It has been 7 days since I bought my new mobile Alcatel OT715.
Resources on OT715 are very rare on the Internet. Wow. How can this happy? David has been wondering about what Alcatel is. Well, Alcatel is not that famous as Motorola, Nokia or Siemens… It is a Franch company that runs very good business in China. I think it may also run good business in Russian since 1/2 of the content on Internet about Alcatel OT715 returned from Google are either in Chinese or in Ruassian.
I am curious to know how many people in the world are using the same mobile as me. But the number should not be large, which can be reflected from the results of Google search for Alcatel OT715 – 6K entries at the time when this page is created. How about Nokia 3650? There are 161K results.
There is an official website about this mobile – but the site is among the slowest company sites I have ever seen. I am very disspointed about the site since it only contains beautiful pictures but don’t have the user manual and function description that I need.
After long time seeking, I decide to share some of my experience. I have to say I love the mobile although I don’t like its web site. It is a pity for a good mobile without a good page — I mean a good page that can be find easily in Google.
BTW, at the time this page is created, my previous page on OT715 is at the 10th place in the returning result of Google for “Alcatel OT715“
Background
Alcatel OT715 is launched in Hong Kong on July 15, 2002. It is available first in China and Hong Kong market, European market follows. At the time it is launched, it costs about 2500 RMB. At the time I bought it, its price drops to 1850 RMB in Shanghai.
Features
Here are the key features as listed in Alcatel’s offical web site for OT715. My comments are added under each feature.
Infrared interface & serial link
Well. This is a very good feature. I use it to
- put the pictures of my house and girl friend into the handset, and show it as standby screen.
and
This can be accomplished via Creation Studio that comes with the mobile. The Infrared port is very handy to get the image from my Acer TravelMate 360.
- Transfer contact information to and from other mobile and laptop with Infrared Interface. I always think the connection between computer and mobile are too complicated. But the transfer of contact information of Alcatel OT715 is an exception. Here are the simple steps:
- On the handset, click Tools -> Infrared.
The mobile will report “Infrared is activated”. Meanwhile, a small icon indicating Infrared will appear at the taskbar.
- Put the mobile phone near the Infrared port of a laptop computer.
The computer and the mobile should connect with each other automatically.
OT715 should show “The infrared has been connected successfully.” and the laptop computer should show “Another computer is near by”, then change to “Wireless link with Alcatel OT715 at 115220 bps”
. - Choose a contact person on OT715 and select Transfer from the menu.
- Answer “Yes” when the Infrared manager on laptop computer ask you whether you want to receive the document.
- The file will be saved on the laptop in the format of a VCard. (Typically it will appear on your desktop). You can open the VCard using notepad if you don’t have any VCard Management software like Outlook. Here is the content of a VCard.
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N;CHARSET=UTF-8:Jian Shuo Wang;
TEL;WORK:02163352266P6656
TEL;CELL:13916146826
TEL;HOME:XXXXXXXXX
END:VCARD
- On the handset, click Tools -> Infrared.
- For the serial line, I don’t think it is useful since the software IntelliSync always crashes on Windows XP that I cannot complete a sync with my Outlook.
There should be more functions other than transfering VCard or Image. I will post for more functions after I discovered it.
Built-in GSM/GPRS (class 10) modem
What is this? I have to admit that I don’t learn new things as quick as I do 10 years ago. I have no idea about the GSM/GPRS modem, let along the term of “class 10”.
I noticed that when the mobile is connected with my laptop via Infrared Port, an additional modem called “Modem – Standard Modem over IR link (COM4)” appeared on my Windows XP laptop. I can create a Dial-Up connection using this modem, but whenever I dial, it will fail. The encouraging message is, when I dial-up using the connection, the mobile will dial out as I am using the dial-pad to dial and the mobile displays “Outgoing Call 8163” (8163 is the Internet access number in Shanghai). However, it prompted “Service not available” very soon.
I assume that it is because I don’t subscribed the Digital Data service from my NSP (network service provider). I plan to apply for this function and have a try later.
Vcard & Vcalendar exchange
I have covered this in “Irared Interface” section before. Thank God that the standard of VCard is reached so it can communicate with other mobiles and other applications.
PALM & Windows CE devices compatible
Not sure what this item means. I happen to have a Palm PDA. Let me give it a try to see if there is any possible connection between the two devices.
EMS release 4.0
I was told that I can send music with the message to my friends. It can also attach some 32×32 icons like these:
However, this does not help me a lot since I don’t want to waste time to attach a piece of music before I am very sure the my friend also have EMS 4.0 functions.
Ring tones & animated icons messaging
Here are some of the pictures shipped with the mobile.
Download facilities
I am not very sure about what the download facilities means. It may be only available when WAP service is available. I didn’t pay for the WAP service yet. It seems that the download here refer to downloading from a computer instead of downloading from Internet.
Interactive games
The three games come with Alcatel OT715 LOOK interesting:
- Killer Expo
- Run Run Run
- Botwar
But I have to say the games are too fancy to be put into this small screen — although Alcatel OT715 has the largest screen of a mobile phone, it is still too small to play games. I don’t play any of the games. Sorry for the hardworking programers who created them.
Two-player network game
I don’t know how to use this feature yet. The users’ manual are just like the help document of Microsoft products – professional, well formatted but does not help at all. My quesiton is, why a mobile phone designed for “the high-end market” has so many game feature? Do they really expect business man to play games? Or will they play a two-player network game with another business man?
Multi-field directory
Yeh! This is the killer feature of OT715. For each individual, there are fields like Name, Mobile phone, Work phone, Home phone, Email, Address, City, Fax. These features are so handy to store two or three numbers under a single contact. When I want to dial out, two or three options are shown and let me choose to dial to his/her mobile or phone at work or phone at home. This works great for me. When I was using SIEMENS 3508, I have to create two seperate entries: Mr. Lin (HOME) and Mr. Lin (MOBILE) for the same person. The nightmare is finally over.
Scheduler, To Do list
I may be a good feature but nothing is impossible before I can setup the IntelliSync work on my Windows XP. As I have stated, it always crashes when I try to sync.
PC & Over the Air synchro (SyncML)
This feature seems fantastic. But give me some time to make it work. I may ask the helpful hotline guy to find out the answer.
I read about SyncML Server from time to time on Internet. Can I setup my own SyncML Server on home.wangjianshuo.com? There are too many questions in my mind.
High resolution display
Look at the mobile. It looks so nice!
Up to 10 lines of text (100×150 pixels)
This feature is self-explainary. I don’t need a color-screen mobile which is exteremly popular nowaways. All I need is information, instead of colorful pictures. This design of OT715 just works for me.
4 gray scale quality
EL film with blue backlight color
Very nice features that makes the modem look cool. It is announced that this mobile is “Men Mobile”. Exactly.
Zoom function & landscape viewing
Where is the Zoom function? I cannot find it anywhere on the mobile.
WAP 1.2.1 (Openwave micro browser)
I am afraid I will use GPRS instead of WAP. WAP is expensive!
Updated March 19, 2003
After another 7 days of this entry, I found the WAP function of Alcatel OT715 very useful. I have subscribed to GPRS service and can browse all the WAP sites. Further more, I added WAP function to this blog. That means, I can check who left comment on my web site and the hit counter of the page in real time. If you also have a WAP-enabled mobile, just try to browse http://home.wangjianshuo.com/wap/. I do feel “Information At My Fingertips” now.
SATK Class 3 Release 99
What is the new term of SATK again? Even Google cannot answer this question. SATK Class 3 seems to be the place on Internet to mention this term. Will keep investigating this.
Updated March 19, 2003
I see. It is SIM Application Tool Kit. I remember the service provider once asked me to change to another SIM card for free. It will add a new item under my main menu — services. The application is burned into the SIM card and can be accessed by the mobile.
Location services enabled
Does it mean the mobile can tell me where I am? The altitude and longtitude? If it is the case, it will be super cool. But I don’t see any interface on the mobile yet.
M-Services compatible
I have to doubt the propose of this spec: why there are so many hard-to-understand terms in the spec? I have never heard of M-Services, do you?
With the help of this webpage, I guess the M-Services are something like downloading service with OpenWav’s WAP Browser. Does it mean I can download a wall paper via WAP and show it on my mobile? It seems good. I can put my pictures on my web site and download it using my phone.
Key Benifit
Xtra large display.
Personal assistant.
GPRS.
Networking games.
Photograph download.
PC Software Suite.
Resources
Nice sites about Alcatel OT715
- Alcatel OT715 on Funfone.net
- Photograph download feature
- http://www.threegmobile.net/gallery/alcatelot715/
Fee of China Mobile
Here is the fee of China Mobile Communication Corp. (a.k.a CMCC)
Monthly subscription fee: 50 RMB/month
Local call: 0.4 RMB/min
Long distance call: 0.4 RMB/min + 0.07 RMB/6 seconds = 1.1 RMB/min
Good way to save money:
Dial 17951 + Long distance number: 0.7 RMB/min
Alcatel OT715 Specification
Dimensions : 116x43x20mm (L x W x H)
Weight : 88 g
Talk time : Up to 6h30 (Pmin, 50%DTX)
Standby time : Up to 250 h (Paging 5, static)
Dual band : E-GSM 900 / DCS 1800
Standards : GSM Phase 2 / Phase 2+
Speech codec : EFR / FR / HR
Patch antenna
Standard battery : Lithium Polymer
DriveKey?: 5 positions
Enhanced blue backlight
Speech Codec : EFR/FR/HR
SIM card : 1.8 / 3V SIM, 3V SIM, 3 / 5V SIM. Not compatible with 5V only SIM.
SATK : SIM Application ToolKit Class 3 Release 99
WAP : WAP 1.2.1
Update: July 9, 2003
If you are looking for software for OT715, try to look at this entry: Alcatel OT715 Software
