Sony Ericsson Z710i review (Unlocked)

The user-friendly 2-megapixel camera shoots photos in three sizes (2-megapixel, 1-megapixel, and standard VGA). Other options include two quality settings, three color effects, a night mode, white balance and brightness adjustments, 12 fun frames, a 2.5x zoom (smaller then the W710i), and four shutter sounds (there's no silent option). There's also a self-timer, a multishot mode, a time and date stamp, and an option for taking panoramic shots. When finished with your shots, you can save them to the phone or send them to a friend in a multimedia message. We don't like that the phone has to downsize a 2-megapixel photo in order to send it. Alternatively, you can use the USB cable and PC software to transfer a photo to a computer for printing. Overall photo quality was decent with vivid, sharp colors and distinct object outlines. On the other hand, it's disappointing that the Z710i doesn't have a flash. A PhotoDJ lets you edit your photos while the software includes a starter edition of Adobe Photoshop.

We liked the Z710's photo quality.

The camcorder takes clips with sound and offers a set of editing options similar to the still camera. Clips meant for multimedia messages are capped at about two minutes; otherwise you can shoot for as long as the memory permits. Video quality was satisfactory, with little blurriness. The Z710i comes with a VideoDJ application.

You can personalize the Z710i with a variety of color themes, wallpaper, and screen savers. You can purchase more options with the WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser. You can download more ringtones as well or create your own using the MusicDJ application. And unlike other music phones, you can save MP3 files as ringtones. Alpha Wing 2 is the only Java (J2ME) game included, but you get the full version.

Performance
We tested the quadband (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; EDGE) Sony Ericsson Z710i world phone in San Francisco using T-Mobile service. Call quality was generally good with no voice distortion. The volume level also was admirable and we encountered little static or interference. It's worth noting though that the audio had a slight echoed effect, almost as if the sound was coming from the back of the speaker. It wasn't detrimental to our conversations, but it was noticeable just the same. On their end, callers said they could hear us plainly, though they could tell we were using a cell phone. Also, they complained of some wind noise. Speakerphone calls were decent and less muffled than on other phones. That said, the rear-facing speaker means we had the best experience if we rested the phone upside-down. We also tested the phone with the included wired headset and a Bluetooth headset, and had a satisfactory experience with both.

Music quality was admirable and on par with other Sony Ericsson music phones. As with the W710i we were really hoping for stereo speakers, but you can get stereo sound with the included wired headset. Sound quality was pretty impressive considering the headset comes included with the phone, which is a good thing since Sony Ericsson's proprietary connection prohibits against using a headset of your own. Fortunately, the music player interface wasn't as sluggish as on the W710i and unlike the W810i the Disc2Phone software didn't ask us repeatedly to install a driver. Music transfer time also shows improvement; it took just over a couple of minutes to transfer 40MB of tunes.

The Sony Ericsson Z710i has a rated battery life of 10 hours talk time and 14.5 days of standby time. Our tests revealed a talk time of only 8 hours. According to FCC radiation tests, the Z710i has a digital SAR rating of 1.36 watts per kilogram.