So overall I have got to say I like it. It’s got a usable keypad, it’s not huge in size, the screen is nice (albeit nothing to shout home about, at least in prototype form. I still prefer the Sony-Ericsson s700i by miles). One other important navigational aid, the thumbstick, is also OK. Not brilliant, but OK. It’s way better than the slimy SX1 and not as good as the Sony Ericsson 800/900 series knobs. Why oh why don’t folks put a non slip coating on the tip of these things, it’s so much easier to use? Didn’t get the chance to try out browsing or music shopping (oh yes there’s a music shop button in there, are you surprised?) so can’t comment on the Internet performance, but the specs suggest it should be cool. Ditto the inbuilt audio equalizer or visualization features, but hey this is a preview right?

Question marks? The battery life under full load. Also the quality of the camera – take a look on the next page at the sample gallery of pics I took. To be honest they’re not superb. Subjectively I reckon the SE s700i again out-does the N91 picture quality on all fronts, 2.0 megapixels or no. Maybe this too is a prototype thing and the final product will have much better resolution, but I was frankly not hugely impressed. The final question must rest with robustness. Shoving a hard drive into a handset is a bold move, and only time will tell whether it’s one that pays off, or comes unstuck in terms of reliability and resilience. OK,  so music players with hard drives seem to do all right, but mobile phones are probably the most abused piece of consumer tech ever; shoved on table tops, car dashboards, dropped out of pockets, spilled on, you name it. Watch the forums for reports next year!

Continue Reading… 1 2 3 [View All]