Sony Ericsson Z600 Cellular Phone (Unlocked) 

Rating:
Summary: Good, but better is out there
Review: I bought this in Asia back in March. Bottom line: Its a decent phone but not the best phone; there are definitely better models out there, depending on what you're looking for.

I bought this phone because I do a lot of international travel and wanted a tri-band phone...got sick of renting phones, using pay phones, or high-priced hotel room phones. Besides the tri-band feature, there were other things I was looking for:

--Design and size. I like a small phone that fits in my front pocket. I prefer the clam-shell design so buttons don't get pushed accidently. The phone is slightly chunky but it still fits well; its small enough to put both the phone and my digital camera in my front pocket.

--Ergonomics. This is what set apart the Z600 from other phones of similar design. The phone feels natural and comfortable in my hand, unlike my previous StarTac which felt uncomfortable if you spoke for more than 10 minutes. The rounded edges feel very smooth. The buttons are also large enough and elevated--try all the other phones and they're flat, making it noticeably more difficult to push. Small size and design are worthless if a phone isn't usable, and in this area the Z600 rocks.

--Tri-band / SIM card capability. I can use anywhere on the planet, as long as I buy a local SIMM card.

--Ease of Menu. Menu is easy to navigate and understand. With few exceptions, I rarely needed to consult the instruction manual.

--Big, bright screen. With 65,000 colors, this display is top notch (though note the exception with pics, below). Like most others, not too good in direct sunlight.

--Long battery life. Talk time lasts hours; phone can last over a week if you don't talk much.

Other Features

--Bluetooth enabled, though I don't use it (yet)
--WAP/Internet
--The alarm rocks--very good
--Camera. Flat out, the camera sucks. Yes, most mobile phone cameras leave a lot to be desired, but this one is among the worst I have seen. If you want a decent camera, definitely get a different model.
--Switchable faceplate. Kinda cool--if you want your phone to be a different color, you can buy a different colored plate for about $5-$10 a pop.


Here are things that I wish this phone came with:

--Larger memory. My SMS / Text messages fill up pretty quickly
--MP3 downloadability and playback. Not too useful without the larger memory anyway, but being able to download MP3's (or just about anything else) would have been a nice feature.
--Movie capture and playback. As above, useless without the larger memory anyway.

Biggest complaint is that its not very sturdy. The phone's alarm is so powerful, it will vibrate off the nightstand...fell to the floor just once and the clamshell is already loose, plus every now and then I have a minor 'glitch'. Obviously no one should drop their mobile, but these things happen.

So, the pros:

--Great ergonomics
--Portable size
--Easy navigation through a lot of great features
--Bright, colorful screen
--Awesome battery life


And the cons:

--Camera image quality is lousy
--Not enough memory (for SMS's)
--Fragile

Overall, as I've invested a lot in this phone, I'm fairly happy with it...but depending on your preferences, there are definitely better phones out there. If I lost my phone and had to replace it today, I'd get a different one.

--JN

Rating:
Summary: z600 - a magical box of tricks
Review: I recently upgraded my mobile contract and essentially traded my Sony Ericsson T65 for the shiny new z600. I was looking for a phone with all the mod-cons and on which I could use the various accessories I bought for the t65 (Sony Ericsson Mp3 handsfree kit; BodyGlove Earglove handsfree).

I had already shopped around, always preferring Sony Ericsson to the other brands; in fact the z600 is my 4th Ericsson following stints with the old GH688, T10 and t65. I knew the z600 would fulfill all the requirements I had as well as having the extra features such as the camera and the full colour screen, the polyphonic ringtones and the active flip function, all of which were bonuses as far as I was concerned.

I've had the phone a week now and I am loving it more and more every day. Sure, as other reviewers have mentioned, the camera is not great quality being mostly a VGA-resolution camera, but that's because it's in a cellphone. If you want great resolution, buy a proper digital camera. I'll admit I've never seen the purpose of having cameras in cellphones anyway so the camera was the least of my worries. What was important to me is that the phone is stylish (very stylish - well done, designers), functional (and they manage to put the fun into functional with the camera and the polyphonic tones and the themes and the screensaver and the cool games all on-board), durable and has a decent standby time - in this case, 300 hours with 9 hours talktime, according to Sony.

The phone is also Bluetooth ready (in fact, mine came with a free Bluetooth Ericsson "akono" headset), has an infrared port for direct transfer between two phones or your phone and your laptop or PDA and is GPRS and MMS enabled.

Speaker quality is great, the ringtones are wacky and good fun and the phone is very easy to use, especially if you're au fait with Ericsson's usual menu structure.

I'm absolutely ecstatic with mine.

Dale
UCT