14th November 2005
The Sony Ericsson J220 and J230 are two simple to use dual-band GSM devices, and are additions to Sony Ericsson's low cost J-series of handsets.
The J220 (pictured right) comes in three different configurations - the J220a is a dual-band GSM 850/1900MHz phone for use in North America, the J220c is a 900/1800MHz phone for the Chinese mainland and finally the J220i is a dual-band 900/1800MHz device for Europe and the rest of the world.
Designed to be extremely easy to use, the J220 comes with a very simple menu and icon structure, and there are clearly marked shortcuts on the keyboard to help find common functions easily. It's a simple device, with a 128x128 pixel STN display in 65,000 colours, GPRS, a WAP 1.2 browser and built-in games and polyphonic ringtones. The J220 is quite lightweight too, weighing 83 grams and coming in at 102x44x18mm - so it's not too small to handle. There's an impressive 6 hours talktime and 11 days standby time too. It will be available in ''Smooth Black'' and ''Sky Blue'' (pictured) variants, or alternatively these can be swapped out with ''Style Up'' aftermarket covers.
Unlike the Sagem VS1 though, the J220 is really just a standard handset with some different software rather than a custom built ''simple'' phone.
A step up from this is the Sony Ericsson J230 (pictured left), again it's a dual-band phone in different versions: J230a for North America, J230c for China and J230i for the rest of the world. It's a very similar device to the J220, except it comes with an FM radio. It weighs slightly more at 85 grams, but the talktime is still the same 6 hours.
The J230 will be available in ''Cosmo White'', ''Cherry Red'' (pictured) and Deep Blue variants, and again it comes with exchangeable covers.
OK, they're nice looking handsets but really we'd like to see something a bit more advanced from Sony Ericsson. We suspect that the J220 and J230 exist primarily to carve out some low-margin market share rather that to turn in any serious profits. Both handsets should be available from Q1 2006.
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