The Sony Ericsson Vivaz is the mobile maven’s latest Symbian S60 smartphone. The phone maker has, in the past, been accused of failing to commit to one mobile OS, so how does the Vivaz’s interpretation of the increasingly creaky S60 OS work out. And what kind of apps can you snaffle on the phone? Read our Sony Ericsson Vivaz review: Apps and Symbian OS to find out.
Read more of our Sony Ericsson Vivaz review
There’s simply no escaping the fact that Symbian S60 has seen better days. Compared to Android and Apple’s iPhone OS it just isn’t optimised for touchscreens, despite the best efforts of Sony Ericsson here.
The main S60 menu system is accessed through the central button at the bottom of the device. The UI will be familiar to Nokia fanatics the world over, as well as those who’ve had some hang time with the ageing Sony Ericsson Satio.
The icons are well rendered and don’t slip into low res either, giving the Vivaz a nice high end look. That said, Symbian is still not suited to touchscreen devices. You can’t help but feel everything would work much better with a physical keyboard, or even a D-pad to fall back on.
Sony Ericsson Vivaz review: Camera and HD video
As mentioned in our overall Sony Ericsson Vivaz review, the skin used is the same as the one found on the Satio. The concept of homescreens is good and works well if you’re just tapping into Twitter or accessing your photo reel. The latter is particularly good for uploading to the web and bypasses the usual Symbian failing of having to delve into myriad menus in order to get what you want on screen.
However, the skin is let down largely by the touchscreen. The resistive effort here is appalling and makes flicking between homescreens a real drag. It doesn’t have the easy swiping action of the HTC Legend and is therefore scuppered when it comes to quick navigation.
When it comes to apps, the Vivaz is well endowed. Symbian remains one of the best platforms for snaffling extras to make your phone sing and while there’s no homepage store for you to tap into, it’s not hard to scour the web for killer add ons that’d make Android and iPhone owners green with envy. The dedicated Twitter app is ace and the fact it’s slapped on the front screen makes it arguably the best extra you can get for the Vivaz. Other apps can be access via the homepage too, using the widget on the far right of the screen. QuickOffice is present and correct, although we should say that tinkering with docs on your Vivaz is nothing short of infuriating.
Sony Ericsson Vivaz review: Design and build
More apps can be snagged from the dedicated apps page buried in the Symbian menu system. YouTube and Facebook are already preloaded, so if it’s social networking you want, the Vivaz gas it covered. Both apps are a breeze to set up and easy to get to grips with.
The music software on the Vivaz is unsurprisingly slick and will be familiar to fans of the Walkman series. You can tap into it from the bottom of the home screen, with the same easy-to-use controls as on previous Sony Ericsson phones. The only quibble we have is with uploading tracks using drag and drop files and folders on a Mac. It should work like a dream, but doesn’t, rejecting MP3 files at an alarming rate. It’s a shoddy system, an obvious flaw, and one we were thoroughly sick of by the end of this review.
Read more of our Sony Ericsson Vivaz review
