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SEcentral Review of Sony
Ericsson S700
01st October 2004
Summary
S700 is the latest product from Sony Ericsson to hit the market in Q4. This
phone is a TriBand World phone working on the 900/1800/1900 GSM Networks, It
has High definition 240x320px 262k color 2,3" screen, 1.3Mp video camera
with flash and 8x zoom, MP3/Video Player, Radio FM and it supports Memory
Stick Duo. It is using 780 mAh Li-Ion battery which Sony Ericsson claims the
standby time is up to 300 hrs and talk time is up to 5.5 hrs.
Although the phone feels slightly bulkier than my T610, the nice finishing
of sleek silver definitely makes up for it. Unlike past candybar models by
Sony Ericsson, the joystick has been replaced by a 4 directional joypad.
Like the K700i, the charging point and memory slot is protected by a rubber
cover to prevent dust from coming in. For those hoping for an even shorter
keypad lock shortcut then the current 2, here’s good news, on the S700, the
keypad lock is now just a single “switch” at the side of the phone!
Appearance/Design
Contrary to popular belief, the S700 is not a “full swivel” phone. It can be
swiveled opened either to the left or the right only and the maximum angle
is 180 degrees (this means that you have to close the phone in the
direction, which it was opened.
There is a small inconvenience in this swivel design, which took me a little
while to get over. When you close the phone after, say, after keying a text
message, the screen ends up being upside down as there is no function that
does a “auto-flip” of the phone’s display to correct it’s perspective.
Perhaps a future firmware will solve this.
The S700 is designed with the signature curves of Sony
Ericsson phones.
You can use the S700 in 3 different ways. They are Browsing Style,
Communication Style and Imaging Style. Let me explain in details about these
3 styles of using S700.
Browsing style is when S700 closed. You are still allowed you to
glance, talk, and view messages without having to open the phone. Plus, you
also still can access to a variety of applications such as Media Player, 3D
games, MusicDJ, WAP access and many more from the touch of the joystick to
the menu while S700 is closed!
Communication style is when S700 open, it will revealed the keypad
and gives you a familiar cell phone usability allowing speedy text input
with T9 for your messaging function.
Imaging style is when S700 is closed but the
262K TFT screen is now positioned opposite of the camera lens to become the
viewfinder. It provides a more traditional digital camera look and feel by
allowing 2-hands operations for more stable picture taking.
Camera
Taking pictures with the S700 is as simple as using a digital camera.
Opening the lens shutter and changing the screen into the viewfinder
automatically activate the Camera Mode. As opposed to a "vertical"
viewfinder most camera phones utilize, the S700 goes with the conventional
horizontal interface more familiar with digital cameras which, I feel, gives
an extra edge as now it allows us to take a wider picture.
The S700 camera function comes with a lot of features, which gives you
greater control or your picture taking. These range from spot photometry for
adjusting exposure with reference to the centre of the picture subject, to
white balance (a much welcomed feature) to a variety of shoot modes and
effects. The S700 has definitely brought phone-photography to an exciting
new realm!
Video clips also capture with the same lens at either 176 x 144 px or 128 x
96 px and it is encoded in automatically converted to the 3GPP codec (H.263
and AMR) format.
In short, taking photos with the S700 is as comfortable as taking photos
with a digital camera like the Sony Cyber shot.
Screen
The S700 comes with an improved brilliant display, the 262K TFT screen with
a large resolution of 240 x 320 px is an eye-catching feature allowing high
color imaging and video. Up to 8 text lines and 3 service rows (including a
header) can fit on the screen. The amount of information displayed on the
phone's screen is exactly the same as one on the K700's but the fonts look
bigger. It uses TFT (Thin Film Transistor), as opposed to STN (Super Twisted
Nematic) so its display's quality is one of the best in its class. Even
though the screen fades under the sunlight but it remains visible, partly
because of the display's dimensions.
Audio
Thankfully, Sony Ericsson has decided to include the FM Radio in the S700. As
with the K700, you can tune in to the FM radio with through portable hands free
accessories or via the loudspeaker (using the stereo hands free as external
antenna).
The S700 also supports 40 chords polyphonic, midi format and Mp3 format for
their ring tone.
Messaging
With the S700, you can read incoming SMSes without having to open the phone.
Replying, however, means that you’d have to flip the phone around and swivel
it open. A tiny annoyance, once again.
A new function is added to the My friends chat function, it is called
Wireless Village which added a new dimension to the existing chat feature
like the ability of sharing personal information about the user's status,
(e.g., on-line, off-line, busy), location (home, work), and the moods of
yourself and your friends (happy, angry).
Entertainment
This phone supports J2ME and Java technology. But even more exciting is that
the phone utilizes the popular Mascot Capsule Java 3D gaming engine, and
multiplayer games. It renders 3D objects in real-time on a display screen
and the result is more detailed games.
For applications, SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia
Integration Language), an advanced XML-based protocol, allows users to
create and transmit Microsoft PowerPoint presentations on mobile devices. By
using a media editor, users can incorporate text, audio, images, and video
clips to assemble full multimedia presentations on the display.
Connectivity & Storage
The Sony Ericsson S700 can connect to peripheral devices at a range of up to
10 meters using Bluetooth technology. The S700 identifies and maintain up to
16 devices simultaneously to make sure everything that you need is there.
The phonebook capacity can store up to 510 contacts, while a large 32 MB
internal memory is shared among multimedia and messages. The Memory Stick
Duo is Sony's proprietary portable storage media that currently has a
maximum capacity of 128 MB of memory.
Conclusion
This phone is a must to have for those who don’t like to bring out a camera,
hand phone, mp3 player and more. Short of being a smart phone, the S700
probably has everything you’d ever want in a mobile phone. I’d definitely
recommend this phone to people who want all the sophistication in their
pocket.
Good things of this phone:
1. The camera is superb where the viewfinder is big and clear
2. Expansion slot is supported
3. Similar software to the K700 so those SE users wont have difficulty
switching to this phone
4. Fantastic screen with faster response time and refresh rate.
5. Wireless Village is added to the My friends Chat function
Drawback of this phone:
1. The position of the swivel mechanism as when you open the phone, the
keypad will be upside down. Therefore, during a conversation, the volume
control keys are positioned on the opposite sides.
2. When someone sms to you and you can read on the screen. But you have to
open the swivel to reply. You may felt inconvenient at the beginning; it is
a matter of getting use to it.
3. SMS tone still can’t be customized.
More Picture of S700
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