Test report and technical data Trium 110
Mitsubishi's Trium 110
Pros of Trium 110: weight, reasonable price
Cons of Trium 110: no diary
I enjoy quiz shows, so here is a little question for you: Who equipped their mobiles already with polyphone ringing tones when all other cell phone manufacturers were still busy with acoustical air pollution? One tip: The same manufacturer also launched the first mobile with a color screen in Germany.
So?
Many Nokia, Siemens and Sony fans might be surprised to hear that the answer is Mitsubishi.
The Japanese company was with the technical features of its brand 'Trium' one step ahead of its competitors for quite a while. Unfortunately, they put less effort in the marketing of its brand than Nokia, for example, so Trium never became really popular.
So Trium's PR strategy seemed somewhat helpless, too: Trium 110 came with a walkman (!) for the price of only 99 Euro without a pre-paid card or a contract - a really o.k. price for a 'free' mobile. But then, in the days of mobiles equipped with MP3 players and digital Cams, nobody is impressed the least with Trium 110's walkman.
My sweetie has been a Trium fan for a long time. He has told me that Mitsubishi produces unimposing cell phones, but concerning their equipment and the value one gets for their money, they are unbeatable! Both of us needed new mobiles. He had lost his - again - and I was quite annoyed that I could not call him to check in when I felt like it.
My old mobile's battery was broken. More and more often I received calls that went: ' Hey, how's it goi...'. Since my boyfriend and I both liked Trium 110's blue and silver design, we went for it! (Does anyone need two brand-new, never used walkmans???)
Equipment of Trium 110
First things first: Trium 110 is everything but state-of-the-art. Trium 110 is lacking a color screen, GPRS, a digital Cam and a MP3 player. But all of the above I did not want to own let alone paying for it. More important to me was the reasonable basic equipment of Trium 110, such as a graphical display, internet access via WAP (not like I need it), vibratory alert and polyphonic ringing tones that deserve their name. Regular phoning functions like quick dial and call waiting are of course featured by Trium 110 and need no further mentioning.
By now it is standard that one can give different groups of callers different symbols and ringing tones. Concerning these ringing tones, Trium 110 made one big step back: One can only differentiate between numbers saved in Trium 110's phone book and on its SIM card. The first disappointment about Trium 110; its predecessors did a better job in this matter.
Almost old-fashioned is the fact that Trium 110 only provides memory capacity to save ten SMS.
I became more disappointed, when I tried to save a birthday in Trium 110, since I tend to forget every birthday that is not my own. Unfortunately, there seems to be nothing I can do about it. Trium 110 does not feature a diary, but only an alarm function that cannot be set to a date, but only an hour. I guess this is great for dayflies (Oh, it's Johnny's birth minute at 23 after, must quickly be saved in my mobile before I forget again!). Being human, though, I feel rather restricted by this missing function of Trium 110. Improve this, Trium!
Maybe one could get rid of the currency calculator instead, since one can only save a single currency there. Furthermore, it turned out to be three times as quick to just use the normal calculator to convert currencies.
Great is Trium 110's integrated hands-free-talking device. Making phone calls while washing one's hair is not a problem anymore. Trium 110 also features two fun thinking games; unfortunately, the number of levels is quite small. But then Trium 110's games are good to handle and their graphics are o.k. - which is not self-evident. I remember Siemens M35 and its pixel-sized Minesweeper - no fun at all. Trium 110 does not provide a function to download new games from the net, but I do not miss this at all.
Services of Trium 110
After a complicated registration with www.mitsubishi-telecom.com, one can download ringing tones onto Trium 110. Impressed by the huge selection, I gave away all my personal data.
It was rather disillusioning when I first logged in! The selection of ringing tones for Trium 110 was pretty much restricted to national anthems (although I always wanted to brag about me being able to whistle Nigeria's). I have to admit that I feel being had by the restricted number of Trium 110's ringing tones.
Furthermore, every download onto Trium 110 cost so called credits. Once you register with Mitsubishi, you receive 20 credits for free. But I still could not figure out where to get more credits when I have used up my first twenty. Well, I am not too sure that I will spend all my credits on national anthems in the first place. Trium 110 can still be improved!
Trium 110 features a remarkable detail - at least according to its web site: Trium 110 is capable of EMS. The surprised reader of Trium 110's manual though will find out that it is only the Trium 110p that can do this!
One criterion that influenced my decision to purchase Trium 110 was its battery stand - by time. Of course I notice that the manufacturer's announcement concerning the stand - by time is not very likely to be realistic: Supposedly, Trium 110's battery lasts 180 hours in stand - by mode and provides three hours of talking time. Practically, I charge Trium 110 every fifth day - having talked less than ten minutes and written less than ten SMS in the mean time (obviously, I am not too crazy about telecommunications). Anyway, the battery of Trium 110 works for me.
Trium 110 also has got a really handy timer. So you can program Trium 110 to turn itself off over night and back on in the morning, for example. But after Trium 110 has turned itself on, one has to insert the PIN again - if one forgets, Trium 110 will be on, but not ready-to-receive.
I had to get used to Trium 110's extensive understanding of 'flat battery' in the beginning. After Trium 110 first claims its battery to be empty, it will run for at least 36 more hours in stand - by mode and several phone calls can still be made as well. I mean it is nice to be warned ahead of time that your battery might be empty in the future...but is the user not trained to ignore the charging advice that way? Another thing: I have already broken a mobile by over-charging it. So it would be nice if Trium 110 featured a protective circuit to prevent this from happening again.
Trium 110's design
Trium 110 blue and silver design looks quite classy. Due to some design-tricks, the cover of Trium 110 seems to be slimmer that it is (although it is not a big device in the first place). Trium 110 weighs only 90 g. Unfortunately, the menu keys and the four ways navigation button appear cheap, but they fulfill their task very well due to an exact pressure point.
The power plug of Trium 110 definitely needs improvement. It is so tiny that one has to double check each time that one plugs it in the right way. It is hard to plug in in the first place; I am always worried that I might tear something.
Apparently, one did not try too hard when writing the instruction manual of Trium 110. Although it is complete, it could be arranged a lot nicer.
The glory days of Trium mobiles are over. Mitsubishi used to produce unimposing, but good cell phones that were always one step ahead of Nokia and still had a reasonable price. Unfortunately, this one step ahead could never be used to increase the number of sold Trium devices. Maybe one should send the Trium managers to a marketing training one day?
Although a Trium mobile with color screen hit the market early last year, the manufacturer's products have almost completely disappeared by now.
So I was really surprised, when I found Trium 110 in December - provider-free, just what I wanted! It features good Trium quality although it lags behind other mobiles by two generations. But as I said earlier: There are only a few things that I dislike about Trium 110, such as its missing diary.
My evaluation is that Trium 110 is very apt for these who do not participate much in mobile communication.
Test review of Trium 110:
Technical features: ++
Reception quality: +++
Ease of use: ++
Battery stand - by time: ++
Design: ++
Instruction manual: ++
Value for money: +++
Overall rating: ++
++++/ excellent, +++/ good, ++/ satisfactory, +/ poor
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