SONYERRICSON Z550i is the best in its category with a 1.3 megapixel camera. The Z550i is a bit small and thus lighter weighing just 93 grams with dimensions 87.5 x 45.4 x 20 mm. The Z550i has a 256K TFT color screen on the inside and a mono-display on the outside. The external mono-display does well displaying the time, name of the contact or number of the incoming call, FM Radio Station, and alerts (message, missed call, reminders, etc.) The inner screen is good and looks very pleasant to the eyes. The screen is a bit small as the phone is small.
The phone has a good finish; the two color metallic finish is very appealing. On opening the phone you will notice the 5-way D-Pad and the clean keypad. The phone has a well spaced-out keypad, but not much friendly . The keys are smaller because of the overall dimensions of the phone but it doesn’t pose a problem typing out messages. The phone only has a volume controller on the outside and you have to open the flip even to cancel a call. But you can turn off the ringer or the vibratory alert by just hitting the volume key.
The phone supports Sony Memory Micro M2, which is pretty expensive at the moment since it’s a new type of memory from Sony and 1 GB is the highest capacity available (max capacity will increase in time.) The memory card slot is placed under the battery cover but not under the battery that makes it hot-swappable, just like the Nokia 6131. The phone has a music player and an FM tuner as well; something most people in our country look for in a phone. The FM reception is pretty good but if you are not much of a radio type of a guy in terms of music then you can always opt for your own selection of music by slotting in a memory card or else you’ll have to deal with just 20 MB. The music player of the phone is similar to the player in the Walkman series but misses all the special goodies like the MegaBass preset and the typical orange color skin of the player.
The player can be minimized and you can continue using the other features of the phone.
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Connectivity
The Z550i falls behind when it comes to the connectivity options of the phone. The Z550i just has a simple v1.1 Bluetooth and USB via the pop-port. The Z550i has only GPRS for browsing; it is a Class 10 GPRS so don’t put your hopes down but nevertheless it won’t be as fast as EDGE. The pop-port USB connection is slow as pop-ports only support USB 1.1. The USB Cable is not provided along with the phone, you have to purchase it as an accessory
The phone has a 5-way D-Pad, which helps navigating through the menus easily. The menus are very smooth and the bubbling icons whenever highlighted look good. Filling up the internal memory of the phone will call for a slight decrease in the load times of the sub-menus.
But then that’s the case with all the phones. There is the alternative way of navigating through the menus seen in all east-side phones; the keypad. Once you get used to navigating through the menus using the keypad, you will prefer it over the D-Pad. The themes of the phone are animated and the moving image on the main screen looks good.
The Z550i comes with a standard Li-Ion battery. The battery life of the phone is still high because of the external mono-display. The internal screen of the phone is also small, which adds to the long battery life. The phone can run for two to three days without the need to charge with average talk periods. The company specifies a talk-time of 5 hours and standby time of 320 hours. The phone does well keeping up with the 5 hours of talk-time.