Telstra T6

Design

For a cheap and cheerful, the Telstra T6 is a sexy little number. No, not iPhone sexy, but the faux stainless steel finish elevates this phone's aesthetic a notch or two, and its matte-black plastic battery cover helps the T6 not look like the budget-priced phone it is.

The keypad is flat and definition-less except for a braille dot on the number five, though this hasn't hindered us using the pad quickly or accurately. The numbers aren't uniform in shape, but it's the asterisk and hash keys that suffer as they're the smallest, and it's better that these less used keys are harder to find than the alpha-numeric keys which will be used constantly when punching in text messages and phone numbers.

Its low resolution display is deceptively sharp and colourful. Some of the edges around larger fonts look jagged, but overall the T6 does a good job of masking this cost-cutting screen. Even watching Foxtel TV on the phone is fine, though the picture is heavily obscured when viewed off-angle, so you'll want to keep the screen aligned correctly while viewing.

One feature many of our readers in rural areas will be pleased to see is the external antenna connection on the rear of the phone, next to the 2-megapixel camera lens. Hidden behind a switch, this socket will connect the T6 to an antenna to boost the available signal range. With this attachment the T6 gets Telstra's Blue Tick, indicating superior range over regular mobile handsets.

Features

Expect this section of the review to be short and sweet. Telstra lists the available features on the side of the retail box and when it lists "Bluetooth 1.2" as a selling point, you know the company is scraping the bottom of the spec sheet.
The most noteworthy feature is the T6's compatibility with the Telstra Next G network. For AU$129 outright, you get a phone that downloads data at 3.6Mbps and can connect to the growing range of Telstra online services, like BigPond Music and TV, Foxtel Mobile TV and WhereIs Maps. Visual features like maps and streaming video are best viewed on phones with larger screens and sharper resolution, but the T6 does a decent job of displaying what it can.


Performance

The good news is that the T6 is a fantastic mobile phone, even if it isn't the all-in-one smartphone solution we're seeing in phones of late. We're happy with the quality of audio during calls, and we're told by those we called that they could hear us loud and clear. The phone's manufacturer ZTE estimates battery life at three hours talk-time when using the Next G network.

Navigating the phone's menus and settings is zippy, though it doesn't attempt much in the way of graphical flare and animated menus. Web browsing is fine, though the browser is a simple mobile browser and best for viewing sites optimised for mobile phones. CNET Australia's mobile site looks good, even though the browser wraps the text and pushes the menus and photos around a bit.

Overall

The T6 is the phone we never expected to see from Telstra, a phone carrier with a reputation for its high prices. The price tag on the T6 is spot on for a phone with this feature set, and the Telstra Blue Tick should offer those in remote areas some peace of mind. The T6 would make a great phone for teenagers; it doesn't look so bad and it offers the power to watching TV on the go, though it sorely lacks the multimedia aspects of more expensive models.

By Joseph Hanlon