CECT T689 Dual SIM card phone review

Having owned the CECT T689 for over a year now, I thought it was a good time to write a comprehensive review.

Features:
The CECT T689 provides dual SIM capability, with no need to ever switch between the two SIM cards. Two individual ‘call’ buttons allow you to choose which number to dial from. Received calls, dialled number and SMSes are marked with ‘SIM B’ if used with the second SIM card.
The T689 has all common phone features, including 1.3MP camera, MP3 player, video player and audio player.

Missing features:

• English dictionary. No intelligent word entry, all letters must be entered individually. There is this feature for Pinyin though but not English.
• Unable to reply to an SMS from a different SIM card easily, must create a new SMS from start.
• No keypad lock timeout less than 5 seconds (excluding 0)
• Unable to change the SMS tones, must chose from phone’s built in unpleasing tones

Design flaws:

• Keypad unlock requires the double press of the “#” key. Any keypad lock that relies on double pressing a key to unlock can be unlocked very easily accidently. This is a constant problem with this phone.
• The CECT T689 has a problem stating ‘Warning! Bad Contact -Charger!’, this is a serious problem disabling the data and charging capability through the supplied USB cable. The phone is unusable when this message is displayed. To remove the message I squeeze the phone and screen till message goes away. Fortunately, a spare battery is supplied with the phone and can be swapped to allow the other to recharge.

I am still using the T689 for both my personal and work numbers and will continue do so as long as the basic dual SIM functionality remains.