We check our look in Sony Ericsson's reflective new 3G phone for AT&T.
Review summary of the Sony Ericsson Z750:
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 We can think of five Sony Ericsson phones we would have rather seen imported to AT&T's network. Don't believe us? Check out any of these. The Sony Ericsson Z750 gets some of S/E's best, like the well designed menus and the excellent music player, but ends up with a clunky look and a feature set that falls off a short pier. The phone is a middling phone, which is disappointing because AT&T has plenty of middling 3G multimedia phones in its lineup, and Sony Ericsson has much better in its huge stable of imports. Perhaps a Walkman phone fan in need of 3G for a lousy Web experience would enjoy this phone, but for most people we'd suggest waiting, because the company can certainly do better. Release: April 2008. Price: $10.
Pros: Great music player. Good call quality with top-ranking battery life for long calls. Polished interface.
Cons: We've seen better looking Sony Ericsson phones (like, all of them). Low-end Web browser and video experience. Barely makes use of 3G functions.
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Full Sony Ericsson Z750 Review:
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Design - Mediocre
Sony Ericsson makes very pretty phones. The Z750a just isn't one of them. The plastic feels light and chintzy. The buttons are a bit goofy, with a confusing array of circles up top and a nice, large numeric pad on the bottom. The hinge has a satisfying snap, but the entire phone feels so boxy and large, it lacks the elegance that we've seen in other Sony Ericsson phones, like the W880i we saw a year ago. And, worst of all, the phone's signature design element, the external display that magically appears from beneath the mirror, is barely a status meter, and the effect has been handled better on LG's Shine.
The interface, thankfully, is classic Sony Ericsson, which is to say it is snappy, colorful icons and elegant, animated wallpapers on a crisp display. At the surface, it seems like AT&T's standard navigation scheme, but once you take a step deeper, Sony Ericsson's smooth, hierarchical menus take over, and the going gets easier. Of course, the system isn't well organized, and there are many paths to the same destination, but that's better than the inverse. Overall, though, once we got passed the external shell, the phone's interface made us remember why we enjoy the rare opportunity we get to review a Sony Ericsson phone here in the U.S. market.
Calling - Good
Call quality on the Sony Ericsson Z750 was very good, with calls that sounded clear, though not especially crispt. Sibilants were a problem, and the microphone's placement meant it picked up heavy breathing as well. But outdoor noise was kept to a minimum. We were especially impressed with the phone's battery life. We managed a call that was eight hours forty-five minutes, just shy of Sony Ericsson's nine hour promise.
Voice dialing is handled through tagging, which is effective, but not our favorite method. Conference calling was easy enough, and the phone's speakerphone was appropriately loud. Bluetooth paired quickly with our handsfree devices and worked just fine for calling. The address book was robust, and each contact was conveniently divided into tabs to keep the information organized.
Messaging - Good
The Sony Ericsson Z750 does a fine job for messaging, with most of what we like included and few surprises. We found the wide number keys plenty comfortable for typing. The phone has built-in support for AOL, MSN and Yahoo instant messenger, but no Gtalk. Google is also excluded from the e-mail party, though BellSouth and MindSpring somehow finagled their own presets. MMS and SMS messaging worked just fine, as well. All of the clients on the device have seen a slight visual upgrade from the standard AT&T fare, but nothing groundbreaking.
Music - Very good
Aside from a few missing features, the music player on the Z750 is nearly identical to the Walkman player we've seen on phones like the W580i. It's a top notch music app, with great organization, extra features that make the music sound better, and the easiest playlist creation this side of the iPhone. We used Sony Ericsson's software, available on their Web site, since no disk was included with the phone, which is a real shame. We also used our own memory stick micro card, and a pair of headphones that fit the proprietary Pop-port jack that Sony Ericsson uses. Unfortunately, without all these highly specialized extras, you won't be able to take full advantage of the phone's music player, arguably its best feature. Still, once you have all the necessary gear, the phone does a great job playing music.
Web browsing - Good
The Web browser in the Sony Ericsson Z750 is only slightly better than a standard AT&T WAP browser, which is too bad, considering the phone's high speed networking. The browser rendered an ugly version of our page, but we did like the accelerated scrolling, which made jumping around the long, ugly pages a quicker endeavor. We've seen much better on Sony Ericsson's UIQ smartphones, so we'd like to see better here. Besides the Web browser, the phone also takes advantage of the 3G networking using AT&T's cellular video service. We haven't been crazy about this service for a long while, especially now that mobile TV seems to be rearing its head. Video loaded quickly, but looked choppy and blocky, so we'd skip the streaming videos on this phone.
Odds and ends
The lack of accessories hurts the phone more than we've let on. First of all, all the accessories are proprietary. The USB cord and headphones will need to work with Pop-port, which is not an easy find. The memory card must be M2, Sony's tiny version of Memory Stick. To use the included FM radio, you must have the headphones, which are not included. Frankly, we're used to Sony Ericsson devices, like the W880i we reviewed, to come with all the accessories needed to use the basic features. Too bad AT&T keeps the good stuff out of the box.
Price and availability
The Sony Ericsson Z750 is available now from AT&T for $60 with a contract agreement. A mail-in rebate of $50 is available, when signing up for a qualifying plan.
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