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11th October - Both Sony Ericsson and Nokia
have sat back and watched Motorola take the "style
phone" crown for itself with the beautifully slim
V3 Razr and its variants. However those who have one know
that it is all too often form over function. So time for
the fight back to begin and we get the Sony Ericsson Z710
for review, which is clearly a stylish phone, but the
question is, does it also function?
Running the tape around the Sony Ericsson Z710 shows a
clamshell design measuring 88 x 48 x 24.5 mm and weighing
just one gram over 100. Available in black or a metallic
sandy colour this is Sony's latest attempt at a flip phone
after a recent spat of of multimedia units and business
models. This model is styled nicely with a large external
(1.5") mono screen which shows either phone status
or that of the inbuilt media player / radio. |
Open the flip and a blue glow greets you as both the keypad
and screen are set with a deep blue colour, although the screen
is a full colour 1.9" 176 x 220 pixel model which is
capable of displaying almost any image. The keypad feels good
to the touch and the flip feels strong enough to withstand
even the kids deciding to play with it. Away from the acres
of moulded plastic with metallic effect lies a Quad band GMS
phone that hangs on to calls like the terrier dog that used
to hang onto the flip in the old moto adverts. This also enables
GPRS and Edge data transfers allowing Sony Ericsson to make
bold claims about its suitability for business.
Memory is limited to 10mb on board (which isn't much) but
Sony have wheeled out Memory stick micro, yet another format
for us to deal with and yet more fiddly stick converters to
allow these small cards to work in older phones or Sony laptops.
Generosity is also lacking in that the Z710 only ships with
a 64mb stick. You'll be wanting to upgrade that if you intend
to utilise the SE Z710's multimedia features which are really
quite good. Firstly there is a very competent MP3 audio player,
which handles MP3 and is also iPod friendly playing AAC, AAC+
and eAAC+. Controls are simple and effective with the phone
coming with a set of earbuds, just as well as you cannot use
your 3.5mm jack headphones and will need to use those provided
or perhaps Bluetooth, more on that later.
The MP3 player works a treat and the large outer screen shows
the track details when the flip is closed making the whole
package very cool to use. The inbuilt FM radio with RDS also
works well and uses the screen on the outside of the flip
to good effect, it does need the earphones attached as they
act as aerial for the radio signal. What is nice is that all
the features of RDS make it onto the Sony and there is also
a 20 preset memory for keeping your favourite stations to
hand.
However there is also a wireless option that builds upon
the Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity, the Z710 supports A2DP a profile
that allows for accurate and high quality transmission over
Bluetooth, of stereo audio. This is a great addition and one
that is starting to appear as standard on more and more phones,
it enables a new breed of Bluetooth headsets to work in a
more Walkman like way.
The claims from SE that this is a business capable mobile
are a little thin on the ground, sure there is a web browser
and the email client supports push email (although not blackberry).
However the screen is just too small to make use of either
and the lack of a full keypad limits it to short messages
only. The ability to sync with a PC is provided over Nokias
pop port USB connection or over the air with Bluetooth.
All of these functions can be a real drain on a battery and
the clamshell of the Z710 houses a 900 mAh Lithium Polymer
battery that claimed a massive 350 hours standby time and
10 hours talk time. In reality we managed to get 2 full days
use and about halfway through the third with around 1 hours
worth of calls a day a little use of the audio player.
The last feature we tested was the 2 mega pixel camera which
is built into the front flip, the images are more than impressive
for the pixel depth despite there being models on the market
with 3.0 mega pixels available. The gallery application makes
it easy for you to find your images and to edit them or move
them off the phone as an MMS or via the various connection
options. The only bad point is the digital zoom which is fairly
naff and is more likely to ruin your images than help you
see a section more clearly.
One extra that we did like is the inbuilt RSS reader which
allows you to collect RSS feeds and to update them via the
data connection on demand, this worked really well and enabled
us to keep up to date with news from the gadget world and
manufacturers during the review period.
Overall the Sony Ericsson Z710 does just enough to make it
worthy of a second look, it claims to be a style phone but
lacks that killer look, it is neither slim or innovative in
design yet outside screen lifts the model above the hum drum.
Plus as with most SE phones it actually works with a good
loud ring tone speaker, RF performance, phone book and audio
player. It isn't going to win any awards but it is easy on
the eye and won't have you cursing that the battery doesn't
last or that it is too tricky to operate. What is the world
coming too when a phone gets good marks for being ok?
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