Thread: Sony Ericsson Vivaz with 8 MP camera

Sony Ericsson Vivaz

The new mobile Sony Ericsson Vivaz. The mobile boasts a new design format that Sony Ericsson is using for the rest of the year, which is said to fit the natural curve of the hand. Improvements have been made over existing models, with the video capture quality being the most notable enhancement of them all.

The key feature of the Vivaz is its camera, there are no two ways about it. It's not that it's anything special, as it's only an 8.1 megapixel camera and that MP rating is quite common these days. It is the video capture quality that is its redeeming feature. The picture quality is good and the image is fairly sharp but the video is of a much higher standard than is usually seen on 8.1MP camera phones - it's HD quality.

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz can capture video at 1280x720p whereas other handset cameras with the same megapixel count or even higher usually record at just a VGA standard of 30fps. Even the 12.1 megapixel Satio could capture video only at that lowly rate, though we had hoped for so much more.

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz runs the Symbian S60 5th Edition OS. The GUI is a basic version of the Symbian system, with very few frills added by Sony Ericsson. The icons and menu options are rather basic, apparently targeted at non-advanced users. Running the phone is a fast Texas Interments OMAP3630 720 MHz ARM Cortex A8 chip, which could have done so much more with a better OS and web browser, both of which we thought were decidedly average to say the least.

Sony Ericsson has included an 8GB microSD card, which frankly is needed as there's only 75MB of memory. The video of 1 min. takes about 56 MB memory if captured in full HD settings......

In short:

3.2-inch touchscreen
Symbian S60 5th edition
8.1 megapixel camera
8GB microSD
3G, HSDPA
WiFi
Bluetooth
GPS

It costs around £360.