Best Buy: Free with half-price line rental from Mobiles.co.uk (Black) or Mobiles.co.uk (Silver) or free with half-price line rental from Phones4u (Silver) or Phones4u (Red).
Review: March 2010.
It's hard not to be impressed by the Vivaz. It's very much like the Sony Ericsson Satio, but cheaper and more compact. Available free on mid-priced contracts (£25 per month) with a choice of free gifts thrown in, it's exceptionally good value when you consider that it blows many similarly priced phones out of the water.
The Vivaz is a touchscreen smartphone running the Symbian operating system. Symbian isn't our first choice when it comes to smartphones, and the first batch of Satios had so many software problems Sony Ericsson had to recall them. However, we hope they've learned from that mistake and the Vivaz will prove to be a more reliable phone.
The headline feature of the Vivaz is its HD video recording. It's capable of recording super-sharp videos at 720p resolution, with continuous autofocus, a video light and an image stabiliser. Its a pretty impressive capability for a mobile phone, and you can easily upload your videos to YouTube to show the world. You can also make video calls. The still camera is pretty amazing as well, having an 8.1 megapixel resolution, face detection autofocus, an LED flash and geo-tagging. For the price band, this has got to be one of the best cameras available. It can't beat the 12 megapixel monster camera of the Satio, but it comes pretty close. So we'd say that the photographic performance of the Vivaz is among the very best currently available.
You can view images on the Vivaz's impressive display. With a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels, it's not quite large enough to display your videos at full HD resolution, but it's still a very finely detailed display. The phone is fully touchscreen operated, with handwriting recognition thrown in as a bonus. It's a surprisingly compact and lightweight handset too, so it's easy to hold in the hand. We found the menus pretty responsive most of the time.
The Vivaz also comes with a great media player, and we're delighted to see that Sony Ericsson have included a 3.5mm audio jack, so you can plug in any standard-fit headphones for high quality audio. With microSD memory cars of up to 16GB supported, there's plenty of room to store your music collection, and there's an FM radio included too.
The Vivaz has aGPS with Google Maps, and a demonstration licence of the Wisepilot turn-by-turn navigation software.
HSPA provides fast internet access, and you can also use WiFi if you're in a WiFi hotspot for extra download speed. Other connectivity options include Bluetooth, USB and a TV-Out connection so that you can view your photos and videos directly on a big screen. There are dedicated apps for Facebook and YouTube too.
Battery life seems to be good, although it will be even better if you remember to close unwanted apps and turn off Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS when not in use.
First impressions of the Vivaz are very good indeed. Sony Ericsson have placed it firmly in the media-focussed camp with its amazing HD video recording and all-round imaging and music capabilities. It comes with a good range of apps, and the use of Symbian as the base operating system means plenty more will be available for download. We're just hoping it's been properly tested and there are no Satio-like bugs to spoil the party.
Features of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz include:
8.1 megapixel camera with LED flash, face detection autofocus, smile detection, geo-tagging and 4x digital zoom
Video camera with 720p HD video recording, continuous autofocus, video light and video stabiliser
Video calling
Display: TFT touchscreen, 16 million colours, 360 x 640 pixels (3.2") with auto rotation
Media player, FM radio
MP3/AAC ringtones
Speakerphone
Voice recorder
aGPS with Wisepilot navigation and Google Maps
Messaging: SMS, MMS, Instant Messaging, Email with Exchange ActiveSync
3D Java games
Document readers
Animated wallpaper
Personal organiser functions
Flight mode
Vibration alert
Memory: 75 MB plus support for microSD memory cards (up to 16 GB)
Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB mass storage, WiFi, TV-Out, 3.5mm audio jack
Internet: Web browser, web feeds, Google search, Facebook, YouTube, HSPA
Quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900) plus 3G (900/2100 )
Size: 107 x 52 x 12.5 mm
Weight: 97g
Talktime: 5 hours (3G) - 13 hours (2G)
Battery standby: 440 hours
