Sony Ericsson T715

Style & Handling Summary for Sony Ericsson T715
The sliding design used so successfully in the Walkman range works just as well on the Sony Ericsson T715, although the 2.2-inch screen is really small.

User Friendliness Summary for Sony Ericsson T715
It’s easy to get to grips with and very user friendly, and the social networking functions are excellent.

Feature Set Summary for Sony Ericsson T715
Keep in mind that the Sony Ericsson T715 is a budget phone, so not packed with the features of higher-end models, but you can run Twitter and Facebook simultaneously and Instant Messenger and Skype give you extra ways to keep in touch.

Performance Summary for Sony Ericsson T715
The Sony Ericsson T715 performs very well for a phone of its price, especially when it comes to social networking.

Battery Power Summary for Sony Ericsson T715
The battery life is better than average, with up to 240 minutes on 3G

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson T715

Sony Ericsson is going through a bit of a transition at the moment, as it shelves its popular Cyber-shot and Walkman ranges in favour of the new Entertainment Unlimited range of handsets, including the Aino and the Satio. As a result, the T-series is somewhat overshadowed, which is a shame because the lower-end range is a nice addition to the Sony Ericsson stable. Buy the latest T-series handset, the Sony Ericsson T715, with 3 and you will also get live Twitter feeds direct to your phone.

Style and handling for the Sony Ericsson T715

The Sony Ericsson T715 is a compact slider, similar to the Walkman range of phones. Despite being pleasingly light, the T715’s sliding keyboard is spacious with raised buttons. The display is pretty small, at just 2.2 inches, which makes viewing content difficult. But it’s not a touch-screen so won’t be needing to navigate menus or trying to negotiate an on-screen QWERTY keyboard.

Under the screen sit two hard keys, a D-Pad, a running apps button and a cancel key. But to confuse matters, the right-hand hard key seems to alternate between being a back key and a cancel key, with no apparent pattern. This meant that trying to delete a letter in text sometimes led to closing down the application completely. We suggest using the dedicated cancel key for deleting text just to be safe. The running applications tab is a useful tool; there are plenty of apps in this little handset, some of which can be run simultaneously.

Social networking on the Sony Ericsson T715

Social networking is the Sony Ericsson T715’s forte, with Twitter firmly at the front. Buy the phone through 3 and you get the full-on experience. There are a variety of ways to access Twitter on your phone including setting it as a favourite. To get the most from it, register using the applications menu and you will be able to get live alerts from your friends, dipaly your location and find other Tweeters near you. There’s no GPS connection on the T715, though, so this is done by estimating where you are using triangulation – the same is true for finding your location on Google Maps, which is built in here.

You also get live feeds for Facebook. The platform is nicely split into categories like wall, inbox and friends list, similar to the PC view. You can run Facebook and Twitter at the same time, but because of the small display on the T715, you will only get live feeds from the app you used last.

A nice touch is the ability to send photos taken on the phone’s 3.2-megapixel camera directly to either Twitter or Facebook. The quality of the pictures isn’t good for printing, but is entirely adequate for keeping your online friends up to date with your life.

The verdict on the Sony Ericsson T715

The Sony Ericsson T715 is a good-value social networking phone that it sure to be a hit with younger users. Added to the good social networking functions are Windows Live Messenger and Skype, and despite the small screen size, the handset is a nice, basic model that should keep social networkers happy.

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Sony Ericsson Naite

Style & Handling Summary for Sony Ericsson Naite
It’s made entirely of recyclable and recycled materials, but the Naite has an old-school charm and an almost too lightweight feel.

User Friendliness Summary for Sony Ericsson Naite
The familiar user interface and bright grid-system menu makes the Sony Ericsson Naite a breeze to use.

Feature Set Summary for Sony Ericsson Naite
While the Sony Ericsson Naite features HSDPA internet speeds, the lack of high-end features keeps it firmly in the middle tier.

Performance Summary for Sony Ericsson Naite
The internet is good and quick, but the camera is not up to scratch.

Battery Power Summary for Sony Ericsson Naite
The battery power on the Naite is astounding – it lasts over 2,000 minutes with using the internet.

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson Naite

Let’s face it, however good the intentions, mobile phones are not environmentally sound. The parts, the recharging, the shipping all add up to quite a carbon footprint. But mobile phones are here to stay, and the environmentally aware will be pleased to hear that the manufacturers are doing their bit to help.

Sony Ericsson is so dedicated to the cause that it has produced a whole range of eco-friendly phones, called Greenheart. The flagship handset in the range is the Sony Ericsson Naite. The packaging itself is green, with a compact box, an e-manual (no paper, see?) and a carrier case made from environmentally friendly materials. You also get a charger and handsfree kit.

Style and handling for the Sony Ericsson Naite

We knew in advance that the Naite was made of recycled and recyclable materials, so didn’t expect much in terms of looks. We’re happy to admit we were wrong. It has nice, clean retro styling that puts us in mind of the Nokia 6700 Classic. The correlated plastic covering on the back isn’t quite our cup of tea, but it still looks good.

At a featherweight 84g, the Naite is almost too light – it feels insubstantial in the hand and we’re not confident it would survive a fall onto the pavement. The keyboard has been deigned to look metallic, but is feels very plastic under the fingers, and rather flimsy too. But this phone is all about the green credentials, not the design, so criticising the build seems a bit unfair somehow.

The keypad will be familiar to anyone who had a Sony Ericsson phone around 18 months ago. A standard 3x4 keypad sits underneath a shortcut key (from which you can access your favourite apps and any running in the background), call and call end keys, and the cancel key. Above these are two hard keys that work alongside the menu options on the corners of the screen. And in the middle of them all is the D-pad, which is simple and easy to use, and will have even the most inexperienced user whizzing around the menu system in no time.

The 2.2-inch display may be on the small side but boast 16 million colours and is vibrant and bright. It’s particularly vivid on the menu screen, with glowing icons which you can choose to view in a traditional grid format or as a rotating single-icon view. Unfortunately, when it comes to browsing the web, all that vibrancy disappears. Pictures lack brightness and text is thin and insubstantial.

Internet on the Sony Ericsson Naite

However, looks aside, the internet on the Sony Ericsson Naite is a fast experience thanks to the near-broadband HSDPA speeds of up to 3.6Mbps, depending on your network. YouTube was particularly impressive – despite the screen – with videos taking only a few seconds to buffer before playing smoothly.

When you want to view another page, simply start typing on the keypad and your text will automatically be entered into the Google search bar. Zooming isn’t so easy though, and to view the screen in landscape rather than portrait you need to go into the menu and manually select the option, or use the volume keys. It makes us appreciate the accelerometers found on other phones all the more.

There is a Facebook app built in so you can check out status and invite notifications on your home screen, view your friends and update your status. Unfortunately, notifications aren’t pushed to your home screen; instead you have to manually refresh the page.

Eco friendliness on the Sony Ericsson Naite

So, on to the most important facet of the Naite: its environmental credentials. We’ve already mentioned the reduced packaging and recyclable materials used in the hardware, but there are also a couple of applications to help you on your way to a greener lifestyle. A Green Calculator helps you work out your daily CO2 emissions and gives you tips on how to reduce them, while Ecomate is a daily quiz designed to determine how much you know about the environment. A sample question: If five families turned off the tap while washing dishes for a period of 20 years, how many people’s daily water supply would be saved? (the answer is nine million people, by the way).

Camera and music on the Sony Ericsson Naite

The camera on the Sony Ericsson Naite is nothing to shout about. It’s got a two-megapixel lens with no zoom above VGA quality and no flash, and the viewfinder only takes up about two-thirds of the already small screen.

The music player is better, and includes Sony Ericsson’s successful TrackID, which lets you identify tunes and purchase them if you wish from the improved PlayNow service. And while the headset deserves plaudits for being entirely made of recycled materials, a 3.5mm headset port would have been welcome.

The verdict on the Sony Ericsson Naite

It’s good to see a mobile manufacturer attempting to be more eco-friendly, and hope that other mobile phone producers take note and join the party. Granted, it will probably have limited appeal, being short on features, but it’s a good start that hopefully heralds the start of a green mobile revolution.

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Sony Ericsson Vivaz

Style & Handling Summary for Sony Ericsson Vivaz
The curvy and slender Sony Ericsson Vivaz is available in four colours and has a 3.2-inch touch-screen, making it a very stylish affair. You can check out the Sony Ericsson Vivaz deals here.

User Friendliness Summary
The resistive touch-screen is pretty good, but the on-screen keyboard is slow and the user interface frustrating once you get past the top-level icons.

Feature Set Summary
The HD video is the Sony Ericsson Vivaz’s killer application, and the camera also packs a punch. The rest, though, is a disappointment.

Performance Summary
The accelerometer does its own thing regardless of what you want it to do, and the keyboard is slow and none too accurate. But the camera and video work fantastically.

Battery Power Summary
320 minutes’ talktime makes for an average battery life.

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson Vivaz

We’re all used to impressive camera phones, with snappers beefier than our standalone digital cameras. Now it seems that high-definition video cameras are about to take centre stage. The Vivaz can record 720p video, which is an incredible achievement, but, like the rest of Sony Ericsson’s multimedia range of phones, it doesn’t excel at much else. You can check out the Sony Ericsson Vivaz deals here.

Style and handling on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz
The Sony Ericsson Vivaz is a striking-looking phone, slim and curvy with a metallic sheen that enhances its slender shape. It’s available in black, silver, blue or red and it feels comfortable in the hand. A wide-screen, 3.2-inch, WGVA touch-screen dominates the front fascia.

On the top left-hand corner is a cunningly positioned 3.5mm audio port and on the right-hand side sit dedicated buttons for both camera and video camera. What looks like a giant professional zoom lens on the back of the phone turns out just to be decorative, which is a cheeky move on Sony Ericsson’s part. It’s also unnecessary, as this is one of the most advanced cameras you will find on a phone, and the lens does physically move inside the casing.

User interface on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz
The Sony Ericsson Vivaz is powered by Symbian S60 5th edition, which is already dated, no fun to use and has no central apps store. This is overlaid by the Sony Ericsson interface that we saw on the Aino and Satio, which is far more stylish but just as limited.

The default theme is five screens that you navigated using a toolbar at the top. Four of these are basically large widgets which you can customise for Twitter, favourite contacts and gallery, for example. The last is a list of eight shortcuts. If you’re used to an Android phone, or even a Samsung TouchWiz handset, the customisation options here will seem pretty limited, but you still get more choice than you would on a BlackBerry, for example.

To find the rest of the programs, simply press the central all-programs keys; for apps, you need to go to another folder further in.

Touch-screen on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz
We’ve banged on in the past about the superiority of capacitive touch-screens over resistive, but Sony Ericsson has ignored us, and carries on pushing the latter. However, as resistive touch-screens go, this one is pretty responsive. You need to press harder but the top-level icons are finger friendly and vivid. One level in, though, and it’s all white-on-black text menus.

Annoyingly you need to tap once to select icons and twice for menu selections, which can get confusing. The scrolling method used is also odd: instead of simply dragging your finger over a list to scroll, you have to press and drag on a scrollbar at the side.

There are also flaws with the accelerometer, which sometimes switches formats for no apparent reason and at other times takes forever to change at all. More frustratingly, it is inactive in many functions so when typing in the browser we had no choice but to do it in landscape.

Video and camera on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz
The camera functionality on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz is excellent for shooting both still and video footage. The eight-megapixel camera has an LED flash and auto-focus, and gives you clear, well-coloured results even in low light conditions. Instant shutter release means you can capture action with little to no blur, and even in darker conditions without a flash, night mode produced pictures with true colours, albeit a bit soft around the edges. You get a choice of adjustment settings including white balance, exposure, twilight, portrait and sport.

But it’s the video camera that gives the Vivaz its USP, and this is a good one, with an HD lens, a microphone and video light. Shooting in daylight produces crisp video with bright colours, and picks up both background and foreground light pretty well.

We shot a test video at night in a high street with lit windows, and while there were some light trails when we panned the camera across, it only took a couple of seconds to the light balance to adjust, and it produced a pretty clear picture. Our final test was in a dark room using the video light, and this was the only place we got a dodgy result, with soft, noisy results.

The real highlight of the video camera on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz is the continuous focus feature, which automatically focuses the camera on the central object and refocuses rapidly. When we tested it on a landscape shot with a text-covered box at the front, we had a clear shot in less than a second.

The display doesn’t show up the HD videos to the best of their capability, but it does show web videos nicely. YouTube is well integrated, and you can share videos directly to your account when you are in a Wi-Fi area.

Email and internet on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz
Email on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz is fairly basic, with an unresponsive touch-screen keyboard, a text-only interface and push support for Microsoft Exchange accounts only.

We added our Gmail account and found that we had to send and receive manually to get new mails. And because the client can’t read HTML, and graphics within out emails ended up as a group of symbols.

The keyboard makes typing laborious as you have to press quite hard, and accuracy isn’t great either. On top of that, there’s no auto-suggest, although there is predictive text, which is a little odd for a touch-screen keyboard.

The lack of full HTML is a disappointment, but pages are quite quick to load. You automatically get mobile-optimised sites but if you want to view a full website, it won’t resize automatically so you have to swipe around to see all the content, often hitting links accidently along the way. Pictures render a bit blurry and text is ragged, but if you click through to a photo you will see it clearer and sharper.

The verdict on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz
In terms of media functionality, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz is superb. But there are too many flaws to make it a serious contender: the unintuitive user interface, unresponsive keyboard, non-HTML web browser and mediocre email all count against it. You can check out the Sony Ericsson Vivaz deals here.

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Sony Ericsson Elm

Style & Handling Summary for Sony Ericsson Elm
The Sony Ericsson Elm looks very basic and slightly cheap, and has a strange arched back. But it’s slim, light and deceptively fully featured.

User Friendliness Summary
You will have no problem finding all those features, with a variety of ways to find and launch them.

Feature Set Summary
The Sony Ericsson Elm pretty much ticks all the features boxes, despite its outwardly tame appearance.

Performance Summary
There are delays when loading heavier applications but the Elm is generally proficient and smooth.

Battery Power Summary
The Sony Ericsson Elm has a pretty good battery life, but drains quickly when you use GPS. You’ll probably need to recharge every day.

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson Elm

The Sony Ericsson Elm has the outward appearance of a simple candybar handset but is actually so much more. For a start, it has 3G, plus HSDPA at 7.2Mbps, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and a five-megapixel camera with LED flash. You can even expand the memory up to 8GB – a pretty impressive feature list for this deceptively simple phone. In fact, the only thing that seems to be missing is a 3.5mm audio jack – you instead need to rely on the supplied headphones.

Green credentials for the Sony Ericsson Elm

The Elm is one of Sony Ericsson’s eco-friendly Greenheart range of phones, which make use of recycled materials and have an electronic manual instead of a paper-wasting book. The latter would be a great idea if you don’t need to find out how to insert your battery and switch the phone on – as you can only find out how to do so by inserting the battery and switching the phone on!

The packaging is also environmentally kind, a minimal as possible and made with materials that don’t contain hazardous chemicals.

Style and handling on the Sony Ericsson Elm

We like the Activity Menu key, which includes a shortcut to the web, other shortcuts and running applications.

There are all sorts of ways to find programs. Pushing up on the dependable D-pad reveals five ‘ghost’ widgets. Choose any one and they’ll form a permanent screen backdrop. The widgets are for calendar, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and something called Walk Mate Eco, a pedometer that shows how many steps you have taken and how much CO2 you’ve saved. We can’t vouch for the accuracy – after all, how can anyone prove that a certain number of steps equal a certain amount of CO2? But we do like the little shadow figure that walks when you do and stops, with a hand on its hip, when you stop.

The 2.2-inch screen isn’t the biggest or brightest. Don’t get us wrong: it’s perfectly usable, but in a world of OLED and high-resolution screens, this one is somewhat underwhelming.

Feature set on the Sony Ericsson Elm

The screen is one of the lighter features that makes the Elm so reasonably priced, as is the processor, which is pretty slow. You really notice this when you’re trying to launch the Navigation program, for example. It takes a long time to load and while we’re used to waiting for complicated applications to load, this one is surprising because of the Elm’s outward resemblance to a GPRS candybar handset.

There is a range of navigation options including Sony Ericsson’s self-explanatory NearMe, Google Maps and WisePilot. It can take some time to get a location fix, but it remains consistent once it’s found you.

Sony Ericsson prowess with music and photography is on display in the Elm. The five-megapixel camera has a powerful LED flash, the usual SE image-fixing technology, and you can geo-tag your pics thanks to GPS. There is shutter lag in low light situations, though.

As for music, it’s a shame about the lack of a 3.5mm port for your own headphones, but you do get SensMe, which chooses tracks according to mood, and TrackID, which identifies tunes you don’t know from a clip.

The verdict on the Sony Ericsson Elm

The Sony Ericsson Elm is a deceptive creature, looking like a basic candybar and acting like a smartphone, with lots of good features and connectivity options.

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Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Style & Handling Summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 looks like a high-end device, but the plastic body makes it feel less expensive than it is.

User Friendliness Summary
The Xperia X10 is a complicated device but easy to use thanks to simple menus and a home screen key to take you back to the beginning at any point.

Feature Set Summary
Wi-Fi, HSDPA internet speeds, A-GPS, an eight-megapixel camera and access to the Google Android Market for downloads make this a smart phone indeed. Timescape and Mediascape make everything easier too.

Performance Summary
That four-inch screen makes viewing video and the internet a joy, and the camera is the best yet on an Android phone. But it is slow at times.

Battery Power Summary
The Xperia X10 boasts a great battery life of 480 minutes’ talktime and 425 hours’ standby.

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Android phones are really making their mark on the mobile market – may are proving to be worthy contenders to Apple’s iPhone – and Google’s operating system has been adopted by HTC, Samsung, LG and Motorola. Now Sony Ericsson has jumped on board with the Sony EricssonXperia X10.

Style and handling on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

The Xperia X10 is long and lean, despite its four-inch screen. It’s slighty bigger than the iPhone 3GS but weighs the same, 135g. This light weight is partly down to the fact that it’s mainly plastic. It looks good, with a glossy front and matte back, but the plastic does become apparent when you hold the phone: it feels pretty flimsy and we wouldn’t want to drop it on to a hard surface. It’s also gets quite grubby quite quickly.

It’s minimalist in design, with just three keys on the front, below the screen: Menu, which you can press from whatever mode you’re in for a list of possible action; Home, which will take you back to your home screen from anywhere; and Back.

The volume/zoom keys sit on the right-hand side of the phone, as well as the dedicated camera key. On top are the power button, a microUSB port and a 3.5mm audio jack – always a bonus for us, especially when positioned at the top of the phone for easy headset connection.

The capacitive touch-screen works well, although we sometimes found it getting away from us – but better to be over-sensitive than not sensitive enough, and like all touch-screens, you will get to know the quirks of yours soon enough.

Android on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Google Android is very present on the Xperia, despite Sony Ericsson’s own interface. The familiar notifications bar at the top of the screen will keep you posted on messages, emails and updates; and the pull-up menu at the foot is also an Android staple.

There are three customisable home screens, and the main home screen has shortcuts to Timescape and Mediascape, which we will talk about in a minute, messaging and calls. If you scroll to the left you see thumbnails of recent and most visited internet sites. The last home screen has a toolbar for data connections such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Timescape lists all your recent messages, Facebook and Twitter feeds in either a single list you can skim through or for a specific feed for just emails, for example. You can also choose one contact using the infinite key to view every conversation you have had with them over Twitter, email or text.

Mediascape provides access to your music, video and photos in one application. As well as this, pressing the infinite button will show you relevant videos on YouTube, further information on the artist or band you are listening via Google, and the opportunity to buy recommended music from Sony Ericsson’s PlayNow. Selecting a person’s name on a photo will bring up all the tagged photos of that person.

There’s no dedicated search key here like you will find on other Android phones. But there is a Google search bar at the top of the third home screen, and the little microphone icon next to it allows you to speak your search words into the phone. In a quiet place and if you speak clearly, it works really well, and is the sort of little extra that always goes down well with us.

Touch-screen on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

The virtual keyboard on the Xperia X10 is one of the best we’ve seen on a Sony Ericsson. Typing in portrait mode requires care because the space bar is so small, but in landscape mode the keys are larger and easier to type on. A neat little touch is that the phone automatically adds word you have typed to its dictionary.

The screen takes a while to auto-rotate which is both frustrating and unexpected, as the X10 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processor which should speed things up considerably but fails to help here. This may be because the X10 runs Android 1.6 while other smartphones are already on version 2.1, so it misses out on features like multi-touch. Sony Ericsson says there will be an update available later this year.

The TFT screen looks lovely when viewing web pages or video (although we should point out that the X10 doesn’t support DivX files). The four-inch screen is the largest yet on any Android handset. You can view web pages in full, and while we didn’t have time to test the theory, we’re sure that watching entire movies would be comfortable too.

Email on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Email also works superbly on the Xperia X10. You can receive push alerts for most webmail accounts with a simple two-step set-up, and Moxia Client allows you to sync your emails, contacts, calendar and tasks with Microsoft Exchange. This is a feature found on Android 2.0 devices, so hats off to Sony Ericsson for including it on the Xperia X10.

Camera on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Cameras have not been a strong point of Android phones up until now, but Sony Ericsson is very good at camera phones, and this is certainly the best we’ve seen yet on an Android device. The eight-megapixel snapper has all manner of settings to achieve the best result and pictures are clean and vivid.

There is also Sony Ericsson’s face recognition technology, which will recognise tagged people in future photos and tag them automatically. It does work, but only if the subject is looking at the camera straight on – and it failed to recognise our subject when she took her glasses off.

The camera took a while to launch, and the touch-screen’s usual responsiveness dropped right off in camera mode. It would also have been nice to see a Xenon flash like other Sony Ericsson camera phones, but this would have made the device much larger, so we can forgive that.

A-GPS on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

The size of the screen on the X10 means it could be a viable alternative to a standalone sat nav unit. Google Maps is still an impressive application, with traffic info, points of interest and all sorts of map views. We got an almost instant fix on our position, and it held that fix well.

As for software, you get a trial version of Wisepilot, but there are plenty more available at the Android Market.

Verdict on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Sony Ericsson’s first Android phone can be counted as a success. The size may put people off – there’s a mini version on the way – but the four-inch screen is lovely and makes internet and video content a joy to watch.

Timescape and Mediascape work well for integrating your social networks and media respectively, and the camera is impressive compared to other Android cameras. But there’s not quite enough to put it on a level with the HTC Legend or Desire.

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Sony Ericsson W205

Style & Handling Summary for Sony Ericsson W205
The small screen and plastic finish make for a lightweight handset, but for £25 you can’t expect much more.

User Friendliness Summary
The keypad is tactile and comfortable, and the familiar user interface is intuitive.

Feature Set Summary
Pretty basic, as you would expect. No bundled USB and a very low memory mean you have to pay out for both file transfer and storage space if you want to use it as a music player. There’s a 1.3-megapixel camera for quick daylight snaps, and a couple of Java games.

Performance Summary
The internet is too slow to use, and the camera takes blurry, pixelated shots. Sound is shallow, with low bass.

Battery Power Summary
Thanks to the lack of 3G and power-hungry features, you get up to a massive 540 minutes of talktime.

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson W205

The Sony Ericsson W205’s main selling point is the fact that you can get it for £25 on prepay. The W in the name makes it nominally a Walkman phone, but really it’s just a basic, cheap, easy-to-use handset.

Style and handling on the Sony Ericsson W205

The matte plastic finish gives the phone a lightweight feel – rather too much actually, as it feels insubstantial in the hand. It does have a smooth slider mechanism, though. The screen is just 1.8 inches with a wide black border, which could have been used for extra screen space. Below the screen are the media control keys – play/pause, back/forward and a shortcut to the music player. The right key takes you to your contacts and the left to the 1.3-megapixel camera.

The silver keypad has slightly curved keys which are pretty comfortable to type on, albeit a little heavy. Texting is a quick enough process, althoughT9 predictive text is a little random. It won’t correct contractions like “how’s”, for example, but will contract “it’s”. This means you will have to type them manually with the punctuation the first time you use them.

The contacts book has space for a thousand contacts, and you can also keep up to four private phonebook for easy categorisation of different sets of friends, family or business contacts, for example. Call quality is very good at both ends.

Music on the Sony Ericsson W205

Well this is a Walkman phone but don’t go expecting a fully-featured music experience. The first stumbling block is the internal memory: just 5MB. This is barely enough to hold contacts and messages, let alone any tunes. There is a slot for an M2 MemoryStick (Sony Ericsson’s proprietary memory card), but you can only get up to 2GB on one card – approximately 500 songs. It’s not a huge problem, as music lovers will have higher spec players anyway; this is a budget handset for people who like to carry a few tunes with them.

A bigger issue is that there is no USB cable bundled in. Although you can transfer files via USB, using Sony’s usual chunky E-port, you will have to buy your own cable. The other option is to transfer files by connecting the handset to your PC via Bluetooth. It takes a while.

Playing music is more straightforward. You get direct access to the music player by pressing up on the D-pad, and tracks are displayed by artist, track and album as well as time elapsed. You get the usual settings of shuffle, repeat mode, playlists and you can filter your songs by track name, artist and album.

There’s no 3.5mm audio jack so you’re stuck with the bundled headphones, which are very basic. Bass is low and there’s a lack of fullness.

You do get TrackID, but only for use on the handset’s radio, and we like that you can use your own MP3s as ringtones.

Camera, web and games on the Sony Ericsson W205

As you would expect from a 1.3-megapixel camera, photos are pixelated and noisy even in good light, and there is no autofocus. No flash either, so no night shots. You can share your pictures using MMS or Bluetooth.

Internet speeds are a very slow GPRS, and the embedded browser isn’t much quicker. You certainly won’t be doing any involved browsing on the W205, that’s for sure.

Finally, you get two standard Java games, including Bubble Town, and you have the option to download more from Sony Ericsson – although that internet connection is likely to put you off.

The verdict on the Sony Ericsson W205

It may be called a Walkman phone, but the Sony Ericsson W205 barely fits the bill, especially as you don’t even get a USB cable for easy file transfer and the internal memory is tiny. But as a basic phone for a very good price, it does the job nicely.

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Sony Ericsson Jalou

Style & Handling Summary for Sony Ericsson Jalou
The Sony Ericsson Jalou is a tiny clamshell with bevelled edges and a shiny, jewel-like finish, and a tactile, small keyboard with diamond-shaped keys. It even doubles up as a mirror.

User Friendliness Summary for Sony Ericsson Jalou
Sony Ericsson’s grid-style menu is very easy to navigate and setting up IM is a really complicated process. And it’s really, really hard to open with one hand.

Feature Set Summary for Sony Ericsson Jalou
The tiny fashion phone boasts a good range of features including a fully-feature Facebook app, and support for HSDPA internet.

Performance Summary for Sony Ericsson Jalou
Movies are surprisingly nice looking on the small screen, but the tinny bundled headphones make sound less impressive. Facebook is just great, though.

Battery Power Summary for Sony Ericsson Jalou
Battery life is average, considering that there are no Wi-Fi or GPS to swallow the power.


Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson Jalou

It’s never happened before, but we have a real problem with the Sony Ericsson Jalou. Sure, this tiny, good-looking clamshell is a good media device with a superb Facebook app – but it’s also outrageously difficult to open up.

Clamshells are great because they feel like mobile phones used to. You can flip it open when it rings and snap it shut at the end of the call with a businesslike click. All very Star Trek and satisfying. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work so well when you have to struggle to open the thing – it’s too glossy to get a grip on, too closely fitting to open one-handed and the hinge mechanism is heavy and hard to manoeuvre.

Appearance for the Sony Ericsson Jalou

The Sony Ericsson Jalou is a good-looking handset that comes in a choice of jewel-like colours with nicely bevelled edges. Our model was deep amethyst and it was lovely. If you want to go all designer, there’s even a Dolce & Gabbana model available. The tiny handset is about half the size of your palm, adding to its jewel-like quality.

Once you managed to get it open, you’ll find a nice matt-black plastic keyboard with flat, silver, diamond-shaped keys. The hexagonal D-pad has four customisable shortcuts, and the menu is a grid of stylish, vibrant icons.

Messaging on the Sony Ericsson Jalou

Sony Ericsson’s updated messaging menu combines your email, texts, Facebook messages and Instant Messenger, which is a handy feature. The IM program is quite difficult to set up, though – you are required to fill in details like ‘Server’ and ‘Connection Type’ without any form of guidance, which seems a bit much to ask of the target audience. That audience is hardly tech-heads. If the design and specs weren’t enough to convince you of that, the fact that the screen turns into a mirror might.

Facebook on the Sony Ericsson Jalou

The Jalou has a Sony Ericsson-optimised full Facebook app that makes for an excellent experience. Notifications are pushed to your home screen with desktop-like efficiency, and you can check your profiles as well as those of your friends, comment on and Like posts, hit links, wall-post or message people and even directly text or call friends who include their contact details.

Leave the app running in the background – which you need to do to receive push notifications – and a Facebook widget appears on your home screen. Use the up and down keys to scroll between status updates, an update feed and your message inbox. Click on either one to be taken back into the app. You can take and upload photos directly from Facebook. If you’re not in Facebook, taking a picture on the Jalou’s camera will offer you the option to upload, as well as share it on MySpace, Picasa or Blogger.

Camera and media on the Sony Ericsson Jalou

The camera has a three-megapixel lens, which is low spec but enough for internet publishing, and no flash or autofocus. But it does have night mode, other modes including sequenced shots and panorama, and a selection of effects and filters. You also have Photo Fix, which allows you to sort out any problems with light or sharpness on your snaps.

You also get a good amount of media features including a music player, video player, YouTube, radio and access to the PlayNow Arena, Sony Ericsson’s download store. From here you can download games, videos, movies and music, although they can be pricey.

Another bonus is high-speed HSDPA internet access, which is particularly handy if you’re planning on downloading a lot of YouTube content, although no Wi-Fi. Unbelievably, movies don’t look too bad on the teeny screen, but the bundled headphones are tinny and there’s no 3.5mm headphone port.

One problem was that the phone did tend to lag, especially when loading or exiting apps, thanks to its small processor. There was often a freeze of a few seconds after exiting too.

Verdict on the Sony Ericsson Jalou

Fashion phones often suffer in the specs department, but the teeny, jewel-like Jalou manages to combine both fairly successfully. The Facebook app is excellent, giving you push notifications to your home screen – it’s actually superior to some smartphones in that respect. HSDPA internet means you can stream YouTube and download apps from the PlayNow Arena, and the small screen doesn’t do a bad job with movies. Now, if we can just get it open..

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Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro

Style & Handling Summary for Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro
The Pro has a sleek curved body with a 3.2-inch resistive touch-screen and a spacious slide-out keyboard. It’s a shame that the outdated Symbian OS holds it back.

User Friendliness Summary for Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro
You can launch the camera and video from any app thanks to the dedicated buttons, but the user interface is clunky and feels out of date.

Feature Set Summary for Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro
The big-ticket features here are the HD video and five-megapixel camera, but you also get HSDPA internet speeds, Wi-Fi and A-GPS. There’s no push-email support.

Performance Summary for Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro
The five-megapixel camera produces really daylight shots, although lowlight pictures can be blurry. The touch-screen is a tad slow, but made up for by the comfortable QWERTY keyboard. Email is anaemic with no push function.

Battery Power Summary for Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro
The 310-minute talktime is better than similar phones on the market.

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson Vivaz

The Vivaz Pro has some lovely features, including an HD video camera, a QWERTY keyboard and a pretty quick processor too. But the Symbian operating system holds it back and takes out the fun – the intuitive enjoyment you should get from your phone.

Style and handling on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro

The Vivaz Pro is just 15mm thick with a rounded shape that feels good in the hand. Like its predecessor, the Vivaz HD, the Pro is a media phone, with a high-spec camera and video. The five-megapixel lens is smaller than the Vivaz HD’s eight megapixels, but there is the addition of a four-line slide-out QWERTY keyboard. On the right-hand side of the handset are dedicated camera and video buttons, and there are also the twin benefits of a 3.5mm audio port and a miniUSB charger port – a welcome departure from the proprietary Sony Ericsson charger port.

The 3.2-inch resistive touch-screen needs hard treatment to operate, but the slide-out keyboard means you’re not reliant on on-screen typing, so it’s less of an issue than is was on the Vivaz HD.

The aged Symbian OS has been overlaid by Sony Ericsson’s own user interface, but it still feels creaky. The five home screens are basically oversized shortcuts to applications such as the browser or gallery, and the Adobe Flash application turned out just to be a Flash-animated background that changes orientation when you turn the phone around. But you can link the screens to your favourite contacts and web links, and re-order the position of the programs in the All Programs menu.

Lock the handset, and a rather ugly black box appears that links to the dialler, messages, gallery and search function.

Camera on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro

The Pro’s five-megapixel camera gets better results than many other phones with similar specs, with almost instantaneous shutter speed and just one second to wait between taking your next picture. The shutter button is close to the keyboard, which made the whole experience feel unsteady and sometimes led to unintentional typing.

Daylight shots are so clear as to be on a par with the Vivaz HD’s eight-megapixel camera, although pictures taken in low light come out slightly faded and fuzzy. Bright light led to overexposure, but shots taken in the shade were sharp and clean.

The video camera shoots video at a high-definition 720 frames per second, and offers ‘continuous focus’, which means you can pan the camera around and it will automatically refocus as necessary. Playback is smooth, and a TV-out port means you can watch your footage on the big screen. We also like the front-facing camera for making video calls.

You can share your photos using email or text, or upload them directly to Facebook, Twitter or Blogger. The Facebook application itself is well implemented, and preloaded apps for YouTube, WorldMate travel organiser and NeoReader, the handy barcode scanning app. These make up for Symbian’s lack of a central apps downloads portal.

Internet and email on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro

Go online and you will automatically be taken to mobile-optimised websites. It can handle non-optimised sites but with no autofit function, you are left having to drag the page around to be able to read it all. Pages load quickly – even non-optimised sites are up in less than 10 seconds thanks to HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity – and pictures and graphics look clear, although the text is a little ragged at the edges. There’s no cut and paste function, sadly, but you can view multiple pages in a carousel, and subscribe to RSS feeds from the browser.

Email is pretty basic. There is no push notification and the lack of HTML support means you won’t be able to view in-message graphics. You have to refresh your inbox manually, and new messages come up as simple white text on a black background.

We added our Gmail account and found that we didn’t get our mails displayed as conversations as we do on the desktop and many other handsets, although we did get access to custom folders.

The slide-out QWERTY keyboard is great, with matte keys that are well spaced out and take little pressure to operate. There are shift keys for capitalising and an alt key for numbers and common symbols. It’s nice to see a dedicated question mark key but contracted words aren’t automatically given an apostrophe and you don’t get your ‘I’s automatically capitalised either. Copy and paste works as it does on a PC: just press the shift key and a direction key to select text. You can hold down a finger and drag too, but this takes some practice.

The verdict on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro

The Pro’s QWERTY keyboard makes this phone far easier going than the Vivaz HD, and the high-definition video is another good addition. The camera is lower spec but still produces decent results. Email is mediocre at best. The Pro is basically a feature phone with internet features – good enough in itself but unlikely to cut it against similarly priced smartphones.

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Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini

Style and handling summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini review
The tiny X10 Mini can be changed to suit your mood thanks to the interchangeable coloured backs included in the box.

User friendliness summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini review
We’d have liked a more reliable touch-screen, and even though it would have been a tight fit, we would have preferred a virtual QWERTY keyboard.

Feature set summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini review
It may be small, but the X10 Mini is crammed with A-GPS, Wi-Fi, HSDPA, and a five-megapixel camera, along with access to the Android Market and Sony Ericsson’s excellent Timescape.
Performance summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini review
While the X10 Mini’s features pleased most of the time, it was a shame that the Wi-Fi connection was often unreliable.

Battery power summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini review
Make sure you’re near a power supply, because the X10 Mini only offers 210 minutes of talktime.

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini
At the risk of stating the obvious, the Sony Experia X10 was massive, while the Sony Ericsson Experia X10 Mini is, well, miniature. Barely the length of a credit card, it elicits the same sort of reaction as a kitten or new-born baby – you can’t help going “aah”. But the X10 Mini is no lightweight when it comes to features; it has a batch of features that even the biggest of smartphones would die for.

First impressions

When we first held the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini, we were all set to slide the phone open, thanks to the fact that, despite its dinky size, it has a sizeable girth (the battery is built into the phone). But it’s actually all candybar, with control mostly coming via the 2.55-inch TFT capacitive touch-screen. There are also three thin, metallic hard keys right under the screen, including a menu key, a back key, and a menu key for the feature you are in.

Despite its small proportions, the Mini is definitely one of the Xperia X10 family, with its four corner UI. In each corner you’ll find shortcuts to music player, messages, dialling pad and phonebook. These four stay in place through the X10 Mini’s four home screens, which can be flicked from left to right, and right to left. The time and date is displayed on the first home screen, while the second has a Google search bar, which offers the option to search by voice (a feature that worked fabulously).

The third home screen offers a preview of your Timescape feeds, and the fourth has a User Support page. You can pull up any of the four main menus by either pressing the main menu key and swiping between them, or by using the virtual arrow at the bottom of the screen. The display is wonderfully crisp (there are 16 million colours on offer), but we had hoped the touch-screen would be a touch more responsive – our key presses weren’t always acknowledged.

Lack of accelerometers

We were also disappointed with the absence of accelerometers. It interfered with our web browsing because the presence of accelerometers ensures pages show better in landscape mode and you don’t have to scroll around the page as much, and we really missed having a virtual QWERTY keyboard – pretty much a given on touch-screen devices nowadays. Fair enough, the X10 Mini is tiny, so a keyboard would also be pretty tiddly, but Sony Ericsson could have fitted one in. So instead you’ll have to use the multi-tap keyboard for texts and emails, though there is a T9 dictionary mode.

On the plus side, it is simple to set up email accounts – particularly on Gmail – though we found syncing a hotmail account a breeze too. But we did have a problem reading emails with attachments. Not only did we stumble when trying to open Word documents, but the message itself took ages to open. You’ll notice that although Sony Ericsson has added its own skin to the X10 Mini, it does have a lot in common with Google Android – the notification bar at the top of the screen, for instance, which will let you know if you have a new email.

Keep up with Timescape

While you won’t find Mediascape on the X10 Mini, you’ll be pleased to know the excellent Timescape facility has been included. Log in to Timescape and a shortcut will appear on the home screen. This will bring you the latest “feed” from your Twitter or Facebook account, which can be set to update every 15 minutes. Click on the feed and get the full Timescape experience – that is, all your Twitter, Facebook, messages and missed calls being fed onto your screen. The user can then scroll through them all, pressing on any one to reply or go to the main site.

Connectivity wise, the X10 Mini has HDSPA and Wi-Fi. While we were easily able to log into the office network, returning to work the next day we found it a bit of a lottery whether we could automatically reconnect or not.

Good shot

Keen photographers will be able to capture some decent shots with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini. Okay, there’s not a huge amount in the way of camera features (there are four settings – Auto, Macro, Twilight and Sports) but the auto focus works well, and an LED flash is available for night-time and low-light images. But the camera is slow to start up, which is disappointing. It took three full seconds between pressing the camera button and the image finder getting into focus. However, once you’ve taken a shot it can be emailed, uploaded to Facebook or sent via MMS in only two steps. It’s also possible to upload video directly to YouTube.

While the X10 Mini’s size makes it an unlikely sat nav for use in the car, pedestrians may well find it handy as the A-GPS offers a quick and stable fix, and there’s the added bonus of Wisepilot, which offers voice guidance along with a keyword search for places of interest. If that’s not for you, you can always pay a visit to Android Market to make your own choice of navigational app.

The verdict

While many people will buy the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini for its design (and that choice of coloured back covers), it still manages to pack in an admirable set of features. While there were some teething problems that irritated, if you’re looking for an Android phone that will fit easily in the pocket, while still offering a good feature set, this is a pretty decent choice.

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Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro

Style and handling summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro review
The X10 Mini Pro is the smallest smartphone around but is just as capable as most larger models. The 2.55-inch screen is comfortable to hold and use.

User friendliness summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro review

The dialer is complicated and frustrating, requiring you to go through your contacts list to make a call, but the QWERTY keyboard works well for dashing of messages.

Feature set summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro review

The superb music player is what we’ve come to expect from the Walkman manufacturer, but the five-megapixel camera fails to match up to the company’s Cybershot range.

Performance summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro review

The capacitive touch-screen is pretty responsive but won’t keep up with fast typing. However, the QWERTY keyboard and fluid user interface make up for it.

Battery power summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro review

The 210 mins of 3G talktime is above average for a smartphone.

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro
The full Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro review and specification
Sony Ericsson is making a habit of taking an existing phone and sticking a keyboard on it to make a whole new phone. And it’s a strategy that seems to be working. The Experia X10 Mini Pro is the X10 Mini with a QWERTY keyboard attached and, despite its imperfect touch-screen, is a nice smartphone all-rounder.
Style and handling on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro

The X10 and Mini Pro are themselves scaled-down versions of the Xperia X10, Sony Ericsson’s flagship Android handset. It basically covers all the same territory but in a smaller package. The touch-screen is a comfortable 2.55mm and the compact QWERTY keyboard doubles up numerals and symbols to fit everything in, although does manage dedicated keys for both the full-stop and comma. Adding to its smartphone credentials are a volume rocker, really good in-ear headphones and a 3.5mm audio port if you want to plug in your own.

The touch-screen is the capacitive type, which responds to gentle swipes instead of pressure, and while it’s responsive enough, it’s not quite fast enough to keep up with typing quickly. But the QWERTY keyboard means you won’t need on-screen message typing anyway.

Opening the keyboard automatically flips the screen into landscape mode, and closing it will put the orientation back to portrait.
User interface on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro

The Android operating system has been overlaid with Sony Ericsson’s own skin, which gives it an individual look that we like a lot. Shortcuts on each corner of the home screen lead you to contacts, messages, music and all programs. You can also access the all programs menu with an upward swipe, a nice touch in the style of the Palm Pre. You can also add widgets to the home screens which you swipe sideways to view and while you can’t add applications shortcuts to your home screens, any you do download will be added to the programs menu and organised according to preference.

The familiar Android notifications toolbar lets you swipe downwards to see new events or the tune you’re playing. The whole interface is fluid and intuitive and feels great to use.

Sony Ericsson’s Timescape application is preloaded on to the X10 Mini Pro. It’s a handy app that syncs your phone contacts with Facebook and Twitter to show a combined feed of messages, updates and calls. You can put the widget on the home screen, where you can flick through contact cards in order of latest updates. Tapping on an update will take you directly to the Facebook or Twitter mobile-optimised site.
Getting in touch on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro

With messaging and social networking well taken care of, the phone function falls somewhat flat. Finding a contact is inconvenient: you can’t just type in the first few letters of a friend’s name, or even search the contacts book from the screen. The call log can be used for recent contacts, but other than that you’ll have to go into your contacts book.

The keyboard’s pretty comfortable to use and the shortcut to messages works really well. It feels best when used in landscape, with the keyboard open, which makes it perfect for messaging. You can’t type as quickly as on a BlackBerry, for example, but the keys are well placed and positioned intelligently. The Alt key lets you access less-used symbols and there’s also a symbols menu with emoticons.

Media on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro

The music player and bundled in-ear headphones are excellent, as you would expect from Sony Ericsson, pioneer of the Walkman. Sound quality was rich and clear on all manner of different styles of music.

Unfortunately, the manufacturer’s reputation for camera phones doesn’t really come across on the X10 Mini Pro. The five-megapixel lens does come with an LED flash and autofocus but daylight pictures look dull and too sharp when viewed on a monitor. The pictures taken in low light, though, look pretty good with no overexposure and are clear, if slightly yellow. There’s a dedicated camera launch button and you can share your pictures using email and social networks.

Maps on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro

Google Maps is preloaded on the X10 Pro Mini and works as reliably as always. You can also get the Latitude add-on which allows you to stalk, sorry follow, your friends on the map – with their permission of course.

Thanks to the already outdated Android 1.6 OS, the handset doesn’t support voice navigation, but you can get hold of Sony Ericsson’s Wisepilot application. It’s only a 30-day trial, though, so after a month you need to start paying. Another application that gets round a missing feature is RoadSync, which syncs up your Microsoft Exchange email accounts.

The verdict on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro

The Android 1.6 OS has been upgraded three times since the 1.6 OS of the Mini Pro, but Sony Ericsson has covered its deficiencies well. It’s the smallest smartphone around, yet manages to do as much as most other smartphones. The user interface is intuitive, the QWERTY keyboard makes it a messaging demon, and the music quality is superb. The X10 Mini Pro should and probably will be a popular little smartphone.

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Sony Ericsson Zylo

Style and handling summary for Sony Ericsson Zylo review
A handset that manages to be featherlight yet not feel cheap, the Zylo’s matte silver design gives it a contemporary feel.

User friendliness summary for Sony Ericsson Zylo review
An accessible grid interface displays your programs, which you control via the central OK button, and a scrollable widget toolbar for social networking and such.

Feature set summary for Sony Ericsson Zylo review
The music player is central to this phone, but the camera doesn’t really cut it other than as a token gesture.

Performance summary for Sony Ericsson Zylo review
The web browser can be slow, as can social networking, but the Walkman music player works very well indeed.

Battery power summary for Sony Ericsson Zylo review
The Zylo’s battery power is good, giving you 210 minutes’ talktime and 400 hours’ standby before you have to refuel.

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson Zylo

Sony Ericsson’s Walkman range gave the manufacturer a reputation for top-class music phones, but its handsets gradually got bigger and clunkier and metamorphosed into ‘media phones’. With the exception of the Xperia range, these phones have been average at best. With the Zylo, though, there is a welcome return to both the basics and the Walkman range.

Style and handling on the Sony Ericsson Zylo

A stylish matte silver finish with blue accents give the Zylo a sleek, modern appearance, with a 2.6-inch screen that slides up to uncover the roomy keyboard. It’s very light, at just 115g, but in no way feels cheap. The central OK key acts as a control for the music player and a multitasking key lets you view any apps you have open.

On the left-hand side of the phone is a volume control rocker and the dedicated Walkman key, which also works the camera shutter when you’re in camera mode. The camera is nothing special, with a 3.15-megapixel resolution and no flash or auto-focus, and even shots taken in daylight came out a bit grainy.

On the home screen there is a scrollable widget toolbar with updates from Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, Music Genie – a dancing game controlled on the buttons – and Walkmate, which is a pedometer. Press the central button and you get a standard grid arrangement with all your other programs in.

Music player on the Sony Ericsson Zylo

It’s disappointing that there is no 3.5mm audio jack on a phone that pushes music to the fore. Instead you get Sony Ericsson’s cumbersome port and a pair of in-ear headphones that don’t have an adaptor. But the bundled headphones are surprisingly good, and make the most of the impressive audio. Live music comes through well, and dance tracks are clear and free of feedback, if a little short on bass. There is too much treble, but anyone who cared that much would have a dedicated music player anyway.

The interface is particularly user friendly, and you can play your music in the background while you do other things on the phone. You can load your tracks from your computer using the bundled MediaGo software or download more from the PlayNow Arena, and the SensMe application will recommend tracks from your library that are similar to the one you’re playing, saving you the bother of choosing for yourself. It has to be said, though, that PlayNow is an expensive service: games and apps cost £5 – more than the Apple Store and not nearly as impressive.

Social networking on the Sony Ericsson Zylo

There are some good features on the Zylo, considering its price point. A front-facing camera allows for video calls, albeit pretty pixelated ones, and bundled software lets you back up your contacts, bookmarks and notes to your computer.

The Zylo supports high-speed internet, but that doesn’t stop the Twitter, Facebook and MySpace widgets from being slow both to load and navigate. The Facebook app shows you a news feed, profiles and your wall but doesn’t allow you to comment on posts. However, the homescreen widget is really good, displaying notifications, friends’ posts and a box that takes you directly to your status update.

Twitter is somewhat bizarre, showing tweets from random users rather than the people you follow. If there is a way to circumvent this we didn’t find it, but if you wish you can reply to the tweets from the home screen.

The verdict on the Sony Ericsson Zylo

For a low-priced phone, the Zylo has plenty to offer, particularly the music player and HSDPA web speeds. Social networking can be slow, but as an added extra to a nice little music phone, they work just fine. It’s a good-value Walkman with lots more thrown in.

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Sony Ericsson Spiro

Style and handling summary for Sony Ericsson Spiro review
The Spiro is a neat device, with a nifty gloss front, flush display and an orange backlight to its matte keys

User friendliness summary for Sony Ericsson Spiro review
The Spiro is pretty easy to use, thanks to the fact that it’s far from being high spec and has a particularly useful keypad

Feature set summary for Sony Ericsson Spiro review
The Spiro’s feature set is far from comprehensive, so don’t expect anything like a smartphone for your money

Performance summary for Sony Ericsson Spiro review
The Spiro is let down by the lack of 3G, which, among other factors, makes connectivity sluggish

Battery power summary for Sony Ericsson Spiro review
It’s no surprise that with its small display and the omission of 3G and Wi-Fi, the battery lasts so long. It might be small but at least you won’t be rushing to charge it every night.

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson Spiro
Cast your mind back to when mobile phones were used for making phone calls, texting and the odd game of Snake when you had no signal. Those phones didn’t have the power of today’s smartphones, but they had the benefit of being much smaller and lighter, especially before the advent of 3G.

Sony Ericsson’s Spiro harks back to those days; It’s a small device, with no 3G radio, a glossy fascia, matte back and a nice slide-out keypad lurking behind the 2.2in display. Its easy-access buttons are user-friendly and there’s no touch-sensitive pad at all. You’ll just find Call and End buttons on the front, along with four more controls and the Walkman media playback controller in the centre.

It’s quite a departure from the multitude of devices on the market trying to emulate the iPhone – and for that we like it. It’s not even pretending to be a smartphone – witness the lack of 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS. However, surprisingly it does have a 3.5mm audio jack, something that’s usually absent from Sony Ericsson handsets.

The Walkman media control gives away the fact that the Spiro is essentially a music handset – however, you’ll find little in the way of built-in memory (only 5MB, not even enough to store one track). However, a microSD slot will allow you to up that memory you’ve had to buy.

The camera’s not up to much either – it offers a miserly two megapixels. On the bright side, any shots you take will take some time to fill up your memory card.

The Spiro is not completely featureless, though. It has Bluetooth, which means you can play music or take calls wirelessly with the phone residing in your pocket. And you’ll also find that Sony Ericsson favourite, TrackID, which identifies songs for you by listening to them for a few seconds.
Mind you, you will need some sort of a connection for the phone to send the sound to its remote database.

Waiting game
The Spiro will let you surf the net, although the small display doesn’t lend itself to a totally thrilling experience, and it’s slow going because your fastest download speed is EDGE. You’ll find Twitter and Facebook apps, but again that slow speed will keep you waiting to find out what your friends are up to.

This may all sound somewhat negative, but while the Spiro may not have all the latest technological wizardry, it’s great value at around £40 pay-as-you-go. Despite its low price it looks pretty stylish, won’t weigh down your pocket, and makes a decent music player. If you consider that a 2GB iPod shuffle is the same price, and that you can add a 4GB memory card to the Spiro for a tenner, it suddenly starts to look like pretty good value as it also has phone capabilities, a camera, FM radio and so on.

Anyone who wants to send and receive emails will probably want a phone with a bigger display and faster connections speeds. But bear in mind that will mean carting around a larger, weightier phone – and spending more cash too.

The verdict
If you want a basic phone for making phone calls, texting and listening to music, the Sony Ericsson Spiro will do the job.

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Sony Ericsson Cedar

Style and handling summary for Sony Ericsson Cedar review
Not the most classy-looking device, with its silver plastic chassis on the back, and not everyone will like the curved case, but it is tidy and lightweight

User friendliness summary for Sony Ericsson Cedar review
A simple-to-use handset, but don't bother using the phone's built-in and complicated user manual

Feature set summary for Sony Ericsson Cedar review
While it has both Bluetooth and a 3.5mm headphone jack, it's missing a decent camera and any more advanced functions

Performance summary for Sony Ericsson Cedar review
While the device does a decent enough job with the basic facilities, it's not so good for browsing the web

Battery power summary for Sony Ericsson Cedar review
You'll easily get a couple of days' use out of the battery - that display isn't big enough to use much power

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson Cedar
Sony Ericsson has two strings to its bow. It creates top-notch Android phones (its Experia range) as well as eco-friendly devices with its Greenhart brand. While one is a bit flashy and pretty dear, the other comes in at a budget price. So, does Sony Ericsson offer something in between the two?

Looking good
Enter the Cedar, Sony's latest tree-branded phone, from the part of the phone manufacturer that produces the less expensive, eco range. It's lightweight, straightforward and a bit tacky.
The construction materials have been picked for their low cost and sustainability. The Cedar is definitely not a smartphone - the launch screen will make that clear. Without a sim card inserted, it can do nothing - except show you its demo animation and tell you to put that sim card in. In fact, we rather like the Demo - it lets you know the phone has Twitter and Facebook capability, and a long-life battery. Mind you, when the looping animation had come around for the third time, we'd pretty much had enough.

Going green
You'll find the Cedar very light - thanks to the fact that those green materials are mostly plastic. It does make it feel a bit cheap - especially if you turn it over and take a look at the plastic back. Its matte keys, however, are pretty tactile and give it a little touch of class.

Its green cred is lifted by three things - minimal packaging, the recycled materials used to make the phone, and an on-board manual. However, we found the manual labyrinthine and wouldn't recommend using it unless absolutely necessary.

Back to basics
Being at this end of the market means there's no touchscreen - so it makes up for that with plenty of keys. There are number keys (naturally) and send and end buttons too. A My Shortcuts keys can be customised as you want, then there are two soft keys beneath the screen and a Clear button. The direction pad is square, and has a round button in its centre. Use the direction pad to take you up from the home screen and you'll find more shortcuts - this time in the shape of widgets. There are widgets for Clock, Notes, Facebook and Twitter. If you press Show, you'll find the shortcuts can be part of the main screen, which means you are able to scroll sideways between them.

The display is 2.2inches, which is not a bad size for a neat, low-price device, but you'll find it gets filled up if you want to show your widgets. Mind you, we were quite impressed with some of the widgets - the Facebook one allows you to check recent updates and update your own status pretty easily. The browser was less impressive, so don't expect to be doing much surfing on the Cedar.

Sound and vision
At this price, you wouldn't be hoping for an amazing camera, but even so we thought the two-megapixel snapper, which lacks flash, was pretty basic. The resulting images are mediocre, and you'll have no luck in low-light situations, but we were pleased with the inclusion of Sony Ericsson's excellent Photo Fix. And if you want to upload snaps to Twitter, email, Facebook and so on, you can do so with a couple of clicks.

Happily for music lovers, a 3.5mm headphone jack is included - they are starting to appear on more and more budget phones now. And we've seen phones at this price with no 3G or Bluetooth, but thankfully both are present and correct on the Cedar.

The verdict
If you're looking for a low-priced device, which does a good job on the basic functions, and has a good go at social networking functions, this lightweight and rather likeable phone could be the one for you.

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Sony Ericsson Xperia X8

Style and handling summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 review
While it's pocket size, the Xperia X8 seems rather flimsy and cheap with its plastic chassis

User friendliness summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 review
The user experience is far from smooth thanks to the complicated menu navigation, and the version of Android - 1.6 - seems out of date

Feature set summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 review
There's a 3.15-megapixel snapper, A-GPS and Sony's own Timescape, plus for surfing there's Wi-Fi and HSDPA

Performance summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 review
With its elderly operating system and a number of restrictions and hiccups, we just couldn't warm to the Xperia X8.

Battery power summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 review
Battery life impressed, lasting for 476 hours on standby, and 340 minutes of chat

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Experia X8
The X8 is the latest introduction to Sony's Ericcson's flagship Xperia range of phone. It feels like it doesn't quite know what it is - it's larger than the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini, but more diminutive than the Xperia X10, although it's the Mini that it most looks like.

First impressions
Before we get started, we need to make it clear that the X8 is definitely aiming at the cheaper end of the market. So, first up we should not be surprised that the handset is made from somewhat flimsy plastic. However, despite feeling brittle and budget-priced, the device is also pleasingly lightweight. Our review phone came in a rather brash white, which on the one hand makes it stand out, yet on the other makes it look rather tacky.

Apart from being slightly bigger, the X8 looks pretty much like the X10 Mini, although it does have a slightly bigger display, measuring 3 inches. Its user interface is just the same as the X10 Mini's - you'll find four icons, one in each corner of the display, for dial pad, messaging, music and contacts.

It is possible to customise these to show your favourite features. Slide your finger to the left of the home screen and you'll be treated to a collection of home screens, all of which can be customised to show feeds or shortcuts. However, it is only possible to add one on each home screen - a shame because there's nearly half an inch more space on the display as there was on the X10 Mini. Slide your finger up the screen and you'll see a 12-icon menu - slide this from left to right and you'll discover even more features. This is also where you'll find any of the apps that you download from the Android Market.

When we reviewed the X10 Mini, we slated the virtual QWERTY keyboard for being too tiny for typing on. The X8, with its larger screen, makes for a larger keyboard and a more comfortable experience when keying in text messages or emails. The keyboard works better in landscape mode, as it ensures each key has a little more room. Mostly we found it accurate and even if we hit the wrong key, the auto-suggest usually came up with the right word for us.

Getting social
Timescape, Sony Ericsson's social streaming facility can also be found on board. It integrates all text messages, tweets and Facebook updates into one feed, but on the home screen you actually only see one feed. To see more, you need to enter the app. There is also a native Facebook app on the X8, but we found it rather unreliable - clicking on a posted link, it would either not acknowledge the command, or we found we had to go through extra stages to get to the link.

In fact, we were disappointed by browsing in general. There was no auto adjustment on pages so that all text could be viewed - we had to double tap to make this happen - and there's no pinch-to-zoom facility (that won't be available until the upgrade to 2.1, which is supposed to happen in January).

Setting up push email was simple, but while news of any new emails appeared on the notifications bar, we still had to refresh the inbox when we went into it to be able to read the new message. It's also not possible to set up multiple email accounts - again due to the elderly operating system. However, if one of the accounts is GoogleMail you're okay, as that has an application of its own.

The verdict
If you want an Android phone and you're on a budget, it's worth taking a look at the Sony Experia X8. But if you can afford a few extra pounds each month, shop around and you'll get a smartphone with more features.

Once the X8 has its Android 2.1 update, and some of the glitches are ironed out, it may be worth considering, but at the moment it doesn't offer anything for us to get excited about.

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Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc

Style and handling summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc review
The Xperia Arc is a delicious handset that feels great to hold and slips easily into a pocket. Its standout feature is its high-quality, sharp display

User friendliness summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc review
We’re not fond of Timescape and the keyboard could have been better, but the responsive touch-screen and Android interface ensure that most tasks are accomplished easily

Feature set summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc review
Excellent snapper, very decent media offerings and a choice of thousands of Apps from Android Market

Performance summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc review
There are quicker handsets on the market but the 1GHZ chip still packs enough power for the built-in functions and to handle most apps you might want to run

Battery power summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc review
You’ll get a good day out of a full battery charge but if you’re away for the weekend you’ll definitely need your charger

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc is aimed at those who want three things from their smartphone – speed, entertainment and style. It may be slim but it manages to squeeze in a massive high-res screen (the Reality Display) and an eight-megapixel snapper with Advanced Sensor. Plus there’s Android Gingerbread 2.3 too. So has Sony Ericsson managed to produce a big screen star?

First impressions

This is a stunning handset to look at and to have in the hand – it’s really slim (8.7mm at its narrowest) and the concave dip in the back ensures it fits comfortably in the hand, even though it’s quite a wide, long chassis.

The Reality Display screen takes up most of that width and length. It’s a 4.2in TFT with LED backlighting, 854x480 resolution and Mobile Bravia Engine – that’s a version of the technology Sony uses in its HDTVs.

The Mobile Bravia Engine offers sharpening, colour management, noise reduction and contrast enhancing – and while we take Sony’s claims of HDTV-style image quality with a pinch of salt, we can’t deny that this really is a top-notch display. View it straight on and you’ll find excellent contrast and bright colours – and even on a bright day outside there is little drop in the picture quality.

But that viewing angle is somewhat limited – look at the screen from anywhere other than dead on and you’ll lose contrast and colour quality – mind you it’s not much of an issue unless you’re sharing it with a friend to watch games or movies. We’d say that the Reality Display certainly rivals OLED displays.

The capacitive screen has haptic feedback and is responsive (there are some problems, which we’ll deal with later) You’ll find the usual Android hard buttons – home, back and menu – along the bottom edge of the phone, and they’re easy enough to use. You’ll find camera and volume buttons on the right side – although we found the camera button tiddly and not easy to press.

Other nice touches are the proprietary USB port for both data transfer and charging, and a micro HDMI output on top which will let you view whatever is on the screen on an HDTV or projector – you’ll need a cable though. There is also a 3.5mm headphone jack so you can use your favourite headphones when you’re listening to music.

The Xperia Arc has very little onboard memory, but the handset comes with an 8GB microSD card (you can’t hotswap it – you’ll need to take out the battery to get to it) and the phone can support cards up to 32GB.

Back to basics

The Xperia Arc runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, which is the latest version of Google's smartphone OS. Sony Ericsson, however, has wrapped the OS in its own skin. So you’ll find the main home screen is dominated by Timescape – this brings together text messages, Facebook and tweets into one "pack of cards" style stream that you can flick through.

It’s a good idea, but as on Xperia handsets in the past it just seems rather slow and clunky. We found that if we were just browsing we’d mistakenly select an entry and end up firing up the browser or message screen accidentally. Also, the pictures of your contacts are not sharp and are pretty low-res.

There are another four homescreens, to which you can add apps, widgets and shortcuts, as well as a bar along the bottom of the screen where you can put shortcuts to four of your favourite apps as well as one to the full app menu. All in all, it works pretty well.

Of course, because it’s an Android handset, you can download your choice from thousands of apps from the Android Market. We downloaded Angry Birds – it ran perfectly; while the 1GHZ chip isn’t that powerful compared with some other smartphones, it certainly handled those angry avians with no problems – and the graphics looked pin-sharp.

We did notice one issue, though – the virtual keyboard can be a bit tricky in operation, particularly in portrait mode. It can be fiddly to correct a word – let’s just say the iPhone's keyboard is far superior. Strangely, we had a problem in portrait mode when the full stop button wouldn’t register until we turned the handset into landscape mode.

Snapper and internet

The Xperia Arc's eight-megapixel snapper is one of the best smartphone cameras around – and that's mostly down to the Exmor R CMOS sensor. It’s more sensitive to light than most camera sensors, so it will be less susceptible to camera shake – you’ll get sharp indoor photos, even without the LED flash.

In decent light, the camera produces images that are rich in detail and have little in the way of noise – and it’s a joy to use too. As we mentioned earlier, a larger hardware button would have been nice, but having one at all is a bit of a bonus. You can autofocus by half-pressing the button, before executing a full press to take a shot. There are plenty of settings to fiddle with, including smile shutter, white balance, scene modes such as portrait and landscape as well as a touch-focus mode that allows you to set the autofocus target wherever you want it.

The 720p HD video recording also impressed us, although it doesn’t hold up if you play it back on a large HDTV.

Our main problem with the snapper is that the autofocus is rather unreliable and fails to lock on, or registers that it’s locked when it’s obviously out of focus.

Browsing the web is simple and that high-res display makes both images and text clear; there is also support for Flash.

As with most other feature-heavy smartphones, the battery probably won’t last more than a day if you’ve made a few calls, taken a few snaps, surfed the web and viewed a bit of video.

The verdict

While we can’t say the Xperia Arc is the perfect smartphone, it is well made and has three standout features – Android 2.3 Gingerbread, its display and its snapper. It’s not built as well as the iPhone 4, Timescape is a tad disappointing and there are a few software issues that need sorting out, but on the whole Sony Ericsson has come up with another great Android handset that can handle all kinds of tasks with style.

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Sony Ericsson Xperia Play

Style and handling summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review
A chunky handset thanks to the slide-out gaming pad that is the phone’s USP. We’d have liked a better screen

User friendliness summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review
Sony Ericsson has added its own skin to the operating system but anyone familiar with Google’s OS – and new users – will have no problems with it

Feature set summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review
Plenty of games to choose from, dedicated video game controls, Wi-Fi, HSDPA, A-GPS, a five-megapixel snapper and a 1GHz chip are all run on Android Gingerbread

Performance summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review
Gamers will find plenty to keep them entertained, although there are some issues with the graphics, but otherwise it offers all you’d expect from a smartphone

Battery power summary for Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review
You’ll need your charger to hand, especially if you’re doing a lot of gaming – average battery life comes in at 413 minutes on standby and 385 minutes of talktime

Full Review and Specification for the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play
It's a question we have asked before – why has Sony Ericsson taken such a long time to release a Playstation phone? With Sony as one of the partners, you’d think it would be an obvious move. Whatever the reasons behind it, we were really excited when we heard about the Xperia Play and were hoping it wouldn’t let us down.

First impressions

The SonyXperia Play is certainly a chunky device. It’s thick and heavy – but there is a good reason for this. Slide the touch-screen away from you and you’ll find a big gaming pad, which has the four familiar PlayStation keys, touch controls and a D-pad. This gaming pad comes in metallic silver and is a good contrast for the shiny piano black front and back of the device. The body is subtly curved on the back and edge, which gives it an ergonomic feel – it was, however, far more comfortable to hold in gaming mode than when holding it like a normal mobile handset.

The display is a decent four inches and although it is very tactile we’ve seen far more vibrant screens. It is possible to dim it from one of the home screens, although we’re not sure why you’d want to use it – on the lower setting it’s hard to make out images and text. Below the display are four hard buttons – menu, back, home and search. If you hold the device vertically, you’ll find a left and right key on the right hand edge – like the PSP – which sit either side of the two volume buttons.

On the other side of the device there sits a microUSB port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. This is a good position for the jack, as when you’re playing games, the headphones will have direct access to your ears, rather than being bent around the phone’s corners – this should avoid getting tangled up and damaging your headphones. This won’t be the case when listening to music, but as this is supposed to be a gaming device, this is a really sensible decision.

Android Gingerbread

We’ll say more about the gaming features in a minute, but first we’d like to point out that the Xperia play is running Google’s latest Android OS – 2.3, or Gingerbread, which speeds up the user experience, improved keyboard, better app management (in terms of memory and power usage), Near Fields Communication (NFC) and VoIP calling. The Xperia Play does a good job on all these fronts, apart from NFC – while the OS provides the facility, it is up to the maker of each handset to enable it, and the Xperia Play is by no means alone in ignoring it at this stage. The OS is skinned by Sony Ericsson's own offering, but if you’re familiar with Android it won’t make too much difference to your user experience.

Gaming

So, on to the gaming facilities. Once the gaming pad has been slid out, the screen automatically changes to landscape view and the onboard Xperia Play App quickly fires up. The pad slides out smoothly, and needs a bit of force to do so (a good thing in our opinion) – but it is really easy to just nudge out the pad slightly, which results in the Play App firing up – we found this happened quite a lot if we were taking the handset out of our pocket to make a call – you’ll have to press the back or home key to go back to the normal phone screen.

Once in the Play app, you’ll see two tabs at the bottom of the display. One takes you to your library of optimised games – at the moment there are about 60 to choose from, along with the six preloaded games. The other tab takes you to the games that you can download. This is where it gets a bit confusing – once you’ve chosen a game, you’ll be whisked to the developer website to pay by PayPal, debt or credit card. In the top right hand corner of the display you’ll see an Android icon – this will open a list of games that have been optimised for the handset. So, there are two ways to choose and buy games – it just makes it more complicated than it needs to be. Also, whichever way you find your list of games, they’re not listed in any particular order – so you can’t choose by price or by genre. Game prices come in at an average of around £5-7, which is pricey compared with most iPhone games. Mind you we did find a few bargains - £3 for Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles HD for example. Having said that, UNO also cost £3 – we weren’t persuaded to buy it! By the way, if you choose games that aren’t Xperia Play optimised (that is they don’t need a gamepad), they won’t be stored in this library and you’ll have to access them from the main menu.

Playing games

We found the games intuitive and fun to play. As footie fans we were happy to see FIFA 10 already on board – although we did find it odd that Arsenal's Emmanuel Eboue just ran round aimlessly in a circle. The controls are well positioned, although we’d liked to have seen the D-Pad slightly more raised to avoid thumb cramp after a long games session. Beneath the PlayStation and D-pad buttons are two round touch-pads, which are only used in some games and can prove a nuisance in others. If the phone rings while you’re playing, the game will automatically pause – and if you need to make a call or access another feature in the middle of a game, you can just push the home key, do what you have to do, and then come back to the game by reopening the Play app.

What was a big disappointment was the graphics. Game play is fast and speedy, thanks to the Qualcomm optimised Snapdragon processor and 1GHZ CPU, along with an Adreno GPU graphics processor, and yet some games looked rather blocky at times – especially frustrating because the opening sequences were so impressive. And because Sony Ericsson can do some great things with a screen – see our Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc review.

You may have heard rumours that it is possible to download original PlayStation games to the Xperia Play – and you can! However, there is a separate platform for doing this. It’s called PlayStation Pocket and in our review sample there were only five to download – each costing £3.99 – but we have been promised that this will increase in the future. The Xperia Play does have Crash Bandicoot preloaded – but we found it rather dated, although if you’ve always loved the game, we’re sure you’ll immerse yourself in the nostalgia and not worry about it. Another strange thing is that the PlayStation Pocket games do not sit in the Play App, even though they utilise the games pad.

Other features

So that’s gaming, what about the rest of the phone? Well it s a decent smartphone – with GPS, Wi-Fi and a five-megapixel snapper – it’s not as good as the Arc's camera but sits well enough among most other Android-powered cameras. The web browsing experience was speedy and benefits from Gingerbread’s one-touch copy-and-paste facility. You can zoom in and out by double tapping the screen or by pinching and zooming.

The verdict

It has to be said that the Xperia Play offers nothing special in terms of smartphone features (and the Xperia Arc does many of them better) so ultimately it will be judged on its gaming offering. While there’s no doubt that it’s a good way to while away some spare time, if you have a PSP or Nintendo DS Lite, it’s not going to serve as a replacement. And if you’re a casual gamer, it doesn’t offer a smooth, slick way to store or download games, when compared with the iPhone 4, for instance. It’s certainly not a bad phone, but if we were buying a Sony Ericsson handset, we would opt for the Xperia Arc, and use the money we saved to buy a PSP for gaming.

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