Sony
Ericsson Vivaz Review

Phone rating:

In a nutshell: The Vivaz is a superb mid-priced Symbian
smartphone with a touchscreen user interface and incredible high
definition video capabilities. It also comes with an 8.1 megapixel
still camera, a fabulous music player, FM radio, assisted GPS with
Google Maps, a 3.5mm headphone socket, WiFi and a Facebook app.
An excellent all-round stylish phone. Available in Black, Silver,
Blue and Ruby Red.
Best Buy: Free with half-price line rental from Mobiles.co.uk
(Black) or Mobiles.co.uk
(Silver).

Review:
March 2010.

It’s hard not to be impressed by the Vivaz. It’s
very much like the Sony Ericsson
Satio, but cheaper and more compact. Available free on mid-priced
contracts (£25 per month) with a choice of free gifts thrown
in, it’s exceptionally good value when you consider that it blows
many similarly priced phones out of the water.

The Vivaz is a touchscreen smartphone running the
Symbian operating system. Symbian isn’t our first choice when it
comes to smartphones, and the first batch of Satios had so many
software problems Sony Ericsson had to recall them. However, we
hope they’ve learned from that mistake and the Vivaz will prove
to be a more reliable phone.

The headline feature of the Vivaz is its HD video
recording. It’s capable of recording super-sharp videos at 720p
resolution, with continuous autofocus, a video light and an image
stabiliser. Its a pretty impressive capability for a mobile phone,
and you can easily upload your videos to YouTube to show the world.
You can also make video calls. The still camera is pretty amazing
as well, having an 8.1 megapixel resolution, face detection autofocus,
an LED flash and geo-tagging. For the price band, this has got to
be one of the best cameras available. It can’t beat the 12 megapixel
monster camera of the Satio, but it comes pretty close. So we’d
say that the photographic performance of the Vivaz is among the
very best currently available.

You can view images on the Vivaz’s impressive display.
With a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels, it’s not quite large enough
to display your videos at full HD resolution, but it’s still a very
finely detailed display. The phone is fully touchscreen operated,
with handwriting recognition thrown in as a bonus. It’s a surprisingly
compact and lightweight handset too, so it’s easy to hold in the
hand. We found the menus pretty responsive most of the time.

The Vivaz also comes with a great media player,
and we’re delighted to see that Sony Ericsson have included a 3.5mm
audio jack, so you can plug in any standard-fit headphones for high
quality audio. With microSD memory cars of up to 16GB supported,
there’s plenty of room to store your music collection, and there’s
an FM radio included too.

The Vivaz has aGPS with Google Maps, and a demonstration
licence of the Wisepilot turn-by-turn navigation software.

HSPA provides fast internet access, and you can
also use WiFi if you’re in a WiFi hotspot for extra download speed.
Other connectivity options include Bluetooth, USB and a TV-Out connection
so that you can view your photos and videos directly on a big screen.
There are dedicated apps for Facebook and YouTube too.

Battery life seems to be good, although it will
be even better if you remember to close unwanted apps and turn off
Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS when not in use.

First impressions of the Vivaz are very good indeed.
Sony Ericsson have placed it firmly in the media-focussed camp with
its amazing HD video recording and all-round imaging and music capabilities.
It comes with a good range of apps, and the use of Symbian as the
base operating system means that plenty more will be available for
download. We’re just hoping that it’s been properly tested and there
are no Satio-like bugs to spilt the party.

Features of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz include:

• 8.1 megapixel camera with LED flash, face detection
  autofocus, smile detection, geo-tagging and 4x digital zoom
• Video camera with 720p HD video recording, continuous
  autofocus, video light and video stabiliser
• Video calling
• Display: TFT touchscreen, 16 million colours,
  360 x 640 pixels (3.2″) with auto rotation
• Media player, FM radio
• MP3/AAC ringtones
• Speakerphone
• Voice recorder
• aGPS with Wisepilot navigation and Google Maps
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, Instant Messaging, Email
  with Exchange ActiveSync
• 3D Java games
• Document readers
• Animated wallpaper
• Personal organiser functions
• Flight mode
• Vibration alert
• Memory: 75 MB plus support for microSD memory
  cards (up to 16 GB)
• Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB mass storage, WiFi,
  TV-Out, 3.5mm audio jack
• Internet: Web browser, web feeds, Google search,
  Facebook, YouTube, HSPA
• Quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900) plus 3G (900/2100
  )
• Size: 107 x 52 x 12.5 mm
• Weight: 97g
• Talktime: 5 hours (3G) – 13 hours (2G)
• Battery standby: 440 hours

Sony Ericsson
Vivaz Consumer Reviews

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