Updated from the fast-selling T610, the T630 doesn’t offer any huge leaps in re-design or ingenuity, rather a refinement of what was already a good product. A smaller more rounded shell will be the first thing you’ll notice, that alongside the ability to only get the phone in black or white. Not necessarily a bad thing, the phone like the T610 feels solid and well built. The keypad lights up, and if you’ve opted for the white version and are also a PowerBook user you’ll feel right at home with the styling.

Our quick take

As a follow on to the T610 no new ground has been broken here. As we said at the beginning this is more a refinement that you'll find the phone shop offering instead of the T610 rather than a positive upgrade opportunity.

Interestingly though you can upgrade the T610's firmware to the same as the T630 meaning that apart from a few aesthetical differences and the better screen you would pretty much have the same phone anyway.

This product was kindly loaned to us by t-mobile.

Sony Ericsson T630 - 4.0 / 5

FORAGAINST
  • Screen improved
  • still got Bluetooth and IR
  • Camera still VGA
  • stingy fixed 2Mb memory

One of the main criticisms about the T610 was the screen and the camera. Fortunately the screen has now been fixed and Sony Ericsson has opted for a TFT 65K variant for this model. The results mean that the problems that bugged its predecessor have now been solved and the end user is left with something they can read in bright sunny conditions.

As for the camera, unfortunately this hasn’t been changed bar a small silver mirror added to the case so you can see yourself when snapping a self-portrait. You can still only capture in VGA format and this is probably to do with the fact that Sony Ericsson didn’t want this phone stepping on the toes of the new 1 mega pixel K700 or S700 later this year.

Because the camera’s capabilities are of the low-res variety, the phone is rather stingy on internal memory- a measly 2Mb -and the phone offers no external memory support if you wish to expand this further.

Inside, not much has changed with the operation of the phone apart from the introduction of an instant messaging application called My Friends. The application allows you to see what your friends, family and colleagues are doing via the status they set themselves at although its not available on the t-mobile network. It’s an interesting idea as long as the person at the other end remembers to set the right status and something that as it isn’t automatic would soon no doubt get quickly forgotten about.

Connectivity is still in the hands of infrared and Bluetooth while the phone also supports SMS, MMS, WAP and internet browsing.

Talk time according to Sony Ericsson is 14 hours with a standby time of almost two weeks, something which we found hard to believe. Again this is identical to the proposed times to the T610 however the recharge time has dropped by 30 minutes to an even two hours.

To recap

Just tweaking a bestseller without fixing so much that people won’t want the next model due with the better camera.