Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro Mobile Phone Review - A Disappointingly Expensive and Poorly Designed Phone

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro is a prime example of why having a phone packed with feature doesn't mean much if it's poorly designed

. After all, the best equipped phone on earth isn't worth much if it's difficult to navigate. Even still, if you can get past the shoddy exterior and confusing user interface, you may see some features worth considering.

Appearance:

The Vivaz Pro is available in black or white, with metallic accents. However, rather than looking sleek and futuristic, the metallic bits have a dull shine to them that makes the phone look especially cheap. Unfortunately, its plastic casing is of the particularly horrid quality that constantly creaks and shifts and feels horribly cheap and flimsy. Its slide out QWERTY isn't much better. While its high definition keys are great for typing, the platform is just as flimsy as the rest. Other button placements are just plain baffling.

Its 3.2 inch 16 million colour TFT HD touchscreen is impressive, at least, providing crisp, bright colour, but its resistive nature makes trying to use it an exercise in frustration. Its user interface is infuriatingly difficult as well, prone to sluggishness and overcomplicated commands. It's also sadly under equipped when it comes to basic apps and widgets.

Sound:

The Vivaz Pro provides the bare bones basics for music listening, including a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a music player. Its FM radio is also a nice touch. As for overall sound quality, it's decent, but not the best we've ever heard.

Camera:

Its camera is its significant redeeming feature, with 5 megapixels, autofocus, a LED flash, 4 x digital zoom, and an image stabiliser. Combine this with geo tagging, face detection, smile detection, and a quality video recorder and you have a fairly decent camera though nothing you'd want to replace your digital camera with. Unfortunately, for reasons we can only imagine, the design team put the camera in a horribly unprotected spot.

Internet Connectivity:

The Vivaz Pro is fairly well equipped when it comes to internet connectivity with 3G HDSPA, HSUPA, Bluetooth, GPRS, wi-fi, and others. Again, while its keyboard feels abominably cheap and fragile, it's still great for texting on. Its resistive screen puts a serious damper on browsing, however.

Memory and Talk Time:

Its 75 MB won't get you much, but you can boost this somewhat with its microSD memory card, which has up to 16 GB. With 750 minutes of talk time and 430 hour of standby, it's likely you'll need to charge often just to be safe, especially considering its large, bright screen.

Verdict:

While its 5 megapixel camera and decent sound system are of great quality, its cheap exterior, confusing interface, and resistive screen makes this phone a big let down, especially considering its price. We'd expect features such as these on a much cheaper phone. As it is, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro isn't worth the money.

Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro Mobile Phone Review - A Disappointingly Expensive and Poorly Designed Phone

By: green hobgoblin

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