Sony Ericsson T700 is a brand new unit in the recently neglected T-series which with its decent looking exterior, quick interface and nice multimedia is a very competitive middle range cell phone.
Introduction:
Although the new Sony Ericsson T700 is neither a Walkman phone nor a Cyber-Shot it has plenty of camera and other multimedia features. The phone is available in three different color schemes: Shining Silver, Black on Red, and Black on Silver so you can choose the best one for you. Sony Ericsson T700 has great connectivity and surprisingly good (for a 3.2 megapixel camera) image quality.
Sony Ericsson T700 pros:
+ 3.2 megapixel camera, photo LED
+ Media center
+ Soft and responsive controls
+ Great aluminum finish
+ Quad-band GSM and EDGE, HSDPA, Bluetooth (with A2DP)
+ Extra slim and solid, amazingly lightweight
+ A 512MB M2 card in the box
+ Reliable battery cover release mechanism
+ Finger print resistant covers
+ FM radio with RDS
Sony Ericsson T700 cons:
- Only 25 MB of inbuilt memory
- Smallish screen
- No autofocus
- No office document viewer
- Tin-can sound from the loudspeaker
The design:
Sony Ericsson T700 measures 104 x 48 x 10 mm and weighs 78 grams so it is indeed very pocketable. As I mentioned before it comes in three different color schemes and as it is made of good quality materials it looks serious. Additionally, what is rare nowadays, the Sony Ericsson T700 despite its classy looks and partial use of plastic is quite fingerprint proof. Even after a prolonged use it looks almost as on the first day so that’s an additional plus. On the front of the phone you will, of course, find the screen which with its 2” seems a bit small. Fortunately, it has very good direct sunlight legibility and vivid colors. Above the screen is the ambient light sensor together with the earpiece. Under the screen are the very comfortable and responsive keys. On the right side of the Sony Ericsson T700 are the volume rocker and dedicated camera key, whereas on the left the Fast port for connecting the phone to PC, or Mac or charging. The top and bottom of the phone are completely bare. At the back of Sony Ericsson T700 you will find the camera lens, LED flash and the loudspeaker grill.
Performance:
There are no problems making phone calls with the Sony Ericsson T700. The reception is always good and the sound quality is satisfactory. The 950 mAh battery is supposed to run up to 370 hours in standby mode, or 9.5 hours talking. The phone’s media center is excellent. The music player supports all of the mot popular file types like MP3, AAC and so on. The interface of the media center changes with different themes which adds to its beauty. The sound quality is very good as long as you use good headphones as the built in loudspeaker does not do the job well enough. The video player has only basic features like fast forwarding and rewinding, but fortunately it can work in ful screen and landscape mode.
As I said before many readers might be surprised by the fact that the Sony Ericsson T700 which offers only 3.2 megapixel camera and fixed focus has quite good image quality. Indeed, the photos look good, vivid and bright and what is very important in focus. I really do not know how Sony Ericsson engineers do it but the 2048 x 1536 photos with the average size of 1 MB look really nice. Sony Ericsson T700 can also record movies, but the QVGA resolution @ 15 fps is not as good as the still camera.
Menus / ease of use:
Sony Ericsson T700 has a standard Sony Ericsson menu system and layout. In this particular model you get a few pre-installed themes to choose from as well as a few menu views. The phone is very versatile and can run Java applications in the background while running the music player at the same time. The Sony Ericsson T700 has a dedicated Flight mode but it requires a SIM card. The phonebook can store up to 1000 contact with multiple fields which gives you the total of 7000 phone number fields. Every contact can have additional information, assigned ringtone, photo and a note. The Smart Search function allows you to find contacts with gradual typing of a few letters of a name or the phone number. The phone cames also with a few funny games, but unfortunately it does not have a document viewer. So all in all the Sony Ericsson T700 is quite a good phone considering its decent price.
Selected Sony Ericsson T700 features and specifications:
Network (2G)
GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900 / GSM 850
Network (3G)
HSDPA 2100
Antenna type
Internal
Display
Type
Graphical
Coloured
Yes, TFT, 262K colors
Size
240 x 320 pixels
- Wallpapers, screensavers
Memory
Numbers in phone
1000
Received calls
30
Outgoing calls
30
Lost calls
30
Shared memory
25 MB
- Memory Stick Micro (M2), 512 MB card included
- Photo call
Ringtones
Polyphonic ringtones
Yes
- MP3, AAC
- Composer
Networking
GPRS
Yes, Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
DATA
Yes, EDGE, Class 10, 236.8 kbps
3G
Yes, HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps
USB
Yes, 2.0
Bluetooth
Yes, 2.0 with A2DP
WAP
Yes
Browser
Yes, WAP 2.0/HTML(NetFront)
Email client
Yes
- Push Email
- Instant Messaging
Features
Vibration
Yes
SMS
Send / Receive
MMS
Send / Receive
Camera
Builtin, 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels, video, flash
Java
Yes
Games
Yes, (changeable)
Clock
Yes
Alarm
Yes
Calculator
Yes
Calendar
Yes
To-do list
Yes
Voice memo
Yes
T9
Yes
Handsfree
Yes
FM Radio
Yes
- MP3/eAAC /WMA/WMApro player
- MPEG4/WMV/H.263 player
- TrackID music recognition
- Image viewer
- Picture editor
- Organiser
Standard Battery
Type
Li-Po
Standby time
GSM: 370h
Talk time
GSM: 9h 30m
Other recently reviewed Sony Ericsson cell phones:
Sony Ericsson C905, Sony Ericsson G900, Sony Ericsson W350i Walkman, Sony Ericsson G502, Sony Ericsson W980, Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1, Sony Ericsson G705.