Generally speaking you can also get much lower pricing on these phones when you
renew a service contract or sign a new contract completely. I got my T616 from
AT&T last April and saved quite a bit over the normal asking price. I know that
they're now offering the phone for $49 if you sign a contract or are already a
GSM customer. They're also offering the T637 at the discounted price of $79.99
to new customers or current GSM clients who want a new phone. But it looks like
the T637 is vastly identicle to the T616, except for "new clothes" and the
addition of Yahoo, AOL and ICQ IM software.

I don't think anyone buys these phones expecting multi-megapixel performance
from the built in camera. Frankly, I never use mine and probably would've taken
a less expensive model without the camera if I'd had the option. I wanted the
T616 because I liked it's looks and user interface and the fact that it had
built in Bluetooth so I could use wireless headsets and beam info. back and
forth with a PC wirelessly (assuming I bought a Bluetooth card).
Steve Grauman

3.  Lacks GSM 850 (a significant issue for Cingular and ATTWS in the USA)

I had a similar problem with a Motorola T720i. The phone was still under
warranty so I took it to a service center where they upgraded the firmware. The
problem kept on, and Motorola replaced the phone, although they made me re-use
the factory battery from the first phone. When the 2nd phone began to have the
same problem, they decided that it was probably a bad battery. Motorola told me
that I was gonna have to pay for my own battery to see if that was really the
problem, and that if the phone stopped having problems, they'd re-imburse me.
Rather than go through the trouble, I complained to AT&T customer service who
just gave me a new Sony Ericsson T616 for $10 to make me shut up. I haven't
tried replacing the battery in that Motorola, but I'm fairly sure now that *it*
was probably the source of the problem. You may want to look into it. I'd owned
3 other Motorola phones and hadn't had a problem with any of them.
Steve Grauman

Useless?  Although image quality could be better, I've found the camera handy
on several occasions when I had neglected to bring a real digital camera.

I've never had that problem.  In fact I'm very impressed with the way it
handles simultaneous tasks; e.g., incoming text messages while I'm playing a
game.

That makes no sense -- sounds like you have some sort of hardware problem.

I get 4-5 myself with BT & GPRS on.  (BT draws some power in idle, but GPRS
doesn't.)  Perhaps you're in a weak signal area, which can significantly
shorten battery life.  Or perhaps your battery has degraded.

Can't comment on that -- I only use SE BT headsets, which work well.