General

After a very long and extremely detailed search for my phone, I purchased the new Sony Ericsson T616 (Used by both T-Mobile and Cingular). It has more features than I can name, but in regards to your question about a "voice memo" button on the side, it actually has four buttons (one on the right side of the phone, and the remaining three are located on the left):

The button on the right side is the "internet" button (by default) while two of the three on the left side operates a few multi-tasked feature but by default they are your "volume up and down" buttons. The last one is to activate and take pictures while using the intergrated camera.

To answer your question, "YES", the two volume buttons (actually any button on the phone with the exception of just a few.) can be programmed to use the "Magic Word" feature which can be macroed to operate ANY of the phones tools or functions............ INFACT, you can program the phone to where you dont even need to press a button at all to activate the "Voice Record" feature. If you use the "voice record" feature alot, you can program it to where when you give it a simple Voice Command it will automatically go into voice recording (by choosing the "Magic Word" feature to activate it of course)....

FYI - Voice Record was also a very important or I should say it was a requirement in my search for the perfect phone.

Hope it helps......
If you need more info or have further questions please feel free to email me:
ron.fisher@raminc-cisco.com