Well, no one beats Sony Ericsson on style and design!
But, until the launch of the Z550i, this was mainly restricted to its high-end, high-cost phones. The Z550i from Sony Ericsson has broken this so-called price-looks barrier.
Z550i has a bouquet of features to boast about among your friends! Along with the normal options that allow you to communicate, it offers you almost all the goodies you would wish to have in a present-day decent phone - a very good camera (with zoom!), radio, Bluetooth, USB and Internet connectivity, media player, expandable memory, image and audio/video editing tools - and all these at a decent, affordable price.
I won’t like to go into the detailed technical specifications of this phone (the official website has them all mentioned). But I will definitely make a mention some of the more notable and interesting things about this ’Star Performer’ from Sony Ericsson.
I will start with its price. If you are looking for a good ’clamshell’ phone within the 7K to 10K price range, the Z550i is what you would like to get your hands on. I bought this phone about a month ago for around Rs.8100/- (with bill and warranty). Depending on the dealer in your area, the price may vary from Rs.8000/- to Rs.8500/-.
The phone comes with a good-quality handsfree, standard charger, and user manual.
As I stated at the beginning of this review, the Z550i scores highly on its looks. It is a clamshell phone with a two-tone, metallic design that instantly gives it a classy, more professional look. It comes in two colors - Sterling Black and Pearl Copper. The phone weighs only about 92.5 gm and is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.
The keypad is quite well-spaced and easy-to-use (no more pains for your finger tips).
The Z550i features an internal and an external display. The internal display is a sufficiently large 176x220 pixel (1.9-inch), 256K-colour TFT screen that allows you to enjoy your photos and videos with clarity. The external display is a monochrome 128x36 screen that aptly fulfills its purpose of an indicator - for displaying time, battery life, new messages, missed calls, volume and other status messages like the profile and alarms.
One of the most striking feature of this phone is the camera - not that other phones don’t have an equivalent camera - but because the price at which it is provided. The Z550i has a very good 1.3 MegaPixel camera and offers resolutions of 1280x1024, 640x480 and 160x120.
You can even zoom up to 4 times (4X zoom) at lower resolutions. (I wish they could have provided the zooming option at the highest resolution too!) It has a Night Mode, Self-timer, and three Shoot Modes that let you capture photos in Panorama, Frames and Burst modes.
It also provides other options like the Black and White, and Sepia effects for that nostalgic effect!
Although the camera works well in normal lighting conditions, don’t expect the same quality under low or poor lighting conditions. It also lacks a flash, but that’s surpassable considering the phone’s price.
It also includes a fairly decent video recorder - obviously it can’t match a Sony Camcorder :) - with video sizes of 176x144 and 128x96.
The media player plays both, songs and videos. It comes with an equalizer and also lets you create your own playlists. It supports the more popular MP3, MP4, and 3GP formats along with several other music formats. The nice thing is, it allows you to minimize the player, so you can continue using the phone for other purposes without stopping the music.
It includes a radio (with RDS) and has a good reception quality.
It supports different applications and features Sony Ericsson’s proprietary tools such as PhotoDJ, MusicDJ and VideoDJ. So you can add your own touch to the photos, songs and videos!
The phone supports 40-polyphonic ringtones. Plus, you can always set your mp3 songs as a substitute.
Z550i comes with a 1000-entry phonebook that allows you to store up to five numbers for a contact. Plus, you can also store other details including email, web address, and even attach a photo.
The Organizer has all the normal options including alarm, calculator, calendar, stopwatch, and so on.
The connectivity provided is also good. You can use Bluetooth or USB to transfer your data. But you will need to but the Bluetooth dongle or the USB data cable separately.
The phone has a built-in memory of 25 MB. But you can always add up to 2 GB of external memory. The Z550i supports the new Micro Memory (M2) format from Sony. You will need to buy the memory card separately. (M2 memory, being the latest entrant from Sony, is a bit expensive in India.)
One interesting feature that Z550i offers is the Code Memo. It is a place where you can store all your important numbers such as credit card number, etc., with password protection. It might not be the best place to store such information, but nevertheless, the phone gives you the option.
The phone has a decent battery life and can survive for about 2 to 2.5 days with normal usage.
Now that I have stated most of the interesting and positive features, I would like to add a couple of glitches that I have personally experienced.
Even though the sound reception quality is exceptionally good, the sound output of the earpiece and the speaker phone is not very good - especially the earpiece. The earpiece volume is terribly low, even at maximum volume. But at the same time, if you use the handsfree, the same sound reception is good. This might be a one-off case, but I still thought of noting it down here. The speaker volume is also not that great.
All in all, the Sony Ericsson Z550i is a ’Value for Money’ phone - literally!