Sony Ericsson S500i Review

Source: www.mobile-review.com

The new Sony Ericsson S500i is based on the Sony Ericsson W580i.The main differences of the two handsets is mainly in the design.We could say that the S500i is a downgraded version of the W580i without TrackID feature, motion sensor,radio and player version 2.0.The S500i is available in two colours : Mysterious Green and Spring Yellow.The designers of the S500i made the following statement : "The slim S500i keeps you in harmony with the world around you. Slide the S500i open to reveal materials and patterns inspired by nature."

The new Sony Ericsson S500i measures 99x47x14, and it weights 94 grams.On the right side we can see the Fast Port.On the other side we can see the volume rocker.In the bottom we can find the microphone,and the holes for a carrying strap.The expansion slot is on the top,and the power button is next to it.The slider zips open and closed smoothly with its spring mechanism.



One of the most impressive features of the phone is probably the crisp high-resolution display. This is a bright active display that you can view easily outdoors and it does justice to the artwork and themes of the S500i.The display can show up to 262 000 colors at a resolution of 240x320 pixels.The screen has a 2 inches diagonal and it's based on the TFT tehnology.The display can show up to 8 text and 3 service lines for most applications.If you're browsing web-pages, handling e-mails or text messages, you can squeeze more lines into the display by decreasing the font size.Similarly to other Sony Ericsson's models, the S500i utilizes mirror layer that improves its readability while in the sun and allows its picture to stay crisp and visible.


The keypad has suffered some transformations to the Sony Ericsson W580i,and it looks more conventional.The keypad is flat and shiny: probably not the best for texting, but pleasing to the eye. The best is yet to come though: wait for an incoming call and the phone really comes alive with sensational lighting effects.The numeric keys are made of plastic and mounted in horizontal rows.All buttons are lit in white, which is well-visible in various environments.

The Sony Ericsson S500i has a 930 mAh Li-Pol battery. As the manufacturer claims, with this the S500i provides up to 350 hours of standby and up to 9 hours of talk time.To recharge the battery completely takes around 1.5 hours.

When you plug the USB cable into the phone you are asked to pick a connection type:you can either manage the data on the phone memory or activate Print mode.The phone has USB 2.0,and if you want you can turn the S500i into a modem.The phone has EDR enabled Bluetooth 2.0.The handset has support for all profiles including A2DP.The phone has an internal memory of just 18 Mb,but the retail packge contains a memory card.The maximum size for a memory card is 2 Gb.

From the launch of the Sony Ericsson W850i ,Sony Ericsson has been into light effects, and the S500i is just another step up in this direction. The phone's side-plates retain LEDs that can generate various combinations of light effects and differ both in terms of color and rhythm. When the S500i is flicked open, all this looks more appealing, but these effects can be seen with the device zipped closed as well. The keys on the front fact swap backlighting in a similar fashion. Though you can't pick or setup these effects, you can enjoy only those coming pre-installed with the handset. Nevertheless with 22 of them, there is quite a pool to select from, so no one will leave without an own theme. Plus you are enabled to bind up a personal light effect with a contact in your phonebook.

The main menu is a grid of 12 icons ,the company has installed a theme that will show the main menu in a horizontally laid out menu. You can assign shortcuts to all most every menu item.Like most Sony Ericsson phones the S500i has the "Activity Menu" ,here you can see the first three tabs that display various events, like missed calls, memos, messages. One can disable Activity Menu for these events as well - in this case pop up windows, reminding of a certain event type will appear on the screen. The third tab features the shortcuts, which you should set up yourself. And the added fourth one contains links to the most frequently used applications and resources -and the top of this list is Google search. The user is able to have up to eight Java-applications launched simultaneously and switch between them. This may come in handy, in case you use an ICQ-esque mobile client, which should be constantly online, and at the same time want to play a Java-game, listen to music or radio.Until now the competion hasn't announced anything simillar to this solution.

The S500i is has various themes and the wallpaper that changes depending on time of the day,the phone comes with three pre-installed themes, which are all flash-based and modify the main menu view and its layout. These themes are very interesting, vibro-effects trigger when navigating through the menu, and some themes modify position of track information windows in standby.

The phonebook can store up to 1000 contacts This is enough even for the most active users, as only few have more than 500 entries in their phonebooks.For each contact you can submit address,email,IM number..etc.Contacts can be sorted by fields, including name and surname, but only one input field. Unlike previous models, this time we have dynamics on - handset automatically sorts the list after changes.Date of birth of each contact can be synchronized with the Organizer, at that you will have a chance to set how many days prior to the event the handset should remind you. Voice tags can be added for required phone numbers, names, there can be up to 40 of them. Voice dialing remained the way it was many months ago, it starts looking archaic with all these voice independent recognition software being implemented by the competitors.You can create a back-up copy of all entries in phonebook, which will be stored on the memory card. Any video clip may be used as Caller ID for a contact in your phonebook. Also any contact many be assigned to one of the light effects.
In the message section everything is standard like any other Sony Ericsson phone.The MMS implementation is as always great, you can create video clips, there are lots of settings and this is one of those things that give SE's product a cutting edge over competitors. E-Mail client can send and receive e-mails, all sorts of encodings are supported. The emails can be stored on memory card.The phone doesn't recognize office files or PDF, but they can be stored in any directory. Emails with 6-7 Mb attachments can be sent without any problems.The phone supports Push Mail standard. Of course send & receive process is carried out in background mode.

Entertainment :
From this part of the menu you can easily access photos,music files and other media.Like all new SE phones this ones has the three applications MusicDJ, VideoDJ and PhotoDJ .


In the MusicDj application you can edit/modify music files ,create ringtones..etc. VideoDj is a more evolved version of the MusicDj it allows editing not only music files, but also adding images and signs. The resulting file is recorded in .3GP file which can be sent by MMS or Email.PhotoDj allows you to modify existing photos or just draw new ones,at the same time you can add different effects or remove red-eyes effect ,adjusting brightness..etc.This phone has only one preinstalled game - Tennis , of course you can install you're favorite games at any time. The sound can be recorded by the Sound Recorder application - it allows making clips that can be later used as ring tones. Phone calls can be recorded too, this is done from context menu, no time limits are set for the Sound Recorder,only the amount of available memory.

The S500i has two pre-installed games : the Sims2, and Lumines Block Challenge.

Organizer

Again here everything is pretty standard and it's just like any other SE phone.Let's talk at first about the calendar:Like in the W800 there are three ways of viewing the events on the calendar : weekly, monthly and daily.The next function is "To do list" which has two types of events: phone call and reminder.The device has a search function for the calendar : you type a word and the phone shows you all events that match that word.This feature is quite nice and also has a good speed.
Another feature found in the Organize is the Notes function.


The phone supports notes entry, though they are limited in length. The name of the note you see on the list will be first word entered.Like any other phone the K810i, has the Alarm Clock where you have access to 5 alarm clocks.Besides the ring tone for alarm clock you can select small note and picture, they will be displayed when alarm clock goes on. Any music file can be assigned as the alarm tone.
Then let's see the Stopwatch/Countdown-everything is standard here and is no different from any other mobile phone.
The phone also has an application for storing secret codes, which had a huge success in previous models.The last function of the organizer is the calculator which has standard functions.

WAP


Standard browser for Sony Ericsson phones is NetFront which supports single-column web pages display and HTML. One of the best things about it, is the ability to create folders with files and bookmarks. The browser is considered to be one of the market's best offerings, but limited phone resources do it no favors.


The browser also supports RSS feeds allowing you to read the news or any other articles that you like. HTML pages that contain advanced formatting or exceed 500kb in their size will not be displayed
In the Settings menu you can find all settings related to the phone and everything here is pretty standard(change themes,set the clock,display settings..etc)

The user has around 18 MB of internal and a M2 memory card that comes with the retail package.The remaining memory is occupied by preinstalled applications, which cannot be wiped. Part of memory is dedicated to phonebook, call lists, etc.The phone can also be used as a storage device and there are no problems in copying on the phone files that can't be opened.


File sorting includes the following options: date, type and size. A new setting has appeard in the Image Gallery called Timeline, after you activate it you will see a bar on which months will be shown. And in lists you will see photos that were made during this or that month. You can make the list more detailed by pressing the same key twice, in that case you will see days instead of months, meaning that photos will be sorted in the following structure: list of images made on October 6th, for example.The handset comes with3 extra applications - PhotoMate (another picture editor ), FaceWarp (wraps faces), HP Print.The video player is in a different menu than the music player,a new feature is that the player can play QVGA-clips at 30 frames per second, progressive fast-forward feature, landscape mode switcher, auto-scaling of high resolutions down to the display's size.The S500i comes with two preinstalled with two applications: AccuWeather, wich allows checking out weather forecast, and Audible, enabling access to Audible.com library, where you can upload various books in some European languages. First 30 days in the library are free, then it charges around 8 USD monthly.


Although it's not a Walkman phone, the S500i does has a good quality music player.The music player supports the following audio formats : MP3, AAC, AAC+, E-AAC+, WAV, WMA and m4a. There are no limitations on bit rates; you can also upload files with VBR. The company recommends using files with 192 Kbit/s bit rate.

Camera

The S500i has a2 Megapixel camera with a CMOS matrix without auto-focus. The supported resolutions are: 1632x1224, 640x480 and 160x120 pixels. The photos differ in size almost everytime depending on the resolution. Thus a photo in the Normal mode takes up about 300 KB while the Fine quality results in 500-600 KB. Saving a photo takes the same time not depending on chosen type and makes about 1-2 seconds, and that is quite speedy for such file size. When taking several photos one after another then you'll notice slight slowdowns (up to 3-4 seconds). The camera has a lot of setting for you to play with.Another minus for the camera settings is the fact that Sony Ericsson doesn't offer the posibility to turn off the shutter sound,you can choose from three different sounds but you can't turn it off.The videos can be recorded in two available resolutions : 176x144 and 128x96,and the file is saved in 3Gp format.Clip duration may be limited (up to 10 seconds) or unlimited.

 

Below you have two photos taken with the S500i :

(click on a image to enlarge)

Conclusions


The device has a price tag of 400-420 USD, which is a lot for this type of phone. At the same time, banking on the emotional components, the maker is not after tremendous sales of the S500i. The S500i offers a good level of functionality, including all the essentials, and it looks beautiful. It's unlikely to be a huge seller, so it should appeal to people who want to stand out from the crowd and own something a little bit special. Sony Ericsson says that any slider that appeals to you personally with design and suite of features qualifies as a rival to the Sony Ericsson S500i.

Below you can watch some videos about the new Sony Ericsson S500i :