T-Mobile redoes the Sony Ericsson TM506 in Scarlet

The TM506 holds a special place in our hearts as one of T-Mobile's very first national-release 3G handsets (and the first with HSDPA), so why not keep the party going with a new color? Following Emerald and Amber, Scarlet becomes the third color available for Sony Ericsson's homely flip, offering the same 2 megapixel cam, TeleNav support, and stereo Bluetooth as its stablemates. Grab it now, if you dare, for $49.99 on contract.

[oakie Posted Jan 21st 2009 7:45PM]

yes, it was their first with HSDPA, but it wasnt nearly the first 3g handset for T-Mobile USA... or the second, or the third, but was the fourth. the Samsung T639, T819, and Nokia 6263 all preceded it.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 21st 2009 11:58PM]

Does anyone now if this phone can be used to bluetooth tether to a laptop? I'm currently used an old nokia on gprs but it is fairly slow. I would like to have a faster connection, was eyeing this phone but have heard conflicting reports of how well it tethers with 3g networks.

[djdanska Posted Jan 22nd 2009 6:30AM]

Josh, Yes. If you get the right one. When it first came out, it fully supported tethering. They later released an update to end that. You have to manually get an update, it doesn't happen automatically so if you get one of the later ones, yes. It will work as you need it to.

Worse case, you get one and it has the software updates. Not a huge deal. Use davinciteam.com with a sony ericsson data cable and flash it to the previous firmware. Then you have tethering back!

Check out http://www.howardforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=462 for more info on this phone and what other stuff you can do. (Like enable data icons, flash menus etc... all hackable for free if you have the data cable.)

[djdanska Posted Jan 22nd 2009 6:31AM]

On average, i get about 1000kbps down 325-350 kbps up on speed tests. And pings about 150-250 ms. Much better than edge or gprs. Once you try out 3g, you will totally get hooked!

[Stephanie C Posted Jan 24th 2009 4:32AM]

This flip isn't "homely". Sony Ericsson has pretty decent styling for the most part. It looks a lot better than much of T-Mobile USA's line-up!!

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 26th 2009 6:43PM]

hi,

does anyone know if this phone can be installed chinese software to view/enter contact names in chinese ?