Sony Ericsson Vivaz

Sony Ericsson's no alien to phones with civilized cameras, and the Vivaz with European 3G frequencies aims to be one of them; after all these months we've lastly got hold of this S60 device, which is the first phone accomplished of nonstop autofocus on 720p video recording civility of its speedy 720MHz Cortex A8 and PowerVR GPU. Compared to its predecessor, the Vivaz bears a similar button layout and GUI to the Satio's, but lacks a front-facing camera, Fast Port (replaced by a micro-USB port and 3.5mm headphone jack), and a slide cover for the camera. The resistive touchscreen (sigh, more on that later) has been downsized from 3.5 inches to 3.2 inches but retains a similar resolution (640 x 360), while the camera sensor is also scaled down from 12.1 megapixels to a more sensible 8.1, possibly for the sake of picture quality and component cost. But enough with the comparison -- let's get cracking with the review.

Size and weight:

Those curves don't go much additional than running the duration of the device and approximately the top and bottom ends. The sides aren't given fairly the same treatment, so even with Sony Ericsson's posturing on the drawing, it isn't that world-shattering. It measures 107 x 52 x 12.5mm and weighs in at 97g.

Network and connectivity:

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz also has WiFi and 3.5G HSPA high-speed data support. In the interior is some sort of processor clocked at 720 MHz attached with 75MB of available RAM, which should mean that Symbian applications run quickly. Talktime on 3G is quoted as being over 5 hours with up to 18 days standby time. It’s supportive of both 2G and 3G networks. With 2G, supports the quad band GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900; while with 3G it supports the HSDPA 1900 / 2100. GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps, EDGE Class 10, 236.8 kbps 3G HSDPA, 10.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2 Mbps. WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, DLNA. Bluetooth Yes, v2.1 with A2DP,USB Yes, microUSB v2.0.

Memory and Display:

Card slot microSD, The internal memory of the mobile phone is 75 MB that can store basically boundless entries of call records and phone book. At the time of obtain, you will get 8 GB memory for free. Besides that, the handset offers an expandable memory alternative that supports storage capacity up to 32 GB.

The face of the Vivaz is filled with the 3.2-inch 640 x 360 pixel resolution display. The resolution is sensibly high given the size of the screen, so your contented can be excellent to look at. It is, regrettably, a resistive touchscreen display, rather than capacitive which you'll find on the bulk of rival smartphones, marking the Vivaz out as harshly mid-range.

Camera and Video:

The Vivaz will be pressed very much as a camera phone, not just because of the 8MP camera(3264x2448 pixels with autofocus & LED flash), but also the capacity of capture HD video at 1280 x 720 pixels, at 24fps. With continuous autofocus video light. There are separate buttons to initiate the video and still-shot camera functions, in addition to the on-screen option to substitute between the two.

In spite of the one-button process, the camera is a little slow to outfit to speed.

Using the camera functions was a light wind, with on-screen icons showing the current setup at a glance and housing menus for swapping between different features.

There is a whole range of shooting options accessible on the Vivaz, on a par with a number of mid-range compact digital cameras.

Even though there's no manual focus you can choose between full autofocus, or authority options for specific types of shots; macro for close-ups, infinite mode for landscape shots and portrait mode.

Entertainment Features:

Media is handled in XMB style, which we like as it makes finding your music fairly easy. The speaker distorts at louder volumes and is a little metallic, headphones offer a improved solution, of course, although frustratingly you can't change the volume of the music when the keys lock. The built in music player is easy to control, and it is accomplished of playing different files such as MP3/WMA/WAV/RA/AAC/M4A, WMV/RV/MP4/3GP. video player while the video playback is capable of playing MP4, and WMV files. We've found a few nice apps preloaded on the Vivaz, namely YouTube, Rally Master (simple accelerometer-based car-racing game), SSX 3 (accelerometer-based snowboarding game), WorldMate (travel planner), GTalk, Google Maps (without multitouch, of course), TrackID (song identifier) and Facebook. You also get a 30-day trial for the Navteq-powered Wisepilot turn-by-turn navigation app, and while we cannot remark on its accurateness since we didn't have a car, we were overwhelmed by the vast amount of POI data that it offered. If you want a different navigation app then you're out of fate, as the PlayNow store doesn't seem to offer any alternatives. In the same way, there are only four free games offered on PlayNow. This is available in Pink, Silver Moon, Cosmic Black, Galaxy Blue, Venus Ruby. It has a standard 3.5mm plug, you can attach them straight into the Vivaz - then go on enjoying music the way you like it.. Pop in any microSD up to 16GB in size and you can stuff your Vivaz full of great tracks - up to a massive 3,500 of them.

There is no hesitation that the Sony Ericsson Vivaz offers a lot. It punches well above its weight when it comes to video and photos, offering one of the best camera phones we've seen to date. It does suffer in low light, however, and the LED flash won't help you out too much, so don’t expect to get good results in a depressing pub.