Member - Davoe (Yalgoo) replied:

be aware Telstra provides no backup for there Tlstra branded zte phones - I f they stop working (which they will) you are on your own

tdf replied:

i reported a fault with mine telstra told me as it is over 30days old ring zte phone no they advised min 3 weeks to repair no replacement phone also i took out a $99 capped plan thinking my call costs would be capped to $99 .....first bill was in excess of $300 didnt realise all the things that are not capped also the range is not significantly better than the std nokia nowhere near cdma where i am in nsw think carefully ,hasten slowley

Member - Bradley replied:

well they gave one to one of my workmates as an update to his old work phone, On initial inspection i thought it was a cheap and nasty looking piece of chinese junk.

Well after he managed to get it going it worked for one whole day before it just shat itself for no reason, and was consequently sent back.

personally i would never spend one cent of my money on one.

Member - Pesty (SA) replied:

As you know mate I am in the same boat.
Local telstra dealer here wont even sell you a ZTE ph cos there crap.
I too dont like the flip phones, but the best of a bad lot are samsung and most of them are flip phones.
So to get a candy bar phone thats suits us I have decided that although i am not happy with the reports on the 6120 nokia, and choices are very restricted, i think they will be the best of a bad lot.
I have had a dream run from my 3 nokia cdma phones and what craps me the most is that i have to throw away 3 perfectly good working phones.
Bet your bottom dollar that all the better stuff will hit the market in the next 6 months, AFTER we have all been contracted to the crap they want to get rid of.
Ill give you a ring mate and chew over the phones at hand.

Cheers Pesty

Member - Douglas M (SA) replied:

ZTE 850 failed after 13 months on a 24 month plan. 12 month warranty. Even if you are within the 12 months Warranty period Telstra are not interested and will refer you to ZTE. If you go for the ZTE's don't ring the company on a Monday, they are too busy taking calls about phones that failed over the weekend!
Doug

techo2oz replied:

We were in the same boat, with over 24 handsets on CDMA.

Agonised for ages over what to choose. Our people are notoriously hard on phones and a flip phone would have a very short life expectancy.

In the end trialled ZTE handsets (2 models but not the 165) the LG TU 550, then finally the saviour was the newly released Nokia 6120.

It has proven to be the best choice with very good feedback from all who are using them. There is bad echo when using the Nokia/Force combination car kits, but this is fixed with a phone firmware upgrade.

The other 2 issues with the Nokia are the very small buttons and the very large screen. (easily scratched)

What also swayed me away from the ZTE phones was when a Telstra Tech walked into the Telstra shop front where I was in waiting to physically look at the different styles of handsets. He had a problem with his 2 month old Telstra work phone that Telstra had supplied him. Their response was he had to call the 1800 number and organise his own repair.

Member - Tour Boy (springsure replied:

HI all,
Don't go the ZTE.. they are a piece of junk. Mine doesn't work as well as my old CDMA (which wasn't working properly anyway). I have had a lot of probs with it talking to the PC. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.
I'm glad I didn't pay for it, but they bought about 20 of them propably because they were cheaper.
Regards
Dave

Peter 2 replied:

I changed over a few months ago and got a Nokia 6120 which works very well, amazing where it picks up signal without an external antenna.
Recently picked up a Force cradle for it and expect that signal strength will improve futher with the external antenna.

But yes it sucks yet again that we have to throw away perfectly good CDMA phones as we did when they turned the analogue off.

ExplorOz Team - David replied:

Richard,

If you can wait a few days I will have one delivered with car kit and be giving it a test out. I ordered it before christmas and am still waiting however I expect it any day now.

I will be fully testing the power and service compared to CDMA, Next G (Nokia 6120) and connectivity to the PC. I know there are a few negatives from others and I am sure there are plenty of duds and faulty units (hopefully not mine) but certainly from some reports it seems like a resonable unit. My requirements are range and car kit (more important than looks or style). The size of the handset is my only inital issue but will see when it arrives.

Mainey (wa) replied:

I was 'sold' a ZTE 165 by the Telstra change-over sales force by phone, when I went into a Telstra shop to actually look at the phone, which was to be delivered to me 14 days later when I returned to Perth, I was shown a box full of 'dumped' ZTE's and advised they have no reasonable back-up and are the number one hassle for Telstra with returns. As is stated above by others.

Don't wast your time and money, even the telstra "Country Wide" reps don't use them, so that shows you the opinion they have of them.

I got a Samsung flip Country phone, it still has the 'green arrow' for country wide service, can't fault it.

Truckster (Vic) replied:

I hvae the ZTE 158 'builders' phone.. havent personally had any issues, but in saying that, its been recalled once and replaced issue free.

I also have a bleep box Motorola flip phone thats the worst hunk of crap I've ever owned. only 18mths to go till i can change back to a Nokia...

Happy Gutz replied:

I've got the ZTE 165, mainly because I got a car kit with it. So far, no problems. Mate has the Builders phone, Telstra fixwd the echo, now all good. So Far.

Member - Olcoolone (S.A) replied:

We I ordered and picked up our phones today from a Telstra Shop, got really good service and I was at the shop for over 4 hours looking at phones and car kits.

Endered up getting a Nokia E51 and a heap of Nokia 6120's, they supplied Nokia car kits with the passive antenna coupling (not a big fan) along with bluetooth head sets and one more Nokia car kit asa spare.

Had a look at the ZTE (Telstra) 165 and I wanted to like the phone because it did everything that was needed but had a big doudt the quality, the Telstra guy said they had no problems and assured me if we had any problems he would supply another one no questions asked.

We now for the car kit.........if you have ever seen a Globalstar phone car kit this one wasn't much smaller, quality was ok until I had a look at the connector for the phone to work in the car kit...this small plug that does a loop from under the car kit to the phone when in the cradle had to be manually inserted into the phone each time you put the phone in the car kit (two hands to do) and much the same when removing....very poor desigh.

The Nokia 6120 seems to be a great phone with build quality, function and style so Lyn and all our servents got a 6120 each and I had to settle for the Nokia E51, the Nokia E51 is a lot easier phone to use and higher quality then the 6120 but the main reasion I went to the E51 was it had bigger keys and seeing I spend alot of the time on the mobile I just could not live with the 6120.

Next is to see how the passive antenna coupling goes and see if I can modifie the car kit cradle to suit the E51.

A few other thing about the E51, it has inbuilt WiFi for surfing EO and GPS mapping with a bluetooth GPS.


Regards Richard