Cell Review: Sony Ericsson Vivaz

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz is a fancy and feature-packed smartphone that is great for shooting videos in HD.

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz is quite the eye-catcher. Everywhere it goes, heads turn, eyes ogle. I felt like a celebrity whenever I whipped out the Vivaz. Friends and family would exclaim, “Wow! What is that? A phone? Let me see!”

So it is the phone that is more the celebrity but I live vicariously through it :-)

Simply sleek

Sony Ericsson has really made an effort to make the Vivaz look good. It really is a sexy little number — slim, smooth, shiny and silver.

The contrast of the dark blue side panels with the silver back panelling gives off a science fiction film vibe, almost as if laser beams will shoot out at any given moment or that you can communicate with extra- terrestrial beings.

Vivaz landscape view

Even the shape of it screams futuristic. It does not look like any phone in the market right now, especially not like the dated candybar phones.

Moving on, the touchscreen is responsive and if you tilt the phone horizontally or vertically, the screen will rotate accordingly.

There are shortcuts on the homescreen too to access frequently called numbers, text messages and media files.

The Symbian OS is similar to the one on Nokia phones so if you are familiar with that, then using the Vivaz will be easier.

Multimedia madness

The Vivaz is really for the multimedia enthusiasts among us — those of us who want to capture life and memories that we experience without the need to lug around extra devices.

The Vivaz has an 8.1-megapixel camera that can also do 720p HD recording. It is simple and quick to do either as there are two separate buttons on the Vivaz for taking pictures or video.

Vivaz rear view

You can do simple editing so this allows some creativity that will make using your mobile phone camera fun. Not only that, it can also easily upload media to web-based photo albums or video sharing sites.

One of the best things about taking videos and pictures on the Vivaz is its 3.2in widescreen display. You can clearly see what you are going to do since the screen is so generous and definitely makes the Vivaz a pleasure to use as a multimedia recording device.

One of the coolest functions of the camera is the Touch Capture mode. Simply touch the screen of the object you would like to take a picture of and the camera takes the photo.

Viewing images and videos on the Vivaz is awesome because you can simply browse through the gallery with a touch of a button and you just need to swipe across the screen to see the next picture or video.

Sound-wise, the Vivaz produces clear and crisp tones but one must remember that bass will always be lacking on such devices.

Good for applications

There is a built-in basic Twitter client that you can access from the ­homescreen of the Vivaz. You can also install a Facebook application and an e-mail client.

Basically, if you can find an application that supports the Symbian S60 version 5 then it should work on your Vivaz. I installed various applications with ease.

The phone comes with an A-GPS so it works pretty well with Google Maps. It came with Wisepilot but somehow, it just did not want to work well when I tested it.

There are three ways to enter text into the Vivaz. There is a virtual Qwerty keypad, handwriting recognition and alphanumeric keypad.

Personally, I selected the Qwerty keypad but it may not be the best option. Sometimes the response was slow or when I typed too fast, it would miss letters.

Long life

The battery is quite long lasting on the Vivaz. When left untouched for three days, with some missed calls and text messages in-between, the phone still showed 95% battery life.

However, if you run demanding applications or surf and do a lot of text messaging, the phone will last you two days tops.

The Vivaz hung on me several times unfortunately. Maybe it’s because I tried to do too many things and the phone just couldn’t keep up and would just hang and I would not be able to receive calls.

A full restart, switching the phone off and on again will solve the problem.

Speaking of web browsing, the phone comes with its own web browser that is really awful to use.

You may want to install another web browser as the one that comes installed with the phone is clunky. I hated how I had to zoom in to see a page every time. Text messaging on the Vivaz was torturous for me.It may be because I am used to a physical Qwerty keypad.

Typing was difficult and not as snappy as I would have liked it to be. The keys were small and using both thumbs on the keypad was a nightmare. I had to use the edge of my fingernails most of the time.

It frustrated me a lot since I was trying to arrange a surprise birthday party with the Vivaz. It did its job, just that I got annoyed at it since the cutting and pasting functions were buried inside its menus and directories.

Conclusion

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz looked really promising and its multimedia features are impressive. The phone is great for shooting images and capturing videos, and has a long lasting battery.

However, it may be sleek on the outside but on the inside it has too many hidden folders, menus and directories.

If you use its multimedia functions then it is good but if you intend to do other things like surf the Web, you might feel it’s a little clunky.

It was love at first sight but the Vivaz was just let down by the Symbian OS which is a little slow and complicated to use.

Pros: Slim and futuristic design; great for 720p HD video recording; 8-megapixel camera.

Cons: Sluggish performance; virtual keypad too tiny.

3G smartphone

Manufacturer: Sony Ericsson

CAMERA: 8-megapixels

DISPLAY: 3.2in touchscreen (360 x 640-pixel resolution)

OPERATING SYSTEM: Symbian S60 v5

MESSAGING: SMS, MMS, e-mail

CONNECTIVITY: Bluetooth, HSPDA, WiFi

PHONE MEMORY: 75MB

EXPANSION SLOT: MicroSD (up to 16GB)

BATTERY: 1,200mAh lithium-polymer

STANDBY/TALK TIME: 430 hours/540 minutes

OTHER FEATURES: A-GPS, media player, 720p HD recording

DIMENSIONS (w x h x d): 107 x 52 x 12.5mm

WEIGHT: 97g

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Cell Phone: Sony Ericsson Aino Review

If you’re looking for a “good” phone, you won’t find it in the Sony Ericsson Aino. No, the device is actually quite amazing.

Somebody at Sony Ericsson must have thought it would be a great idea to combine the functionality of a phone with the features of a media player and camera, because this is what the Aino is in a nutshell.

And I have to say, I agree — the Aino is perfect for the gadget lover who wants a device that lets her keep in touch with her friends while allowing her to watch a downloaded episode of C.S.I. or listen to Linkin Park during long commutes or intensely boring meetings.

Interestingly, the Aino has two distinct modes. Slide it open and it becomes a typical Sony Ericsson phone with a keypad. And by that I mean that it’s a solid, reliable mobile phone that you can use to makes calls and send/receive SMS/MMS messages.

It’s fairly easy (and responsive) to use, and it has all the standard features you might expect from any phone, such as an organiser and an alarm clock.

Slide the phone close, however, and you’ll see what makes this device so excellent.

Sight and sounds

For one thing, this mode lets you use the Aino as a media player. The capacitive touchscreen — which is mostly disabled in the phone mode — now lets you browse through the albums and playlists you’ve stored in the phone memory or the attached microSD card.

A few quick taps on the touchscreen can then take you to a listing of the videos and movies on the Aino, which you can enjoy on the phone’s wide 3in TFT display.

Honestly, I was quite surprised at the excellent quality of the audio and video that were coming from this little device.

I’ve successfully tested playing MP3, MP4 and AVI files on the Aino, and the pictures were sharp and the sounds were very clear.

You can watch entire movies on this thing, and if you use the wireless Bluetooth headset which comes included in the box, you can do so without disturbing the people next to you. Or alert the boss to the fact that you’re not paying attention during the intensely boring meeting.

You can transfer files directly to/from the Aino via a USB cable, but the easier way would be to plug the phone into the charging stand and firing up the MediaGo software (both also included in the package) to synchronise files with your PC.

Snapshots

Some people might argue that a camera isn’t exactly a necessary feature of a phone, but generally these people also ride pterodactyls to hunt T-rexes for their dinner. No, a camera is an indispensible feature for current handphones, because you’ll never know when you’ll come across your friends doing something hilarious and/or incriminating that needs to be photographed.

The Aino’s 8.1 megapixel camera — another feature only acessible in the “closed” mode — can produce surprisingly excellent pictures, particularly for a camera phone. Sure, it can’t compare to a DSLR, but try to fit one of those into your pocket.

The Aino’s camera also comes with a flash, 16x digital zoom and the ability to record videos.

But more interestingly, it has a feature which lets you set the focus of the image simply by tapping on it in the touchscreen.

Plus, the phone comes pre-installed with a Facebook app, so if you’re near a WiFi hotspot or if you have a data plan, you can immediately share any hilarious and/or incriminating photos with your other friends.

Everything else

While the multimedia capabilities and the camera are the main attractions of the Aino, the phone has a whole slew of other interesting features, like the Facebook app that was mentioned.

Among other things, the phone has (limited but useful) GPS functionality, so if you need to know how to get to nearby landmarks or which neighbourhood you’re currently lost in, you can always consult Wisepilot or Google Maps.

If you have a PS3, you can utilise the Remote Play feature to wirelessly access (media) content on your machine, which sounds pretty cool on paper. In practice though, I store most of our movies and music on our computer, so the Aino’s ability to wirelessly transfer files via Bluetooth is more useful in this respect.

And if you have a thing for those quirky lil’ Java games for mobile phones, you’ll be happy to know that the Aino lets you access the PlayNow arena, Sony Ericsson’s online store for mobile content. But really, gaming is pretty much the only area of mobile entertainment that the Aino doesn’t shine at. May I suggest a Nintendo DS or a Sony PSP instead?

Great doesn’t mean perfect

Of course, this wouldn’t be a proper review if I never found things about the product to gripe about.

The first complaint about the Aino is in regards to its battery life. On average, when I only used the Aino to send SMS messages and make a few calls, I was able to make the phone last for around three days without recharging.

On the other hand, when I went all out and started watching movies, listening to music on the wireless headset and surfing the Net regularly, I was lucky to get a day’s worth of battery life.

Really, you could have seen that coming from a mile away, but the problem is that the phone has such excellent multimedia capabilities there’s little reason for you to NOT regularly watch movies or listen to music on it.

The numeric keypad also feels a little “shallow” to the touch, which is strange considering how the phone features are reliant on this form of input. This doesn’t affect functionality in any way, only the way the phone feels.

However, the final complaint about the Aino is probably the quirkiest — in our experience, the screen lock isn’t entirely reliable.

Keeping in mind that the touchscreen only gives access to the media features (so phew, you can’t accidentally make phone calls when the phone is closed), and that I regularly carry out phones in our trouser pockets, this creates the strange effect where our trousers would randomly break out into song.

i'm not kidding. This happened to us about once a week, and given how clear and loud the audio from the Aino can be, I’ve started to think that I’m either in a Disney musical or a Bollywood film.

Conclusion

All said, these minor flaws don’t detract from the overall awesomeness of the Aino. And heck, if you’re the kind of guy who likes to spontaneously start a song and dance sequence, some of the “flaws” might actually be an added bonus for you.

The Aino is an excellent device for any gadget lover, whether you’re looking for a mobile media device, a compact camera option or simply a phone that’s just plain reliable and responsive.

For the price, you get a lot of great features fitted nicely into a sleek looking phone. (incidentally, I recommend getting the white colour option if it’s available, if only so you can say that you have an Albino Aino.)

After having had the chance to play around with this phone, this reviewer can say one thing for sure: I know I want an Aino now.

Pros: Mobile media player with superb audio and video; excellent camera; solid phone functionality; looks pretty.

Cons: Not-so-reliable screen lock might cause spontaneous outbreaks of song.

3G multimedia phone
Manufacturer: Sony Ericsson

CAMERA: 8.1-megapixels with touch focus

DISPLAY: 3in capacitive TFT touchscreen (432 x 240-pixels), 16 million colours

MESSAGING: SMS, MMS, e-mail, instant messaging

MEMORY: 55MB (internal), bundled 8GB microSD

EXPANSION SLOT: microSD

CONNECTIVITY: GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSPA, Bluetooth, WiFi

OTHER FEATURES: aGPS, video recording, media player, motion gaming, various pre-installed applications

STANDBY/TALK TIME: 380 hours/ 13 hours

DIMENSIONS: 104 x 50 x 15.5mm

WEIGHT: 134g






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Cell Phone: Sony Ericsson Satio Review

Sony Ericsson is back in the megapixel race with its monster 12-megapixel camera phone.

I have been waiting for this touchscreen Symbian sweetie to arrive ever since it was announced in February this year.

With the standard UIQ user interface gone, I was waiting to see what the Sony Ericsson boys could do with Symbian S60 5th edition.

The Satio is offered in black, silver and maroon. The review unit was a maroon though I would have liked to see a black one instead.

Styling wise, the phone looks more like a camera than a phone. It appears sleek on the front. It also feels sleek in the hand but when viewed from the side, the lens cover that’s jutting out makes the Satio look pudgy.

The Call, Menu and End Call buttons are below the 3.5in screen. Above the screen, you will find the proximity sensor, secondary camera and speaker. At the top of the Satio, you will find the speaker and the power button.

On the left, you find the screen unlock switch, Sony Ericsson’s proprietary connectivity port and the microSD card slot. To your right, you get the volume rocker/camera zoom control, playback button, camera/video mode switch and capture button.

On the back, you find the lens cover which automatically turns on the camera when slid off.

SHARP SHOOTER: The camera on the Satio deserves praise for
the range of functions and decent quality of photos overall.

Feature-packed

The processor powering the Satio is an ARM Cortex A8 600MHz with a PowerVR SGX graphics chip which is similar to the iPhone and packs a lot of power.

There’s 128MB of internal memory to store contacts and 256MB RAM. The Satio can support microSD cards of up to 32 B so there’s no worry of running out of space.

The 3.5in touchscreen is sensitive enough that you only need to tap it lightly. It’s also precise so that your taps do not stray.

The screen provides excellent colour and contrast. Outdoors, it performs pretty well.

However, the screen can’t shine through on super sunny afternoons which is quite acceptable as most phones don’t have very good legibility under bright sunlight.

The Satio performs the basic phone functions admirably. Voice quality is clear.

Accessing your address book is made easy with the Symbian’s index name search that minimises scrolling through your entire address book.

You can send and receive SMS and MMS easily. E-mail can easily be set up as well.

Now, normally, Sony Ericsson phones with their Flash UI sort the SMS in a threaded/conversation view whereas Symbian phones have them sorted by date.

Sony tries to bring the threaded view back, but you can only find this feature in the Chat section. It’s not really a big issue to have this feature as long as you know how to do it.

The Satio has all the bases covered when it comes to connectivity. It handles GSM, GPRS, 3G, Wi-Fi, USB and Bluetooth. Lots of pixels.

IN A ROW: All the camera control buttons are on the right of the
Satio.

The camera on the Satio deserves to be praised and rightly so. Even though cramming in a tiny 12-megapixel sensor does have its drawbacks on image quality, the Satio’s photos turned out pretty nicely.

It excels in taking daylight images. When in a low-light conditions, a steady hand is a must even with image stabilisation on.

The reason why the Satio feels more like a camera than a phone is it has all the wonderful functions found in Sony’s Cyber-shot cameras such as Smile Detect which snaps the picture only when the subject smiles, Best Pic which takes multiple images and suggests the best one for you and finally Touch Focus where the camera will focus upon the area that you tap on the screen and then snap the picture.

The camera captures video in 640 x 480-pixel resolution which is encoded in MP4. Videos were smooth and crisp with excellent clarity.

Media playback

Sony have replicated the Walkman-style Media Centre for the Symbian OS. It organises media into Music, Photos and Videos.

I’ll go through each category. For Music, it works as expected. Songs are sorted by album, artist and title. It would’ve been nice if songs could be searched by the title or artist where you could type it in.

The sound quality is alright, but there is no equaliser function. To me, the Satio could use one as the sound is more high pitched than I would have liked.

The visualisation is interesting and rather hypnotic. Try tapping it when there is a song playing and you’ll see what I mean. Sadly, there’s only one visualisation.

Photos are displayed in a scrolling fashion where you can sweep your finger across the screen to proceed to the next or previous image.

The transitions were smooth and slick. You can access photos from the phone or from an online location.

As for videos, you can access YouTube videos and podcasts.

The video player is nothing fancy and works as expected. Videos play brilliantly on the huge screen but it would’ve been nice to pair it up with decent stereo speakers instead of the mono speaker the phone has.

In addition, you can always turn on Flight Mode to use the media player functions on flights and in hospitals.

Productivity tools

The RoadSync application allows you to link to an Exchange mail server to access corporate e-mail message, appointments and contacts.

As usual, you get the Symbian calculator, calendar and note applications. The QuickOffice and Adobe PDF applications allow you to read Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files.

However, you have to purchase the full edition of QuickOffice to be able to edit files. The Adobe PDF also comes with a 30 day trial and you have to purchase a full license if you need it.

Entertainment

Sony Ericsson has loaded a couple of PlayStation games that they’ve ported to the Satio. You’ll find them on the microSD Card. I got Prince of Persia and Asphalt 4.

I haven’t played the original games on the PlayStation but I am not to happy with the slow speed of the games.

The Satio comes with the WisePilot GPS software preinstalled so you don’t have to install other GPS software.

WisePilot is without doubt a good GPS software with voice directions.

The GPS hardware however is not up to par with the software. It took about two minutes to get a position lock when I was outside on a clear day.

Symbian’s positioning application also suffered from the same symptoms.

It’s rather strange that the Google Maps application managed to get a position lock fairly quickly even when I was indoors.

This leads us to conclude that perhaps the Symbian OS and it’s services have not been properly optimised with the Satio’s hardware.

Battery life is a bit short. If you use it heavily in the course of a day for GPS, photo taking and media playback in addition to your phone calls, expect to charge it by the end of the day.

Moderate usage for phone calls and messaging alone should get you about 2.5 days of usage. There is a supplied charger and the Satio can still be charged via USB.

Conclusion

Actually, with all the hype surrounding the Satio, I felt rather letdown.

The Satio has a habit of auto restarting once in a while (about every tow days). You get a two second lag when trying to unlock the screen, as if the phone was trying to wake itself from sleep mode.

The intermittent lags and hangs failed to convince us that it was running on some really powerful hardware.

The lags and hangs get worse if the theme is changed from the original theme which is quite peculiar.

All of this could be due to the unstable firmware on the Satio. Having said that, Sony has offered an update to improve the performance of the Satio.

It looks like Sony Ericsson tried really hard to cram in a lot of features but but it just didn’t manage to optimise the Symbian OS and its apps for the Satio’s awesome hardware.

I still have faith in the company to fix the flaws in future firmware updates.

Pros: Excellent camera; GPS software is good

Cons: Buggy and slow software; no DivX and Xvid support; lacks 3.5mm jack; missing equaliser function; many other small quirks.

Update: According to Sony Ericsson, the Satio firmware update is now available via Sony Ericsson’s online support site at sonyericsson.com. It’s very important that you back up your phone before upgrading the firmware to prevent any loss of information.

3G phone with touchscreen
Manufacturer: Sony Ericsson

Camera: 12.1-megapixels with autofocus, touch focus and xenon flash

Display: 3.5in touchscreen (360 x 640-pixels)

Operating system: Symbian 9.4 S60 5th edition

Messaging: SMS, MMS, e-mail Connectivity: GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 900/2100, Bluetooth, USB, Wi-Fi

Expansion slot: MicroSD (up to 32GB supported)

Phone memory: 128MB internal memory, 256MB RAM, 8GB mircoSD included

Battery Type: Lithium polymer 1,000mAh

Standby/talk time: 340 hours / 4 hours 50 minutes

Other features: A-GPS

Weight: 126g

Dimensions (w x d x h): 55 x 13 x 112mm




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