| Review of the Sony-Ericsson z710i |
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The Sony-Ericsson z701i is a quad-band GSM clamshell phone that’s loaded
with lots of features like a good-quality 2 megapixel camera, built-in MP3
player (with external buttons), GPRS/EDGE, and as you’ll soon see,
excellent audio and RF characteristics. Last Updated: 11-Mar-2007 |
Before reading this review, please read Some
Thoughts on Phone Reviewing.
Special thanks to StudentPhones for lending the z710i for this review.
RF Performance
RF Sensitivity: I compared the z710i against the
Siemens A56, and although the A56 is a rather
old phone, it has exceptional RF performance and is thus a worthy reference. The
z710i could hold onto a signal just as well as the A56 in the infamous Hall of
Shame 2 at Square One in Mississauga. That makes the phone among the best GSM
model you can get for pulling in weak signals.
Over-the-road Performance: I had mixed feelings
about this aspect of the phone. On one hand it managed to retain crystal clear
audio over a wide range of conditions, like virtually no other phone on the
market. On the other hand, handoffs were a bit OBVIOUS (for lack of a better
word). I’ve tested other phones that did a much better of job of glossing over
handoffs and they can make them sound almost likeable. The z710i doesn’t exhibit
any messiness during the handoffs, but they are in-your-face a little too much.
However, that said, the z710i did something that no other GSM phone I've tested was able to do. It could somehow gloss over some of the rough spots on the Rogers network in such a way that it sounded like there was nothing ever wrong with it. I was simply amazed at how well the phone managed to handoff from site to site without any degradation in the audio and without any hint of co-channel interference or frame errors. If Sony-Ericsson can just cleanup the handoffs a little it would have the flat-out best over-the-road performance of any GSM phone I've thus far tested.
Overall I’d rate this aspect of the phone as very good,
mostly due to the exceptional ability to maintain clear audio under adverse
conditions.
Click on this link for a full description of
RF Performance, and how to interpret it.
Audio Performance
Tonal Balance: While the z710i lacks the truly
amazing richness of sound I found in the Motorola
PEBL I tested just recently, I simply can’t fault the way earpiece on this
thing sounds. It has such a nice balance of highs and lows that I’m forced to
reconsider my opinion that the PEBL is such a well-balanced phone after all. No
phone can make a bad source sound good, but the z710i can certain squeeze every
little bit of goodness from what you get.
Sound Reproduction: Without a doubt, excellent. All
nuances of speech were reproduced with exceptional clarity, with virtually NO
HISS whatsoever. The z710i spoils you for just about any other phone I’ve thus
far tested (with the possible exception of the PEBL).
Earpiece Volume: There is no volume-boost feature
such as you find on Nokia phones, but the earpiece volume is loud enough that it
doesn’t really need it. The phone produces equal volumes to my
Motorola i580, which is certainly a loud
phone. In virtually all circumstances you’ll end up setting the volume a notch
or two below maximum. I had no trouble finding and keeping the sweet spot on the
earpiece, which I found to be comfortable throughout prolonged usage.
Outgoing Audio: Sony-Ericsson also did a superb job
here, providing good noise cancellation and well-balanced sound. Under high
noise situations (such as at a noisy food court or on the highway with the
window cranked down) the z710i does a fairly decent job of suppressing most of
the noise without degrading the quality of your own voice. It’s a marvelous
compromise between absolute background cancellation and consistent high-quality
voice reproduction.
Speakerphone: After such a great showing on every
other aspect of the audio, it was disappointing to find that the speakerphone
was decidedly sub-standard. The little speaker can produce enough volume to
sustain a comfortable conversion in a quiet or mildly noisy room, but the sound
is tinny and shallow. This is the kind of speakerphone you’ll use when you HAVE
TO, but never just because you WANT TO. Outgoing sound on the speakerphone is
excellent however, and so your callers will at least not mind that you’re using
this mode.
Click on this link for a full description of
Audio Performance, and how to interpret it.
Support Features
Ringer Volume: I really don’t know where Sony-Ericsson’s thinking is in this
regard. They give you only one ringtone that even remotely approaches a standard
ringer. The rest are relatively faint (though nice-sounding) MIDI files. The
volume of the one ringtone that actually has a bit of volume isn’t that great,
and so you’ll probably want to load something loud yourself. Sadly, Fido’s
version of this phone disallows the use of MP3 files as ringtones. This seems to
be one area where all the Sony-Ericsson phones I’ve tested recently fall flat.
Keypad Design: This is a fairly good keyboard
design, with good tactile feel on the numeric keys, which are arranged in a
tradition square pattern. The 4-way cursor key and center button work well and I
had no difficulty using them accurately right out of the box. The two softkeys
are a little tough to find by feeling around. Overall I’d rate this keypad good
to very good, but hardly excellent.
Display: The internal display is 176 x 220 pixels
with 18-bit (262,000) color. The backlight is bright and the overall use of the
screen by the phone’s UI is generally quite handsome. The outer display is 128 x
128 pixel monochrome screen with 4-level grayscale. The outer display uses
reverse (white on dark blue) and it’s rather difficult to see in bright
sunlight. The inner display works well in bright sunlight however and the
graphics engine in the phone seems more than up to the task of providing smooth
animated effects.
Icing on the Cake
Camera: The camera is a 2-megapixel design that’s
actually quite good. JPEG compression is low enough that the resulting images
are generally free of compression remnants (approximately 300 to 400 kilobytes
per 1600 x 1200 image). The color clarity is excellent and the lens if
remarkably true. Unfortunately, like many cameras in phones, it doesn’t handle
low light very well and it produces a lot of digital noise in the darker areas.
Another issue I have with this camera is that the shutter sound lags the
actually photo-taking event, and so until you get used to that, you’re going to
take a fair number of blurry shots. I really don’t understand why manufacturers
don’t get this. The picture SHOULD be taken at the SAME TIME as the shutter
sound, otherwise the user doesn’t have a clear idea when the shot is being
exposed.
The video mode on the z710i is also quite good. While it only offers the usual
low-res 176 x 144 images, it manages to render fairly good videos at
approximately 10 to 15 frames per second and with much less compression damage
than I’ve seen in other phones. Sound on the videos is very good also.
Here are some sample photographs (in full 2-megapixel size):
Boxes on the wall at a pharmacy
Kiosk in Square One
Colorful packages at Canadian Tire
View from the mouth of the Credit River
House also featured in Nokia 6265i review
MP Player: To test the provided MP3 player I had
only the provided stereo earbuds, as the phone used a proprietary connector and
it did not come with an adapter for standard 3.5 mm headsets. The quality of
those provided stereo earbuds was sub-standard to say the least. They could
generate a fairly decent amount of bass, but their overall reproduction was
poor. I therefore couldn’t judge if the MP3 player was all that great. I
certainly wouldn’t use those earbuds for phone calls, as the overall quality was
well below that of the native earpiece.
A2DP: Even though the Fido web page doesn’t say it,
the z710i supports the high-quality stereo sound over Bluetooth, which is
otherwise known as A2DP. That’s just a cute way of saying AADP, which stands for
Advanced Audio Distribution Profile. I tried it on the Nokia A2DP headset
owned by Howard Chu. While the quality of the MP3s was terrific, I wasn’t quite
so happy with the sound of phone calls. They still sound markedly better over
the internal earpiece.
Conclusions
I really like this phone. Not only does it have exceptional RF and audio
capabilities, it also provides a lot of great features, a half-decent phonebook,
a good camera, and nice ergonomics. It now stands as my choice as the phone I
WOULD USE if I had to abandon Telus Mike and switch to Rogers/Fido. Yes, the
phone is locked to Fido, but I’m sure it can easily be unlocked to work on
Rogers or 7-11 (same network, different price plans).
The price is a bit steep for pre-paid and month-to-month users (at $325), but if
you don’t mind signing up for a 3-year contract with Fido the price falls to a
very reasonable $75.
