Sony Ericsson Z710i Review

Recently I had the opportunity of using one of the latest clamshell model from Sony Ericsson, the z710i. The z710i carries the same design and specifications of the walkman phone w710i without any sporty features like pedometer and calorie counter. This phone comes in 2 colours-Twilight Black and Metallic sand. The model I used was the Metallic sand one. The exterior finishes have been superb with a metallic colour band around the top portion of the phone. The Z710i meaures 88 X 48 X 24.5 mm and weighs 101 gms.

The handset’s major attraction is its external display which is 26 X 26 mm. Its a monochrome display with blue backlight. When closed this displays the phone status, calender events etc. When the media player and radio is running, this screen displays the track details. The fonts in this display is also impressive.

On the front side we have the 2MP camera encircled with a metallic ring. Side mount button have volume rocker keys, slider control to lock the phone and also media player shortcut keys. This is quite impressive since this is not a walkman series phone. Once the slider lock is on, none of the media player buttons work, this is again a good thing which is provided. We also have a shortcut button for camera which works only if the phone is opened.

The handset can be opened easily and inside its has a 1.9 inch screen with 176 X 220 pix displaying 262K colours. The keypad is made of quality plastic and the back light display is also an impressive blue. The keypad has lot of shortcut keys which include the ones for messaging, displaying shortcut menu, internet and shutdown.

The menu is similar to the ones in k790i and has lot of features to offer. Another important feature of z710i is the capability of multitasking. One can run multiple applications like Java games, media player or any other applications simultaneously. Each of these applications can be minimized whenever needed.

The phone comes with an inbuilt memory of 10 MB and a 64 MB M2card is provided along with the handset. The memory can be expanded to 1 GB. The camera doesn’t have an auto focus feature, but the images taken from this are very impressible and I should say these pictures have more clarity than those taken from my w700i. The music player also features lot of options, but one thing missing is the Mega Bass feature of SE walkman phones.

Other features include:

• EDGE
• GPRS
• Video Ringtones
• RSS feeds
• Picture Blogging
• Blue tooth
• Remote Control (using Blue Tooth)
• Photo DJ and Music DJ
• USB support
• NetFront browser
• Organiser

The z710i is priced near to 10500/-.I was really impressed with the features of this phone and to sum up if you are looking for an all in one, yet reasonably simple phone, the Z710 definately worth the price.

Rating: 4.5/5

Technorati tags: SonyEricsson, z710i, w700i, Walkman