And I don't know about you, but I have set my eyes on the Vivaz. The specs+price combo is too good to ignore! Anyway, here's an extract of their views:
Sony Ericsson is an alliance of two tech giants and with phones like the Vivaz it shows. It’s a gadget all the way, one that will galvanize geeks and charm the regular user.
Eight megapixel still images and 720p video with continuous auto focus make the Sony Ericsson Vivaz a predator of point-and-shoot cameras. The Vivaz is not just a cameraphone though, it’s a smartphone as well – a tricked out Symbian running on a 720MHz CPU with a 3.2” nHD display to show it all off. That’s all in a package more compact than any combination of a stand-alone camera and a phone you can think of.
Here's a video showing the user interface of the Vivaz:
The recent trend in Sony Ericsson design – the curved back – makes another appearance on the Vivaz. It helps the phone fit snugly in your palm, and the device feels even more compact and friendly.
Most of the front of the Vivaz is taken up by the 3.2" touchscreen with a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels. The resistive unit supports up to 16M colors and is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the device. It has nice picture quality with excellent contrast for a TFT unit.Resistive displays generally need more pressure to get a click registered. As we found out though, the Vivaz screen response is excellent. The resistive technology is certainly not a drawback here.
The Sony Ericsson Vivaz isn't the loudest of them handset as far as headphones volume is concerned. However when subjected to our traditional audio quality test it showed a decent overall performance with even a few excellent marks here and there.
The Sony Ericsson Vivaz packs an 8-megapixel camera and is capable of taking photos of up to 3264 x 2448 pixels. It also sports a LED flash, but its serves video better than the still images.
Sony Ericsson Vivaz produces splendid photos. The colors are vibrant and rich (too bad we don't have the weather to prove it), the amount of resolved detail is very good and the noise levels are low.
Here's a cam sample:
Just click on the image to see it full size.
Here's a cam sample:
The Sony Ericsson Vivaz captures 720p videos at 24 fps, venturing to kick the Samsung Omnia HD out of its complacency.
Probably the best new feature of the Vivaz is the continuous auto focus during video recording. That's definitely a first for any cameraphone and it allows it to act just like a dedicated video camera.
Here's a video showing continuous autofocus in video recording. Pretty neat!
The Sony Ericsson Vivaz has an edge over Omnia HD in audio recording too. Currently, the Vivaz videos use AAC audio with 48kHz sampling rate, while those by the Omnia HD have a sampling rate of 16kHz. And you can definitely tell the difference.
Final Words
Sony Ericsson have been limping on profits lately but their ambitions seem to not have suffered one bit. There is the Satio, now the Vivaz and with the XPERIA X10 on its way, the company is gaining a firm foothold in the high-end segment.
Some people scoff at the sight of Symbian but Sony Ericsson's work on the homescreen and their signature media menu, you can spend quite some time using the phone before you actually come down to the slightly off-putting S60 5th UI.
The size of the display might seem inadequate next to the awe-inspiring HTC HD2. The Vivaz though was built to be compact and screen size was dictated by pocketability, not the other way around.
The interface and screen size are pretty much the things for anyone to complain about. The display is sensitive, the CPU is speedy and the camera is excellent - and hard to beat really. So, the phone is great, but this doesn't mean much until you have a good look at the competition as well.
Comparisons between the Sony Ericsson Vivaz and the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD are inevitable. Symbian and 720p video make the two the bitterest of rivals. Samsung have had plenty of time to chisel out some of the problems the Omnia HD had at launch - audio quality and framerate issues in videos. The audio they fixed early on by switching to AAC, but video is still struggling to make it to 24 frames per second.
The Vivaz has its issues as well, but at least it's capable of delivering all 24 fps - and the HD video recording is quite promising. Sony Ericsson's take on Symbian feels more refined too - the homescreens are simple to use but offer all the basic functionality you need and we always liked the custom media menu - especially in its touch-enabled form. Plus the Vivaz feels zippier than the Omnia HD.
It's safe to say there is no phone just like the Sony Ericsson Vivaz - the competition is a thing or two short or has a thing or two in its favor. For a bigger screen, you'd have to give up either the smooth video recording or go with an OS that barely ranks in terms of market share. The other option is to wait for phones that haven't even been officially confirmed yet.
The Sony Ericsson Vivaz design team knew what they wanted right from the start and they have achieved their goal. When the Vivaz hits the stores, there will be a line a mile long of Sony Ericsson fans queing for it but, more importantly, there will probably be quite a few new converts as well.
Read the complete review of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz
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