Ladies beware!! Read no further else u will find urself buying this exquisite clam shell.

Z610 first announced on 22nd August by SE it din’t raises much eyebrow due to the over shadow and anticipation of its more popular cousin i.e. W850 but than this model seem to cater to the ladies market segment . Develop under the name MIYU the Z610 is an true successor to the once popular V800/802SE in the author’s opinion. Specification is almost identical except for the cam and storage card model.

Miyu front surface sports an mirror finish which give the phone a sleek and elegant looks. Ladies will find the mirror surface an additional bonus for them as they will be able check on their makeup w/o taking out their kit

The font cover smooth surface lines is only broken by the presence of the 2MP cam and did not betray the presence of the incorporate hidden OLED display. OLED may not be new technologies but this is the 1st time SE has used it on their models, Korean hand phone maker has long make use of this. Outer display tends to spoilt carefully crafted shell appeal of any phone but SE has truly made full use of the OLED. The hidden display illuminates as soon as any sms or phone calls come in which combines with the mirror finish gives it an overall exquisite and seductive looks.

Basic information i.e time, battery life, signal ,miss call/sms, song info can be display on hidden OLED.

Buttons for volume and media player are carefully line up along the side of the phone and has an non intrusive looks and feel. Z610i does have an expendable slot in the form of the M2 and are also located along the side aft of the volume buttons.

The back cover of the phone is only dominated by an external speaker mesh and SE has not incorporated any flashlight on the phone itself as this function is seldom utilize by the consumer.

Flipping open the phone will reveal the plastic looks of the Z610i which do injustice to the carefully design outer looks. The flip itself has improves since the V800/802SE days and user will not have to endure the “gek gek” sound when FO/FC it (flip open/flip close).The 3G cam itself is located on the top of the decent 2” LCD, the latter is bright and sharp in its function.

The joypad familiar on most of the clam shell models by SE and seem to have an advantages on the ease of usage and more responsive to touch than the much hated joystick on earlier candy bar models. The keys itself are large enough to prevent mis-key and have an soft feedback

User Interface
User of SE phones will by now quite familiar with the U.I. (user interface) and MIYU is no exception to this. Menu is based on an 4 x 3 interface selection

Phonebook has an internal capacity of 1000 contacts with 2500 numbers for storage.

The Z610 strangely does have the Flight Mode which generally used to be reserve for P and W series. User can choose to start the phone in Flight Mode or Standard Mode. The flight mode has been enhanced on the Z610 as after activating it takes the user to the phone full system instead of just the media player function , user can play games, take photo, read SMS/RSS etc in this mode. Any function that link to the GSM or SIM function has been disable.

The phone itself is an MP3 player but w/o the fan-fare of the walkman series and its delicate media player software. Media player itself does support MP3, AAC, AAC+ and eAAC+. SE needs to improves on it basic media player software on it generic models as user will have the difficulty of adding playlist and tracks as compare to the ease of the Walkman series media player. Equalizer itself SE has taken out the Mega Bass setting but has added a new features call Stereo Widening

No FM radio option has been included in the Z610 which may turn off some potential user.

Next to be mention is the internet browser, SE has add the landscape mode for the browser itself while it is an good features the author will find it strange which user will uses this mode. RRS feeds is also found on the Z610 which is good for people that needs to keep update on news or simply to kill off time.

As is with newer models SE has incorporated over the air firmware upgrading on all its newer models, tech savvy user will not have to fret over the hassle of connecting DCU cables and steps of using SEUS.

Camera
The Z610i sports an 2MP camera which is decent for general shooting. Option for the camera are Std Shoot mode (Normal, Panorama, Frames and Burst). Size (2Mp, 1Mp or VGA (640 x 480)). White balance (Auto, Day, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent), Effects ( Black& White, Negative , Sepia) Night Mode and Self-timer.

Photos taken by the phone are at best normal quality and should not be compare with the cuyershot series K800i. Images are sharp and what surprise the author is the lack of picture nosie at low light level.

Conclusion
Z610 is an overall a good phone with its basic features and sleek seductive looks but user with sweaty palms will have to think of ways to rid it of smudgy fingerprints/stains. Flipping the phone to close mode is an delicate task as the smooth surface of the phone tends to be slipper.

User fretting over the W850i or Z610i should look no further as both seem to have comparable specification with the former sporting the slider form but with a higher price tag. But the Z610 wins with its sleek looks.

• Tags : Sony Ericsson Z610i