Well, for all of you not paying attention to the wireless industry:

SprintPCS has finally released the first US CDMA network bluetooth phone, the Sony Ericsson T608. Went on sale through telesales this Monday morning. Just phone up 1-866-PCS-AUTO. According to some SprintPCS forums, sales are brisk and only 10k phones were made. They were having problems with their computers this morning, so make sure when you place an order to get an order confirmation. They either ship same day or 2-3 business days.

 

About fucking time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Cost, for those who don't know is $200.

I spoke with the lady and she said "don't expect to see them in stores (or perhaps not even online) for awhile." She said the same thing about any chance of a rebate....

Anything more than, say, $100 is too much to pay for a phone, IMO.

 

i specifically asked for a deal of some sort for being a long term sprint customer and received a $100 mail in rebate knocking the price down to $99

 

Who did you talk to? I've been trying that all day, I spoke with the regular sprint sales droids on the phone, with the corporate clients sales (trying to get a discount through my company) and with the cancellatioin departement who are trying to keep me with SprintPCS by offerring a "retention" package. None of them were able to find a rebate offer for the Sony T608. Do you have a rebate offer number or some other sort of info I could use to ID the offer for the sales dept? Does the form specifically say it is for this phone, or is it a generic $100 off?

-phil

 

The guy on the other end of the line when I called tried to give me the hard sell, saying he expected the price to go up and thinking that it won't be available in store for quite a while. Sounded like he was trying to hit the end of year quota. I replied whatever and I'd check back in a couple months.

-phil

 

sorry, i didn't get a name. I called the PCS Auto number, pressed 1, and got a gentleman right away. I asked, almost jokingly--"I don't suppose there's a rebate of some sort for a long-term sprint customer..."--and he told me there was a $100 mail-in rebate. First I had asked how much the phone cost and he replied $200, so I asked if this included the mail-in rebate and he said no, the mail-in rebate takes $100 off the $200 price. He told me it would come with the phone. I'll let you know the result and any promo code I get with it.

 

All I can say is "watch out" ... I got one of those "long time Sprint member" deals and I was PISSED off to find out that little $100 rebate cost me another 2 years of forced contract. I was already with Sprint for like 3 years (eternity in cell phone years). There were not at all up front on this limitation and was surprised to find this out much later ... I am off SprintPCS forever (ok - at least for a while) after that crapola.

Just beware is all ... and isn't the US finally waking up to GSM nowadays? Ok - that is another thread altogether

 

Actually, the rest of the world is finally catching up with CDMA. The ITU 3G standard has five allowed radio interfaces, three of which are CDMA based (WCDMA, CDMA-2000 and UCDMA) the other two are TDMA based. GSM is not on the 3G roadmap.

-phil

 

Except, of course, for the Motorola 270C...

 

I just read this:

"Christopher writes "Recent reports on SprintPCSinfo.com and PhoneScoop.com Quoting them on it are saying the t608 is available for order.There is a special System in place now for The order of the phone. It is based upon Telematics(the sale of phones for cars).The special number is 1-866-PCS-AUTO.The dissapoing side of this news is the lack of an unlimited Vison plan for the phone. They are offering Data services for $15 a month at only 3 MB of data usage.. Most can download that in ~30 minutes of data usage.This also brings into question the websites such as bluemobility who has been said to be purchasing over 1000 of them for sale with their mobilty information. Please read on for full information."

 

i just found this:

http://www.pcshandsfree.com/cdj/forms/rebate_form.pdf

 

I couldn't access this page.

 

uh oh, good thing i saved it! PM me your email address

 

Thanks for the info I ordered mine!!!!!!

 

Technically, I think people consider the T608 the first bluetooth phone since the 270C needed an additional attachment to work. But whatever...

 

Well, I suppose they could consider it the first CDMA phone with integrated Bluetooth. Especially since that's what SprintPCS and Sony Ericsson consider it.

 

OK so I call this afternoon to buy one of these bluetooth phones. I had a $100 rebate, compliments of RJC, but in order for me to get the rebate, the packing slip needed to show a date of 9/1/03 to 12/31/03. In short, I had to buy it today. (I really find the 9/1/03 date interesting, being that the phone has been on sale for a little over a week!!)

Anyway, the first question out of my mouth was "do you still have them." The guy said, "yes." So I go through the whole rig-a-marole of signing up for sprint service. My credit is approved and such and as he clicks the "process order" button, they are out. Real nice. I told him to ask his supervisor if I could call back in a week when they had more and STILL get my $100 rebate. The supervisor basically said "no way no how."

A good waste of 20 minutes!

 

blah. It's like saying the Samsung A500 (one of the first Vision phones on Sprint) is a camera phone. But it's not, since the camera was an option.

Oh and if they say they are sold out, then you're pretty much out of luck or stuck going to E-Bay. Sony Ericsson had decided to stop manufacturing CDMA phones in the U.S. market this past summer. So once this 10k alotment of T608s are gone, they are gone for good. (But I hear they didn't sell out, more like halted shipping due to some unknown problems).

 

I don't understand the "automatic" mode in bluetooth. Sometimes it pairs, and sometimes it doesn't. In bluetooth "on" it pairs fine.