I’ve owned this phone for about a year now, and I have it on a monthly contract. I purchased it online, as it was well priced, plus I had read some positive reviews. Mine is black.
PHONE BUILD
The SE C510 is a nice size, and especially slim, which is handy as it slides into a pocket easily. The phone screen takes up around half of the front of the phone, which makes it a more than reasonable in size. This, however, means that the keypad is compressed so fit in a small space, which is fine for me, but users with larger fingers may have problems pressing the keys, especially when writing texts.
A nice feature on the back of the phoneis the aluminium lens cover, which can be slid back when the camera needs to be used. I like this feature as it protects the lens from damage and dirt, and you don’t need to worry when putting the phone into your pocket. The lens cover seems very sturdy too.
On the right-hand side of the phone, where is the camera button, which is used just the same as a digital camera, i.e, half press down to focus, fully press to take the picture.
On the left-hand side of the phone, you will find the mains charger connector, along with a protected slot for memory card usage.
Overall, the C510 has quite a smart appearance for a candy-bar phone, and the shape is a benefit, as it is more practical than some large touch screen modern phones.
NAVIGATION
Navigating around the phone is simple, mainly due to the bright colourful menu, which displays all the phone features on the screen at once, so there is no need to scroll through them all, like in old phones.
ENTERTAINMENT
Highlights of the phone’s features include the Entertainment centre, where you can find games, record sounds, play with music/photo/video dj(which allow you to edit your content), and use the location services. The location service is similar to Google Maps, although, the C510 doesn’t have GPRS, so the image displayed on the screen is an approximate of where your location. The games are fairly basic, but enjoyable all the same. My favourite is "Bubble Town", which is similar to Tetris, apart from you are firing bubbles upwards, with the aim of matching colours. It has provided me with something to do when waiting for a bus/train, or on my lunch break several times.
MEDIA
Back to the menu, you can also access the Media section of the phone, where you can simply view you photos and videos, as well as listen to your music. You can access the games from here too.
ORGANISER
Other features from the menu include and organiser, which in my opinion is quite a nice, and handy feature to the phone. It includes a calendar, task list, a note section, a timer, a stopwatch and calculator. Again, I have found these useful when out and about, as I like to be organised. I can add tasks to the task list, to make sure I have completed everything I need to that day/week, as well as adding appointments to the calendar. There is also an option here to start a video call, with the help of the tiny camera lens on the front of the phone.
The alarm feature on the phone is self explanatory. It is simple to use, and multiple alarms can be set at once.
MESSAGING
Messaging using the C510 is straight forward. You can send standard texts, picture messages, and e-mails(which you must set up beforehand). The phone automatically saves your sent messages, unless changes int the settings. I like the fact the phone keeps my sent messages, as reading old ones every known and again is quite interesting. Messages take up barely any memory at all, unless of course they contain images or video content, so I have kept all my messages - hundreds!
The C510 also includes a radio, which can be used by connecting the handsfree cord. I personally don’t use my phone for listening to the radio, so I can’t comment on this.
CAMERA
The camera is 3.2 megapixels which is fair. It claims, to be "cyber-shot", but I don’t expect it to replace your digital camera. There are a variety of adjustable settings, such as night mode, adjustments for weather, flash, self timer, and special effects such as black & whiter, sepia, negative etc. So it has the basic features that a digital camera would have.
You can turn the phone onto it’s side, so you can use the camera button(mentioned earlier to take the pictures, or video). This is when the accelerometer kicks in, and flips the screen round so the display is horizontal, like a digital camera.
Outside in bright surroundings, the camera takes some good quality photos, which remain looking good when viewed on a computer screen. However, I found the photos taken in darker conditions, such as inside at night, can com out a little dull. The flash is useful to use when taking a photo of something quite close to the lens, but otherwise it isn’t the best. Similarly, video is reproduced at better quality in brighter surroundings.
INTERNET
When I bought the phone, I contacted and signed up for a monthly internet bundle, which gave me access to 250mb of internet content per months, for a set price. It worked well for a while, and web pages loaded at a reasonable speed. However, after a good few months, my phone refused to connect to the internet. And the only solution they finally came up with was converting my phone to 2G, rather than 3G, which would then solve the problem of connecting to the internet. However, when I did this, images and parts of the we pages didn’t load properly, so I decided to cancel the monthly internet bundle. Wether this is a problem just for Sony Ericsson, who knows.
CONCLUSION
The Sony Ericsson C510 is a nice, smart phone, which meets the needs for those looking for a mobile that can make calls, store contacts, and send messages easily. The camera has a good variety of features, although it can struggle in darker surroundings, which is disappointing for a modern phone. However, I do believe this mobile was designed to be fairly basic, whilst providing an array of features.