High-end smartphones have a long history of trading compact size for cramming in one feature more than the competition. The Sony Ericsson Vivaz strikes a perfect balance between being compact and feature full great news for anyone who doesn’t appreciate the recent craze of smartphones the size of a table umm tablet
Eight megapixel still images and 720p video with continuous auto focus make the Sony Ericsson Vivaz a predator of point-and-shoot cameras. The Vivaz is not just a cameraphone though, it’s a smartphone as well a tricked out Symbian running on a 720MHz CPU with a 3.2” nHD display to show it all off. That’s all in a package more compact than any combination of a stand-alone camera and a phone you can think of.
Key features
- 3.2" 16M-color resistive touchscreen of 640 x 360 pixel resolution
- 8 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, face and smile detection, geotagging and touch focus
- HD 720p video recording @ 24fps with continuous auto focus
- Symbian OS 9.4 S60 5th, topped with a custom-brewed homescreen and media menu
- 720 MHz CPU, PowerVR SGX dedicated graphics accelerator
- Quad-band GSM support
- 3G with HSDPA 10.2Mbps and HSUPA 2Mbps support
- Wi-Fi and GPS with A-GPS
- microSD card slot (up to 16GB, 8GB card in the box)
- Built-in accelerometer
- Turn-to-mute
- TV out
- Stereo FM Radio
- microUSB and stereo Bluetooth v2.0
- Web browser has full Flash support
- Preinstalled Wisepilot navigation software
- Office document viewer
- Decent audio quality
Main disadvantages
- No camera lens protection
- No auto mode for the flash/video light
- LED flash not powerful enough
- The S60 5th edition UI isn't to the best in class standards
- No proximity sensor sensor to lock the screen during a call
- No DivX or XviD support out-of-the-box
- No smart or voice dialing
- No office document editing (without a paid upgrade)
- No stereo speakers
- No digital compass (magnetometer)
- Videocalling uses only the main camera (no secondary one)
