The Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro, like its keyboardless brother the Vivaz, runs Symbian S60, the software you might have seen on countless Nokia smartphones. In a world of Android and iOS 4, it’s not exactly got a good reputation, especially on touchscreen phones, but does this phone change that and bring it up to speed? Read on and find out in the software section of our Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro review.
Read the rest of our Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro review
Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro review
Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro review: Keyboard, build and touchscreen
In a word, no. The addition of a QWERTY keyboard on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro makes typing a tad easier, but it’s the equivalent of giving an elderly person a walking stick. Symbian S60 in its touchscreen form feels like a relic from a pre iPhone era, and it’s not something you need to lumber yourself with for the course of 18 or even 24 months.
If you’ve tried out the Sony Ericsson Vivaz, you’ll have a good idea of what to expect from the software on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro. There are five homescreens, which can be set to show animations, menus or even your Twitter stream – a nice touch, and the operating system’s one possible selling point other than multimedia support.
Hit the menu button and you’ll see that recognisable menu screen fire up – you’re on Symbian home turf. Hold down the menu button for an age and you can switch between apps, jump onto the web and you can install more apps, and dive into the media section and you’ll also be right at home with Sony’s XrossMediaBar style layout.
Of course, we’re just as used to Symbian’s failings by now too, and that Symbian and Sony Ericsson between them haven’t fixed them really sticks in the throat. Prodding icons and the onscreen keyboard is a chore (although that’s in part to do with the screen – more on that in the build section of our Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro review) and tilting the screen can often just black out the phone, leaving you wondering for several seconds if it’s just crashed. Go tilt an iPhone or new Android phone and see what happens: fluid animation and no pause. That’s the new standard, and Symbian doesn’t come close to it.
Of course, these are problems we had with Symbian S60 on the original Vivaz. What gets our goat now is that they’re still present, and made even more obvious by the presence of a keyboard: you’ll be tilting the phone into landscape mode more often to type, and bafflingly, the homescreens often stay resolutely in portrait mode when you do. Pull the QWERTY keyboard out before you open up your email, and you’ll actually have to navigate at 90 degrees. You can’t even dial in a number using the keyboard in landscape mode.
It’s an appalling oversight, and one that perfectly sums up Symbian’s atrocious, stale UI in general. We seriously hope Symbian 3 improves this, but we also hope that this is Sony Ericsson’s last Symbian phone regardless, now that it’s moved on to Android with some success.
One thing Symbian S60 still has going for it however is media support. The menus might look ugly, but videos are still a delight to watch on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro’s 3.2-inch, 640×360 screen, and since it’s happy to play AVI clips alongside MP4 files, it’s actually less fussy than iPhones and most Android phones (Samsung and LG handsets excepted). It’ll even stream photos and music over DLNA – that you can control music tracks from the homescreen on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro is also commendable.
While Symbian S60 might still be easy on the battery power compared to Android, its flaws are more obvious than ever on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro, and they far outweigh the benefits of charging your phone every other night rather than every night. We’ve looked upon it comparatively kindly for its media support, but this is the last time: Android is getting its stuff together on this front, and we don’t want to see Symbian S60 again in its current form. Sony Ericsson, you’ve been warned.
Read the rest of our Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro review
Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro review
Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro review: Keyboard, build and touchscreen
