It's been a long time in the making, but Sony Ericsson's first 3G handset - the Z1010 - will soon be here, and Editor-in-Chief Jørgen Sundgot has taken it for a quick spin.
Do you remember when the Z1010 was introduced? Most likely not, since it's been over a year since it was introduced - but nonetheless, it's held a special place in our minds ever since, as Sony Ericsson's very first 3G handset. Admittedly lagging behind other major manufacturers, it still appears as if though Sony Ericsson has brought forth one of the more interesting 3G handsets - at least if size and looks count, which they normally do.
A clamshell design, the Z1010 is based on the design of the now well-known Z600 model, also shared by the recently introduced and EDGE-enabled Z500. It cannot in any way be described as small, but compared to current offerings in Motorola's A800 and A900 lines, as well as Nokia's 7600, the Z1010 not only looks better but also offers a more familiar paradigm. The platform is the same as that found in other Sony Ericsson handsets, and there's no freaky keypad - just a very comfortable and ergonomically sound one, on par with that found in the Z600.
 | | Sony Ericsson Z1010 |
The screen is similarly good, which is a rather important factor as increased use of data services and video conferencing will lead to users spending more time with the screen (and likely cause battery life to plummet, but we'll hold off on that conclusion until after we've reviewed the handset). We were able to see a demonstration of live video conferencing at this year's CeBIT fair in Hannover, where frame rates proved usable, despite slight delays.
To our pleasant surprise, we also discovered that Sony Ericsson has added new features to the Z1010 since its introduction, including an MP3 player and the boosting of its internal memory to 32 MB - up from 16. For memory expansion, the Z1010 boasts a Memory Stick Duo expansion slot with a maximum limit of 128 MB. Other features worthy of mentioning include integrated Bluetooth, a VGA camera and support for WAP 2.0 and MMS. In addition to WCDMA, the Z1010 also supports GSM 900/1800 MHz.
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