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But the camera itself is an average performer. It produces reasonable shots in good lighting conditions, but without a flash struggles in dark environments or at night. Video capture quality is limited, shooting at no more than 320 x 240, but at a smooth 30 f/s, footage plays back better than average on the phone’s screen.

Sony Ericsson includes PhotoDJ and VideoDJ software for basic on-phone image and video editing, and a Photo Fix option for quick pic adjustments. In addition, Z770i users can upload images and video clips directly to a Blogger blog with a few quick button presses.

With HSDPA connectivity, other mobile web-based services are of interest too. Access' NetFront web browser is loaded up and employs Sony Ericsson’s new easy-to-follow browser launch page set up, with Google Search topping the list of options. Below, you can tap URLs into an address bar, or click on RSS feeds for updates from pre-loaded sources or your own tagged sites. You can bookmark pages too and look up recently visited addresses on the launch page’s History option.

Sony Ericsson Z770i mobile phone

The Z770i has just 32MB of built-in memory, but has a slot for M2 cards

No Wi-Fi means you're reliant on mobile networks, but the general browsing experience is good for a regular phone. Google Maps is always welcome, providing mapping and satellite pictures of your approximate position based on base-station triangulation information. It’s not as accurate as GPS, with a few hundred metres radius of accuracy, but you can zoom and pan across maps to find your exact location – very useful if you’re in an unfamiliar place and looking for somewhere nearby.

HSDPA-speed data speeds mean downloading Google map information, music and video content to the phone is a swift process, but most users will prefer the cheaper option of copying tracks from a PC.

The music player and media engine is a typical mid-range set-up. A slick user interface opens up category choice lists, which you drill into in typical music player fashion. The music player lists include headings for artists, albums, tracks, playlists, audio books and podcasts, plus there’s a link to Sony Ericsson’s download site. As well as the usual user interface on the internal display, the external screen strip reveals details of what’s being played when you close the flip.

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Latest Comments

more: partial review

Posting as AC as I used to work for Motorola and don't want to get into a slagging match.

I think that if you're of the opinion that syncing just works then you haven't tried hard enough, and in particular you haven't used Motorola's offering! They still use their own app which is the slowest most pants solution ever. I have little doubt that it works on a virgin install but you try making the damn thing work once your data's been on a few phones and you're trying to wipe, resync etc...

And whilst I'm having a bitch about syncing, does any one else have a problem with

Google Calender -> GCal daemon -> Mac cal -> N95 syncing?

In my experience it can't tell two, day long, events apart on the same day if you delete one and then add a completely separate new one. I'm pointing my finger at the Nokia isync plug-in as the damned mystery event only appears on the N95 having been expunged from Google calendar and Mac Cal bloody ages ago.

/rant

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Anonymous Coward

@Tony Smith: partial reviewage

Tony, I'm glad for you that you happen to know that:

"These days, this stuff works, and while Vendor A's software may be slightly better than Vendor B's, no one's going to buy Vendor A's phone solely as a result of that."

...but some of us don't (or didn't) know that. I'm a SE user with no idea how good Nokia or Sanyo's Mac connectivity (say) is.

A brief reminder of what the problems/issues/limitations are each time would still help us, and would keep your reviewers honest (they'd have to check for improvements and new limitations). It is, as yer man said, a major part of the functionality. (If, as an example, a phone's PC software requires XP SP2, say, tell us - I know people unable to upgrade from SP1, for whom such a phone would be useless.)

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(Written by Reg staff)

@AC, re. partial reviewage

Fair point, AC, but I think World+Dog has established how phone interact with PCs, and Mac users have come to expect they'll often need to do a bit of iSync tweaking to support new handsets - or buy a third-party plug in, as you did.

There's little point rehashing coverage of, say, Sony Ericsson's PC software *every* time we review an SE product. Even more so all the phones that just use Microsoft's ActiveSync.

These days, this stuff works, and while Vendor A's software may be slightly better than Vendor B's, no one's going to buy Vendor A's phone solely as a result of that.

So, instead, we focus on the more tangible reasons that punters *do* buy phones for, though we'll always point it out if a Bluetooth sub-system is below par, or there's an obvious issue with content syncing.

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