All About Symbian - Symbian, Nokia and S60 unwrapped.
Sony Ericsson Vivaz - design choices, comparison with Pro, video demo
Published by Rafe Blandford at 21:12 UTC, March 9th 2010
Continuing from our previous Sony Ericsson Vivaz videos we look at some of the key design charcteristics of the Vivaz and Vivaz Pro (human curvature, light reflection effects and material choices), compare the Vivaz and Vivaz Pro on video, take a brief look at some of the different colours that will be available and get a demo of the handset shooting video and uploading to YouTube. Taken together these videos help you get a clearer picture of Sony Ericsson's new Symbian^1 handsets.
Key points
- The Vivaz and Vivaz Pro feature what Sony Ericsson call the 'human curvature' design, which means the handset 'fits' into your hand.
- Special 'polarising' paint gives a highlighted 'light touched' effect on the Vivaz. This light touched area draws the eye and makes you think the phone is smaller than it really is.
- Light reflection on the side of the device creates a 'line' which draws the eye and makes the phone appear slimmer than it actually is.
- The Vivaz has a glass screen, which means the phone can be thinner and gives better touch sensitivity than the plastics typically used in resistive screens.
- There was a design choice on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro - in order to keep the phone 'thin' it was a choice between a lower resolution camera or a smaller battery. The battery won and consequently the Vivaz Pro has a five megapixel camera instead of an eight megapixel camera.
- Four colours for the Vivaz: Blue, Silver, Black and Ruby
- Dedicated video shooting button (separate from camera capture), plus UI which recalls Sony HandyCam.
- Sony Ericsson put its HD experience on top of Symbian because they were confident the platform could handle it (calling on experience gained with the Satio) and because of the battery life (power management) characteristics of the platform. The only Sony Ericsson HD video recording device are the Symbian powered Vivaz and Vivaz Pro.
Sony Ericsson Vivaz design considerations
Sony Ericsson Vivaz and Vivaz Pro compared
Sony Ericsson Vivaz Colours and video shooting / uploading demo
We'll also be starting our review series of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz very soon.
News Discussion
Vivaz Pro sufferer here
They put all that effort into designing the case, and then forgot that it had to function as communication device.
Let's take this point by point on the "consumer experience"
1) When you first get the thing, the operation required to remove the back to insert your SIM feels like you're going to tear off the QWERY keyboard
Not good.
20 You get it fired up and then, oh dear, you' re in menu hell. Hey, I want this thing to use WiFi when available because 3G data charges are a pain ain the wallett. What dies this thing do by default? Yeah, you have it. 3G.
In fact they seem to have take n thi as a design principle: "What's the stupidest combination of settings we could have? Ok. That's the default."
Wankers.
Now, let's move onto my main irritation.
Battery life.
24 hours to charge
3 hours to discharge
I kid you not.
This is the worst performing device I have ever used.
Every time I think I've found a reason to actually like this thing, it semms to go out of it's way to find a better reason for me to hate it.
However, the clincher is that it seems to have to spend 4 hours charging for every hour you use it.
Avoid.
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