Hot off the FCC press are these here W712a and Z712a clamshells from Sony Ericsson; astute readers may notice a striking similarity to the
W710 and
Z710 models announced a couple months back, save for a couple of odd changes. First, and perhaps most depressing, you'll notice that the 712s feature brutally unattractive black stub antennas, whereas the 710s do not. Secondly, the draft manuals and test reports published for these new pieces list them as dual-band GSM 850 / 1900 (read: North American) handsets. So the obvious question is: what the heck? If your W710i and Z710i are already quad-band and lack the ugly-ass external antennas, why reinvent the wheel? Are we missing something here, folks?
Update: Several folks have pointed out the "HAC" sticker, indicating that these handsets are hearing aid-compliant. What exactly that has to do with the external antennas and the removal of two perfectly good GSM bands, however, remains a mystery.
Read - W712a
Read - Z712a
posted Aug 9th 2006 at 8:45PM
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Doug West @ Aug 9th 2006 9:45PM
Wow! This is very interesting news. The dual band is most likely describing the 1900 and 800mhz bands that Sprint and Verizon use. (Although you say 850mhz in your article which is interesting;maybe a misprint?) The most interesting part is Sony Ericsson didn't want to deal with the CDMA carriers a few years back because of the lack of profit in the US. So, Sony Ericsson entering the US CDMA market again is VERY BIG NEWS!!
Oh and the CDMA carriers receptions signal do allot better with those unsightly antennas sticking out of them! Yuck!
adam @ Aug 9th 2006 10:07PM
no, these are gsm phones. 850/1900 are the US gsm bands that are used by cingular and t-mobile. i personally agree with chris though. why reinvent the wheel? they totally butchered this phone. i hope if cingular or t-mo decides to pick up this line of phones, they use the quad band version as that one is so much better in regards to 2 v 4 bands and internal v external antenna (10 series v 12 series)
this is very disappointing that sony ericsson is trying to pass these models by the fcc instead of the originals. i think they butchered these phones and if they try to release them in the states, i hope they suffer horrible sales. i on the other hand, will be getting a w810 in cingular when they come out, or the treo 750 that boy genius has showed us today
TAK @ Aug 9th 2006 10:42PM
SE seems to be on a roll: K790i (a high end phone) is only triband 900/1800/1900, then releasing this? Geez...
Donald @ Aug 9th 2006 11:05PM
Is there any reference to PTT in the documentation? They could be remixes of the W710 and Z710 with PTT for Cingular, like the z525.
Though why they'd cut two bands out is beyond me.
vince @ Aug 10th 2006 12:16AM
It seems likely to me that one of the US GSM carriers contracted for these phones on spec. The external antenna and loss of the 900 / 1800 bands have probably slashed a whopping $1 off of the manufacturing cost of each phone. A whole dollar (if that) is nothing to you, but it's obviously important to the carrier (Cingular, maybe) that'll offer these phones for free [size=-2]with a two year contract[/size]. Yup, it's sad, but even more sad is that these phones will probably do pretty well in the US market.
greenlight @ Aug 10th 2006 3:18AM
It's a hearing-aid related thing. There're going to be 712i-variants as well.
greenlight @ Aug 10th 2006 3:23AM
Forgot to mention the proof about it being a hearing-aid version: Look at the FCC photos. The sticker on the z712a says "Carina HAC". Carina = Codename for z710. HAC = Hearing Aid Compliance (look it up on wikipedia)
korey @ Aug 10th 2006 9:07AM
I like the black one alot or the white one dont matter but i just got the Pantech C300 so im not really interested in buying a new phone soon though i would pick one of these up
A Gupta @ Aug 10th 2006 11:34AM
I don't know if this is big news, but "Kunde" means customer, so maybe these things are destined for Cetecom GmbH, presmably a German firm, or in any case, have something to do with this Cetecom.
calogero @ Aug 10th 2006 12:20PM
Maybe its dualband 850/1900 umts which might explain the black things sticking out the top of the phone(or maybe not) but more than likely some info is wrong and hopefully will be updated.
Shon @ Aug 10th 2006 1:01PM
ugly. im pretty sure ill never buy another SE phone again. anyone want to buy a s710a?
-_- @ Aug 10th 2006 3:42PM
these phones are pointless. kinda like the v400 was to the v500: a look-a-like that was uglier and had a smaller feature set.
Marc @ Aug 11th 2006 11:08AM
Um, I think it is a CDMA phone, that would explain the antenna. CDMA operates in that spectrum too.