When Sony Ericsson first introduced their W-branded Walkman MP3 mobile phones, they introduced a whole new sound quality to the market. With the mobile phone manufacturer’s ability to tap into Sony’s audio expertise, music played on the handsets via the headphones was comparable to proper MP3 players, due to the Mega Bass feature. With their new Z710i handset, some of these features are now lost, but it’s still an impressive music player/mobile phone, and now even easier to use.
The first thing that stands out about this phone is the design. Almost sporty in its look, this little flip phone wouldn’t look out of place hanging from your hip down the beach, especially if you go for the metallic sand colour scheme, as opposed to the traditional twilight black, although this is a particularly attractive black, as that colour goes! Although it’s not the smallest of flip phones at just under two inches deep, the features on the Z710i make that understandable.
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And what features they are. Coming with the now standard camera / video camera (albeit one without a flash), which offers a resolution of 2.0 mega pixel for incredibly clear and sharp pictures, the Sony Ericsson Z710i also has an FM radio combined with an MP3 player that supports the other normal suspects such as AAC music files. This allows you to completely personalise your ring tones and message alerts. Like other phones from Sony Ericsson, the Z710i lets you manage your music into easily accessible folders.
The only drawback to the music player is that unlike other phones in the Sony Ericsson range, it doesn’t feature the Mega Bass option, so the results can be a little less impressive. Strangely enough, there’s only one speaker on the phone as well, located at the back of the handset, so there’s no true stereo without headphones, although the phone does offer Enhanced Wide Stereo from the one speaker. Throw in the ability to turn your phone off and still listen to music while on an airplane, though, and it’s a pretty impressive MP3 player.
As well as the normal Bluetooth support, it also comes with infrared, so if you want to transfer files to a laptop or similar without Bluetooth, this feature will allow you to do just that. Although the screen on the handset is a good size at 1.5 inches, unfortunately it doesn’t support Caller ID, due to the lesser resolution of monochrome.
The phone’s memory is also a plus point. With the phone’s internal memory able to hold up to a thousand contacts, you won’t run out of space anytime soon (well, unless you actually have over a thousand friends that is!). Although the internal memory is only 18MB, this is more than complemented by the supplied 64MB SD card, and even larger ones can be purchased if you need them.
With these features, as well as quad band support so you can use it pretty much anywhere, up to ten hours talk time and almost two weeks in standby mode, the Sony Ericsson Z710i is not only a fun and feature-packed little handset, but one of the best music players on the market – dedicated MP3 player manufacturers may need to start looking over their shoulders soon.
