Sony Ericsson S700i
looks even more like digital camera than a normal cellular. Well, that was one of the reasons why I took this phone in the first place. This phone looks elegant, shinny, luxury, and FAT.The sliding mechanism that has become the trade mark of this phone is the other thing that makes
Sony Ericsson S700i
work even better for our daily activity. Every time you receive call or want to do text messaging, the first thing to do would be holding the back body of this phone and sliding it either to the left or right direction until it hits the low position. But you can also do a half slide to the left of the phone if you only want to open application or game, which is more relaxing than the full sliding.
- Type: Sony Ericsson S700i
- Release Date: 2004, March
- Price Purchased: 23.99 Euro
- Manufacturer: Sony Ericsson
Readers' Score
NextPhones4u Score
Phone Specs: 240 X 320 pixels, 2.3 inches, 32 MB internal memory, Memory Stick Duo up to 128 MB (sold separately), See full specs .
- Pros
- Strong D-Pad; Pretty good battery life; Elegant "digital camera" design; Design is suitable for gaming
- Cons
- Outdated java version; Too heavy; Fat Design; Cannot play the latest 3D games such as: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 3D java
- Bottomline
- Bottom line,Bottom line, if you want to taste the feeling of holding digital camera look-a-like cell phone, Sony Ericsson S700i can be your best destination.
Although Sony Ericsson S700i is considered as an old phone, even outdated, but the whole quality of this phone cannot be underestimated. The design of this phone is one of the best things of this phone. The quality of its multimedia and entertainment is also the thing that makes Sony Ericsson company proud when launching this phone to the market. This phone is definitely an old phone, but Sony Ericsson S700i is one of the phones that will make the owner proud to show it off in front of the public.
Phone Specification
Sony Ericsson S700i is built as a 2G Network with the 240 X 320 pixels screen resolution. Has a weight of 137 g and dimension 107 x 49 x 24 mm, this phone feels heavy when being hold but it’s worth it with the quality of the whole external design and also with the feeling of holding the digital camera phone.
Launched in March 2004, this phone is still the phone that can follow the nowadays’ trend without leaving its own identity, a digital camera look-a-like phone. Its design has also become the anchor prototype for Sony Ericsson, to design other new phones that look similar with the predecessor.
For instance, you can take a look at 2 Sony Ericsson Walkman phones, W900 and W910, which are designed in the same framework design as Sony Ericsson S700i. With 2.3 inch screen size makes this phone’s screen stand out amongst the phone body.
Built with the 32 MB internal memory doesn’t make this phone lack of capacity. Since many applications and games that are supported for this phone are not really heavy in size, 32 MB feels way too big actually. But if you feel that you need another space for your photos and videos collection, you can opt to buy the external Memory Stick Duo up to 128 MB at the phone shops.
Sony Ericsson S700i supports MP3 ringtones, composer, Bluetooth, infrared, USB, FM Radio, MP4 player, Voice command, Wallpapers, and screensavers.
For internet connection, you will be provided with GPRS Class 10 and already built in browser with WAP 2.0/xHTML support. Opera mini can also be another alternative if you are already familiar with this tiny but powerful application.
Want to capture the best moment into the memorable photos or videos? You should be happy because as I said earlier, this phone looked more like a digital camera than just normal cell phone. That’s why this phone is designed as if this phone is the alternative option for digital camera users with an extra package of phone functionality.
With the primary camera that has the strength for about 1.3 MP, the quality of the camera when taking pictures or recording videos can still be considered as good enough if it's compared with the same other phones that are launched together with Sony Ericsson S700i. But compared to the latest benchmark of camera quality in the recent years, which is around 2 – 5 MP, this phone will lose in the battle.
For multimedia and entertainment, Sony Ericsson S700i is already injected with 3 standard games, such as Darts, Extreme AirShow, and Tennis which are pretty enjoying to play. But more are downloadable across the internet.
Design
Design is the main thing that makes this phone stand out between the similar competitors. Its digital camera “look-a-like” design makes everything elegant and luxury around this phone although this phone is an outdated phone. Its rounded corner side of this phone looks and feels perfect around the phone. Its silver color also pulls up Sony Ericsson S700i to the top against the competitors and makes the owners proud when showing it off to the people.
Phone Accessories
When getting this phone from at the phone shop as a complete package, you will receive 1 phone charger, 1 PC Suite, manual books, and 1 earphone. External memory is excluded, but it can be found freely around the phone accessories shops.
Performance
For performance, this phone has the same and standard quality of other similar devices from Sony Ericsson. It’s still smoothly and responsive either in the Menu window or other windows.
Interface and Functionality
Sony Ericsson S700i has been built with powerful D-pad, so it’s fair to say that you don’t need to worry about the future of the D-Pad. The other phone buttons are also strong in implementation.
For camera aspect, this phone has some specialty compared to other phones. To enter to the camera window, you just need to move the sliding button of camera to the right side, and also to the left side to close the camera function back to normal.
Multimedia and Entertainment
For multimedia and entertainment, Sony Ericsson has already provided the owners with many fun aspects of the phone. If you love writing a song in your spare time, you can now have a comfortable platform to get ideas with DJ Ringtone composer. Once you are familiar to use this application, you can easily put all the instruments and wrap them up into the cool ringtone.
The music might not be the pride of this phone, because its volume sounds pretty low even if I put the volume bar to the highest, but at least, it can play your favorite MP3 songs. Video format of mobile, 3GP is also supported on this phone.
Gaming Compatibility
Its java MIDP version is an older version of MIDP 2.0, but it still can play high quality java games such as Motoraver 3D from Fishlabs, and other standard Gameloft games that have the small data size (under the 400 kb). But the problem arrives when it runs one Fishlabs game called “Blades and Magic 3D”. It can play the first story, but when it starts the game or enters to the map, the game freezes for no reason. Maybe it’s because of its older MIDP version of java platform.
I personally already asked the Sony Ericsson customer service via email regarding its incompatibility to run some higher quality applications. They said, this phone's firmware version is still the older one which can be upgraded with SE software update, but the quality of its java platform will remain the same. So if you are really a gamer, I suggest you to stay away from Sony Ericsson S700i, while you might finally regret of buying it.
Battery Life
For the endurance of battery life, this phone has the same and standard quality as other similar devices. With the standard battery, Li-Ion, its Stand-by mode can last up to 300 hours with the talk time period lasts up to 7 hours. In implementation, Sony Ericsson always has the best battery department, therefore, the battery life of this phone will last more than 5 – 7 hours in total with hardcore usage, either for gaming, music, and necessary talk time.
Conclusion
Its design is top notch, and overall quality is still the standard mobile phone. But it lacks of quality on java platform (older MIDP 2.0) and its inability to be upgraded make this phone outdated around the nowadays’ market.
Check out Sony Ericsson S700i at Amazon to get the special price for Euro 23.99.
*Although this phone can be a digital cell phone, i believe you will find Sony Ericsson 910i can be another great alternative for this phone. Its design looks slightly similar with S700, but W910 has more advanced features than S700.
