to do with the phone, but Yahoo and ebay FORCE me to use crappy mobile versions based on my IP! I've tried several suggestions, but if I'm using my home PC connected by the mobile modem, it is absolutely infuriating to be forced into a mobile version of the site. But that's not the phone's fault, just something I thought I'd mention if someone had a solution!

Other questions:
How can I mass-delete loads of rubbish from the T9 dictionary?
How can I backup text messages?

Overall, the phone has potential, but I'm very disappointed by the lack of support for both applications, and from three themselves. Almost every category you browse shows "sorry, there are no applications for this phone". It needs a firmware update and some support, although there is a forum at
http://www.3skypephone.com/forum/

To further the above comment, there are several other issues with the phone:

Once the text message inbox fills up to ~800-1000 texts (a tiny fraction of the phone's memory capacity), I began receiving every text message multiple times. Each message would arrive somewhere between 2-15 times (averaging about 4), over a period of up to three days. Eventually, as the inbox filled up further, the phone stopped receiving messages at all. I contacted three and this is a known software issue with the phone, and apparently up to the manufacturer to fix. There's no way to back up any texts (except 20 to the USIM), and they have to be deleted regularly because of this.

Also, the phone tends to freeze whenever it receives a text, the delay increasing proportional to the number of messages in the inbox, up to about 20 seconds for every text. Combined with the bug about receiving every text many times, this is extremely annoying.

Finally, the phone adds just about everything you type that's not already in the dictionary to the dictionary automatically. This includes combinations of existing words and punctuation like "10pm", "but...", "£5" and anything you happen to mistype. Just once is enough for it to be added.

Oh yeah, and the thin keys are horrible to type with, and make it very difficult to text without looking, as it's almost impossible to tell which thin row of keys your thumb is resting on.

kaalakiota - thank you very much for your posting about the inbox - I had exactly the same problem. Of course, three said it was a problem with my sim and I'd need a new one. I figured out to delete some texts - I'm never letting three near anything of mine again!

It takes a lot to impress me, and with the 3 Skypephone S2, I am very impressed.

At £70 it was good value, at £40 (at which it is on temporary offer) it is an amazing bargain. I found phones costing considerably more, are nowhere as well made as this phone. The phone, according to my receipt, was originally selling at £106!

I have recommended this phone to several people, and all have gone out and bought it. They have not been disappointed.

They ability to use Skype, was all I wanted. That and to have a mobile phone, send texts. Everything else was a bonus.

Yes, the text when web browsing is very tiny, but too my surprise, it is not too difficult to read, though I have difficulties when tired.

I wish icq was an installed application.

The camera is not very good, and with 3.2 mega pixels it should have had an optical zoom.

There are minor gripes.

Yes, it should have a headphone socket.

The strobing bars as it is charging give no indication of the state of charge.

The battery, with occasionally accessing of the net, is lasting a day.

The phone gets hot in use which gives some idea of the power drain. I like the metal back plate, but I strongly suspect it is there as a heat sink.

Contrary to what one comment has said. You do not have to top up your credit to get Skype. It is free. If you do top up with credit you get for 3 months hundreds of free texts and free 3 to 3 calls.

It is annoying you cannot ditch the preloaded junk.

It should have the ability to access 3 e-mail, but this does not work.

I'm baffled why 3 offer a 3G dongle, when all you need to do is plug in your Skypephone.

Big problem I am having is with the 3 signal level. No bars a lot of the time, very slow download, many lost connections.

I plugged the Skypephone into my laptop, and found a data rate of 110 kilobits per second. 1 Megabit per second would have been acceptable, but ten times slower than this! I tried downloading icq 6.5. 7 kilobits per second!

Eats up battery power very fast.
Also you cannot use any bluetooth device for skype calls. I tried to use it car bluetooth handfree kit , it did not work.
Bluetooth device works fine for landline or mobile phone calls.