Telstra's blue tick (Credit: Telstra)
The announcement of Telstra's CDMA network shut-down in April 2008 certainly ruffled the feathers of rural customers who had been concerned about losing their existing network coverage.
To counteract these concerns, Telstra established the "Blue Tick" as a way of indicating to its customers which Next G capable handset has superior reception in regional areas, as per Telstra's own in-house testing procedures. These tests include practical handset trials both in the labs and on the ground in remote areas, emulating typical usage where possible.
Because we haven't tested these claims ourselves we suggest that you don't consider the blue tick a guarantee of clear reception, but more a recommendation to help start the conversation with your local mobile phone dealer about which handset will best suit your needs.
As with all mobile phone technologies, this list fluctuates; with phones being added and subtracted as they become available or are superseded. Below is the current list of blue tick phones reviewed by the editors at CNET.com.au.
Telstra T165i
The Country Phone will feel at home in those remote areas that struggle with mobile coverage. It makes up for an absence of bells and whistles with great performance of its essential features.
Samsung C5220
The C5220 is a passable prepaid from Telstra. Its low-specs are elevated somewhat by Next G compatibility, though there's little else to recommend it.
Palm Treo Pro
Beneath its iPhone-esque exterior lurks a very capable business phone.The Palm Treo Pro may not have the snazzy interface designs of the competition, but this means it performs better in most areas.
LG KF390
Take out the Next G reception and you end up with a low quality handset at a mid-range price point. Still, it's great to see another blue tick phone for our friends in the bush to consider.
Sony Ericsson Z750i
The Z750i has spunky looks and a decent interface, but Telstra has shoved in a few naff features that either don't work or don't make sense.
Nokia N95
If you need an all-in-one communications, navigation and imaging device and don't mind charging it every night, Nokia's N95 raises the bar in the mobile world.
4%
2%
I am lucky enough to be able to choose my phone at work so two months ago I ordered a Telstra Country Phone (F165). The reason I chose was because of Telstra's marketing hype about transmission quality over great distances.
I had no problem with it for the first two months though one afternoon it ceased to work correctly. I could receive and make calls but the speaker and microphone no longer worked. I was later told that this fault was a 'common problem'. It would have been nice if the phone lasted long enough for me to take it into the bush and test its long range data and voice capability.
When the phone worked it worked well though one thing I don't like about it is that menu links to Bigpond cannot be removed - the operating system will not allow it. If the phone was free I could understand Telstra's desire to spam but for something that has to be paid for outright I think it is barbaric.
That said, I hope to get the phone back from warranty repair soon and test Telstra's claims about long distance performance.