Sony Ericsson Z500
Average Ratings
Is Decent
This is a large phone with a funny shape and the external caller id is like a lent collector and the internal LCD is small. But this is a phone @ retail $159 and you get a camera and recorder. Thats a big plus and you can clean the LCD. You get what you pay for.
LOVING this phone
I have read other reviews, and after owning this phone for less than 24 hours, here is what I can offer:
Cons:
The battery life is AWFUL! I will need to recharge soon!
The pics aren't great, but better than anything else I have, and hey! I bought this to be my phone, not my camera. So no biggie for me.
The keys are little bit clumsy to use--could definitely be raised more.
the pros?
Light weight
Dual-color screens
speaker phone
loud ring tones
easy to learn menu and navigation system
customizable ring tones
in general-ring tones that don't make you JUMP every time they go off.
Will update after I've owned it for a while, but am seriously in rose colored glasses stage...
LOVE IT!
The only reason I'm not giving it a full 5 rating: battery life. Really... sucks....
Only real issue I have.
Paid very little for it, and included a rebate. I think today was the last day to purchase it with the rebate...
good for what I want
Thought through cell phone issue carefully.
I needed a phone with good reception and good sound.
Dismissed the headset / hands free idea because...well...I did not want to look like a "Borg" on star trek...So I wanted a speaker phone.
Great reception, great speaker phone (although being able to put it on speaker before making a connection would be nice), camera good enough for what I want (bought the cable for connection to pc).
Found a good ring tone on the cingular site, and thats all I wanted.
I set it into a "Fast forward" cradle most of the time to cut down on minutes used (minutes are not charged to plan that way), so battery life is a non-issue for me.
It is one of the few flip phones that does not have an external antenna - which is important to be - front jeans pocket, broken many phone antennas.
Brick phones don't do it for me because I like to talk into a microphone, not have the microphone in the middle of my cheek.
I personally do not care about blue tooth, infrared, aim, edge, or other features beyond voice quality & reception plus the ability to take pics good enough to document my work - I think the camera is just fine!
I realize other people have more needs than I - did someone else want pac man?
The phone is great!
I LOVE IT!!
This phone rocks!
PROS:
--Excellent reception, actually rivals some Nokias I have.
--Great display
--Nice ringtones and free ones available at sonyericsson.com
--Bigger size; some see this as a con, but I like slightly bigger phones.
CONS:
--Some menus aren't intuitive, but nothing I can't figure out or find in the manual.
--Battery life isn't great, but heck, I have electricity, so I can charge it often.
By far the best price\performance phone ever!
This is the 5th cell phone I have had, and IT ROCKS! I have blown through 2 Nokias over the last 5 years which were fine. I got a renewal through Cingular last month, and just wanted something with good reception in my house (the Nokias got 1 1/2 bars). Tried an LG first, it was like a toy. Then a Moto, it would lock up and got no bars. Now I have the SE z500a, and it gets 3 bars or more in my house, and has features that are second to none, even on more expensive phones. It seems a little big when you first get it, but after a while you realize that it is a perfect fit, just the other phones are like cheap toys. This sucker is a solid as they come. The construction is fantastic. Also, the screen is plenty big and the camera is as good as any other phone camera I have seen. Also I was able to get a USB cable and software cheap on Ebay, to synchronize my Microsoft Outlook Calendar and Contacts directly into the phone, and transfer homemade ringtones and photos to and from the phone! Hooked it up and 3 minutes later all my appointments and phone numbers were right in the phone.
Pros:
Great size and construction. Very Solid.
Fantastic reception
Ring and Voice are loud and clear
Great feature set and integration with Home PC
Good looking screen
Camera is as good as any other phone I've seen
EDGE is very fast.
Email client
Multiple numbers for each name
Voice Dialing
And everything else I didn't mention....
Cons:
No Bluetooth
Can't find a decent leather case to protect it (OEM is no good, and Krusell leaves something to be desired)
I normally don't do review sites, but this phone is so great I felt compelled to chime in so others will know that this is a solid phone that will not disappoint. I may never give it up! I just like it that much....
Cheap, Bulky, Typical Ericcson
This phone was a typical Ericcson; garbage. I thought I would give Sony another try after having given up on them a couple of years prior. Nope, same cheap and hollow feel to it. (There's a difference between slim, lightweight and cheap, plastic.)
The screen is way too small for the functionality it provides and the features although plentiful are just too basic. So much is left to be desired. The ringtones that game standard with the phone were all for kids...? A baby crying? Cartoon characters? Not a single ring.
The camera functionality was great, but the screen you view it on is garbage.
I took this phone back and spent an extra $70 to get the LG L1400, a much better buy.
This is probably a good phone for a child or someone who is getting their first taste of cell phones (at least that way, the next phone they get will be incredible, no matter which they choose....)
Wow. I love it.
I have been through a lot of phones & haven't been able to find a phone that hasn't had at least one or 2 things that bother me, until now. I prefer a clam shell style phone, and none of the ones I've tried have been that great. I migrated from AT&T (blue) to Cingular (orange), and got the LG L1400. Awful phone. Very cheap, no email client, so there is no way to get the pics off of the phone except through MMS which means there is no way to get them on to a PC. That pretty much makes the camera useless. So, I decided to try out the Z500a & man am I glad that I did. At first I thought is was kind of big, but after using it, it is the perfect size. Some people complain about the flat keys on the keypad. They are easy to push. No problems there. here are the pros & cons.
Pros:
Very sturdy, well made & hinge isn't creaky.
Earpiece & ringer volume are very loud. I can hear the person on the other end very well in a noisy environment.
Email client so that you can email your pics to your PC & also send pics & ringtones to your phone without using a data cable is a plus.
Themes are a nice feature. Makes the screens cool to look at. Plus you can have animated wallpaper.
Edge is pretty fast. Makes downloading games & stuff easy.
The camera is ok for a phone, but remember, it isn't a high end digital camera, so I never expect much from a camera phone.
There are other pros, but too many to list so I just listed the man ones.
Cons:
The only problem is that the battery life isn't too great if you use the internet or play games a lot, but it doesn't bother me since I keep my charger with me & always use my car charger.
I gave this phone 5 stars because it is perfect to me & the battery isn't a problem for me.
The bottom line: This phone is very sturdy & has everything you could need in a cell phone. I will finally be keeping a phone for more than a few weeks.
N500a w/ Cingular
Pros: Everything? I know that violates the guidelines.
Signal - AMAZING. I had sprint for a little over three years, and cell one before that for another 3. I switched to cingular and bought this phone as a new customer. In the six years i had cell phones i thought i just lived and worked in an awful area. There was NO signal at work, and minimal signal at home. This all changed with this phone and cingular. Ive been from Pittsburgh to Manhattan with this phone and never received lower than 4/5 bars. EDGE is constantly full signal.
Its crystal clear on my end and for whomever i am talking with. Its a major improvement.
Features - The amazing phone book has been talked about to death, I'm sure anyone reading this already knows that the address book is a major plus.
The camera is alright. People complain that it isn't high quality, and my response is "what do you expect?" most people payed $70 for this phone, and the phone alone is amazing. do you want a $200 camera thrown in just for good measure? Its a little better than an average web cam, and for moblogging its perfect quality. i use it only for contact photos anyways.
Screen is nice. Its just the right size and to me, the color and brightness are perfect.
The built in ringers are cheesy at best, but i leave mine on silent/vibrate constantly anyways.
The ringers are VERY loud, which would be good if i actually used them.
I'm upset with the volume buttons on the side. Aside from in call, they do nothing. If you press them, either of them, outside of a call all you get is phone version info. Which is all well and good, except it would be nice to be able to program them to do something a little more useful (they're the only two side buttons that cant be reprogrammed)
This phone has replaceable face plates and an internal antenna so if you're hard on phones, you're in luck. its built like a TANK. its sturdy and even the hinge feels reliable, which is rare indeed.
Overrated Phone
This phone is promising, but falls short of the mark.
Cons
1) Profiles are a joke. There is no way to boost the keypad volume with an ear piece and this makes it hard to know you have dialed anything.
2) The ringer sounds in the ear piece only when you have a hands free device connected. Thus, you are forced to keep the ear piece on all the time when you drive in a hands free community like mine.
3) Speaker phone requires that you hit the button twice and is not loud enough by any means - compare Motorola phones.
4) All the ringers are absurd. There are in fact no ringers, just a bunch of stupid songs.
5) There is no Pac Man to download.
6) It is slow and underpowered. The phone regularly freezes up and the only way to unlock it from its crash is by removing the battery.
7) The volume buttons on the side do not let you adjust the ringer volume when in standby. 'Silent Mode' is absurd since it requires a soft button and thus you have to open the phone just to turn it down!
8) Its an ugly big phone with tacky and cheap plastic all over it.
9) No bluetooth
10) Goofy charger and handsfree hookups - no standard DC input and no standard 1/8" stereo input. Why!
11) Not enough volume and display tweaks - too soft and too dim and in general, not customizable enough.
12) MMS photo and video sending options are confusing. You have to select 'send' twice.
13) Yellow backlight for keypad is ugly and keys are too recessed.
14) The display always goes off into the stupid grey clock screen saver even if you specify for it not to do that. Why?!
Pros
1) Stunning video and camera capabilities for such a small phone.
2) Great themes and color.
3) Nice size - works for big guys (6'4") with big hands.
4) Excellent external display.
5) Good features (AIM, MMS, Internet, and POP3 email)
6) Mostly customizable buttons.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Haack
dissapointed SE user
I owned T610 for about 2 years, and loved it. After test driving this phone, I have to say that i'm a bit disspointed in SE.
Pro:
Long video clips
Good speakerphone
Changeable face plates
Low Price point
Cons:
Lack of bluetooth... c'mon, my t610 had it, why not this...
Small screen, large phone
Bad key design
Something else to consider, not really a pro or a con.... if you've never used a sony ericcson phone, or even if you have really, this phone may seem a bit hard to navigate at first, but you will get used to it and eventually find it very intuitive.
