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Review: Sony Ericsson Z710i
By Jacob Cohen | April 3, 2007
About a year ago, I wrote a review about my then-new Motorola RAZR V3. About a month ago, I decided to replace it with a new phone, as the vibrating ringer alert had stopped working.
I ordered a Sony Ericsson Z710i which, like all my previous phones, is a flip phone (”clamshell”). I am not sure why I keep buying this type of phone, as it does not seem to provide any advantages. (I’m also slightly disappointed to notice that the price has dropped about $30 since I bought it a month ago).
The main things that attracted me to this phone were the long battery life, removable storage (alas, another Sony proprietary card format called “M2″), and a 2.0 megapixel digital camera built in.
After using this phone for a month, it’s lived up to my expectations in battery life. It feels very solidly built, and has a nice sort of “click” feedback when you open or close it. The external screen is larger than my RAZR’s was, and is much easier to read when there’s an incoming call.
I am again a bit disappointed with the camera, though (see update below). It is rated at 2.0 megapixels, but the pictures it takes do not seem to reflect this. My wife and I also have a 3.2 megapixel snapshot camera, and the pictures from that are substantially higher quality.
Here’s our Canon Powershot A70 (3.2MP), with the picture taken by the phone:
I’m a complete novice when it comes to photography, but I think I’m starting to realize that the pixel count is probably only a small part of the picture quality equation, compared to other things like the lens quality and the camera electronics. The pictures taken by this camera seem somewhat grainy and it is difficult to hold the phone still enough to take a picture without motion blur.
That said, the rest of the phone is great. The menu and UI is substantially better than the RAZR or the Samsung I had before that. Not only does it look attractive and elegant, but it is fast, and the menus are organized in an intuitive manner. Having the key lock as a sliding switch on the outside of the phone is a nice touch, as it lets you disable the “Play/Stop/Next/Prev” media buttons on the face of the phone without having to open the phone.
Pros:
- Solidly built, high quality screens inside and out
- Fast, responsive, elegant and attractive UI
- Removable storage, can hold pictures, movies, mp3s, etc
- External, slide-switch key locking feature
Cons:
- Camera is not great
- Proprietary media card, proprietary data/charging interface
Update: after learning a bit more about the settings on the camera that affect the image compression, the picture quality seems much higher. It still won’t rival a good single-purpose digital camera, but they are high enough quality now that I can use it as a source of images for this blog.
Topics: General |
May 11th, 2007 at 5:05 am
i am about to buy this phone and cnet reviews say that it has a slight echo problem , is that true. have you noticed that.
please email me charliechaklam @ yahoo.com
thanks
May 11th, 2007 at 8:18 am
I haven’t noticed any echo.
June 1st, 2007 at 5:24 am
I definitely agree with your comment with the camera. I feel like its a false advertisement of 2.0 megapixel i just had the same megapixel with my nokia but it totally looks much better. On the other hand, the themes are excellent rating you can write over them or just have the white background. Sounds are fine you just have to change the settings.. though, the keypads are kind of stiff but in general i still LIKE the phone alot! not bad afterall..
October 8th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Lovely phone really pleased
May 5th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I don’t think I’ve ever seen dead pixels on a phone.