Sony Ericsson Vivaz

Sony Ericsson Vivaz is an elegant cell phone featuring an 8 megapixel camera and the option to record 720p videos. The phone has a large touchscreen, excellent connectivity and a fast processor. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? If you want to find out more, read on!

Sony Ericsson Vivaz pros:

+ 3.2″ 16M-color resistive touchscreen of 640 x 360 pixel resolution
+ 8 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash,
+ HD 720p video recording @ 24fps with continuous auto focus
+ 720 MHz CPU, dedicated graphics accelerator
+ Quad-band GSM support
+ 8 GB microSD memory card in the package
+ 3G with HSDPA 10.2Mbps and HSUPA 2Mbps support
+ Wi-Fi and GPS with A-GPS
+ microSD card slot (up to 16GB, 8GB card in the box)
+ TV out

Sony Ericsson Vivaz cons:

- No camera lens protection
- No auto mode for the flash/video light
- The S60 5th edition UI isn’t to the best in class standards
- No DivX or XviD support out-of-the-box
- No smart or voice dialing

The design:
Sony Ericsson Vivaz measures 107 x 51.7x 12.5 mm and weighs only 97 grams. The phone comes in four different colors so you can get a serious silver, or easy-going red. The front of the mobile phone features the 3.2-inch touchscreen showing 16M colors in 360 x 640 resolution. Below the screen are three buttons: menu, call and end call. Above the screen is the earpiece and the ambient light sensor. The phone is made mainly of plastic, but since it is of very high quality it feels right. On the left side of the phone there is the 3.5mm audio jack, the loudspeaker and the microUSB port. The right side houses the volume rocker, two shutter keys – one for the camera and the second one for the camcorder. The back of the cell phone houses the 8 megapixel unprotected camera lens and the LED flash.

Performance:
The screen in the Sony Ericsson Vivaz has vivid colors and it is really responsive, yet it has somewhat poor direct sunlight legibility. The mobile phone runs on the 5th edition of Symbian, but a slightly tweaked (improved) version of the OS. The entire OS is very user friendly with its animations, shortcuts and customizability. It does not lag and the built-in accelerometer takes care of rotating the view. The menu structure is quite predictable and thus easy to use. The biggest disadvantage of this Sony Ericsson phone seems lack of smart dialing, but hopefully it will be fixed in a software update.
The phonebook in the Sony Ericsson Vivaz looks as usual in a Symbian phone so there is plenty of space for your contacts. Of course you can add some additional information to each contact, add a photo and a custom ringtone and so on.
Messaging with this phone is a real pleasure. SMS and MMS messages share an editor which shows you in how many parts your message will be sent if you exceed the limit of 160 characters. The email client can download headers, or entire messages and it is super-easy to set up so it will take just a few seconds. Of course you are free to set up multiple email accounts. To input the text you can make use of the virtual alphanumeric keyboard, or the full QWERTY (virtual) keyboard.

Multimedia:
The media center in the Sony Ericsson Vivaz looks much like in the Sony Ericsson Yari, or the Sony Ericsson Aino. The accelerometer works all the time so you can hold the phone as you wish and you’ll be able to see what you want. The music player shows album artwork, has a few equalizer presets and allows track filtering.
The video player works in portrait and landscape modes and plays HD movies, yet it has no DivX/XviD support out of the box.
The FM radio can remember up to 20 stations, but it does not support RDS. Just like the music player, the radio can also be minimized to play in the background.
Although the phone is not among the loudest ones, it surely has a high audio quality.
The 8 megapixel camera in the Sony Ericsson Vivaz can shoot up to 3264 x 2448 photos. The camera interface is comfortable and straightforward. The cell phone produces images with accurate colors, sharp edges and with little noise. Also the contrast and the amount of detail in the photos are ok so you can say that the overall image quality is really superb.
The Sony Ericsson Vivaz can also record 720p videos at 24 fps with autofocus. The videos look surprisingly good. They are smooth and sharp. The autofocus works quite well although it might have some problems with macros.

Selected Sony Ericsson Vivaz features and specifications:
Network

Phone Network
EDGE, GPRS, GSM, HSDPA (3G), HSUPA
Service
850, 900, 1800, 1900, 2100
Connectivity

Bluetooth
v2.1 with A2DP
Infrared
No
Wi-Fi (WLAN)
Yes
USB
YesMicroUSB v2.0
Fax / Data
Yes
Display

Main display
Color TFT touchscreen
Color display
16.000.000 colors
Dimensions
3.2 in.
Resolution
360 x 640 pixels
External display
No
Memory

Internal memory
75MB
External memory
16GB
Memory slots
Yes
Storage types
MicroSD, MicroSDHC
Basic

Battery
Standard battery, Li-Po 1200 mAh
Standby time
430 hours
Talk time
13 hours
Calling

Vibrate alert
Yes
Photo ID
Yes
Ringtones
MP3
Camera

Camera
Yes
Megapixels
8.0 megapixels
Maximum photo resolution
3264×2448 pixels
Digital zoom
Yesx
Optical zoom
No
Auto focus
Yes
Flash
Yes
Recording video
Yes
Second (front) camera
No
Messaging

SMS
Yes
MMS
Yes
T9 text function
Yes
E-mail
Yes
Internet browsing
Yes
Entertainment

FM radio
Yes
Java
Yes
Audio player
AAC, M4A, MP3, RA6, WAV, WMA
Video player
3GP, MP4, RV, WMV
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