Sony Ericsson S500i review (mysterious green, unlocked)

Though the S500i isn't a Walkman-branded phone, it still has a pretty nice built-in music player. Settings include an equalizer (with both automatic preset modes and manual controls), playlists, stereo widening, and shuffle and loop modes. There's also a flight mode so you can listen to your songs while on an aircraft. You can even send the song to someone else via a picture message, an e-mail, or via Bluetooth. The interface is on the generic side, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, since it maintains a simple minimalist look. All you need to load music on the phone is a provided USB cable plus the PC software included. We found the software to be memory-intensive and a bit of a hog, and would recommend dragging and dropping music directly to the phone instead. The music player supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, and eAAC+ file formats.

The S500i comes with a good 2-megapixel camera. Camera options include three sizes (2-megapixel, 1-megapixel, or standard VGA), two picture quality settings, white balance adjustments, color effects, four different shooting modes (Normal, Panorama, Frames, Burst), a night mode, a self-timer, plus the choice of four shutter sounds (no silent option). There's also a built-in camcorder, which records clips with sound and has about the same settings as the still camera. Video clips are capped at 30 seconds if they're meant for multimedia messages, or as long as the available memory allows. Photo quality was very good, with sharp edges and clear colors. We did wish we had a flash for a brighter image, though. Video quality did not fare as well, though it was much less pixilated than comparable camera phones. The phone also includes a built-in video player.

Personalization options are quite plentiful with the S500i. You can customize it with a variety of themes, screensavers, and wallpaper. One theme that we particularly like is the Everchanging theme that changes illumination and colors as the day progresses from day to night. As for ringtones, you can purchase them from Sony Ericsson's PlayNow store right from the phone itself. The phone supports Java and 3D games, and Brain Juice plus Lumines Block Challenge are included with the device.

Performance
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; EDGE) in San Francisco using AT&T service. We loved the call quality with the phone--voices sounded loud and clear with a natural tone, plus callers reported little to no static or background noise. Speakerphone quality could be a little better, but we sometimes sounded rather faint according to our callers. We managed to pair the S500i with the Cardo S-2 stereo Bluetooth headset without a problem.

Music quality is passable. We wouldn't rely on it as a primary music device, but the speakers did deliver good sound quality while headphones provide the best listening experience.

The Sony Ericsson S500i has a rated battery life of 9 hours talk time and 15.4 days standby time. According to FCC radiation tests, the S500i has a digital SAR rating of 0.77 watt per kilogram.