Cell Phone Review: Sony Ericsson's T290a Prepaid AT&T Mobile Phone

When it comes to cellular service, I'm a "pay as you go" kind of guy.

That was why I was a bit bummed when I accepted a job in rural northern Arkansas - a place where my Virgin Mobile service and my beloved Audiovox Snapper refused to go.

This was a blessing in disguise.

I immediately began shopping for a new cell phone deal. Turns out, AT&T is about all you can get in this land of beautiful rivers and mountains.

AT&T's pay-as-you-go service, Go Phone, seemed very appealing. Something that really sweetened the deal was the fact that for a dollar a day everytime I used the phone for a voice call I could recieve unlimited mobile-to-mobile on the AT&T network. Since everyone around here has AT&T, how could I resist?

This turned out to be a much better deal than Virgin's dollar-a-day plan. With those folks, you paid a dollar a day every day and got minutes for $0.10. With AT&T, my dollar a day gets me unlimited calls to anyone on AT&T, plus $0.10 a minute for non-AT&Tnetwork calls.

So I began the search for a phone. I resisted the urge to pick up a pre-paid pink RAZR (it really wasn't all the hard) and sided with the Sony Ericsson T290a, a sleek, lightweight black phone. When I got it out of the package I was immediately amazed at how small it was. For a $50 (including $10 airtime) phone, it looks very cool and feels suprisingly sturdy.

I immediately had two major disappointments. First, it uses a freaky proprietary power connector. It is very easy to plug in, but pulling it out takes some getting used to (you lift up on the cord and it pops out).

My second disappointment was the fact that it uses a freaky proprietary USB connector... and it doesn't include one. Maybe I'm expecting too much for a prepaid phone.

Once it was charged up, I activated it and got my new number. I had no problems with the activation process and was using the phone in less than 5 minutes!

One thing that almost scared me away from this phone was the very small buttons. I have big fingers. But for some reason, I have little problem using these buttons. Also, the backlight could be better, but it is sufficient.