Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro deals & review

In a word or two

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro has powerful HD video abilities and a dual offering of touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard.

The Design

The look of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro is almost identical to the Sony Ericsson Vivaz handset although with a minute amount added to the height and thickness thanks to the inbuilt QWERTY keyboard. The curved back, curved buttons beneath the screen and hand-friendly size all remain, though.

The 3.2 inch touchscreen uses thin glass like the Vivaz, making the Vivaz Pro sensitive to touch and responsive. There is support for 16 million colours and extremely high resolution so you can really enjoy the HD video capabilities of this mobile phone – whether you want to record your own HD videos on the phone’s camera or play HD footage back on the screen. The high resolution also supports 3D gaming, if you enjoy this type of mobile entertainment.

The inbuilt accelerometer on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro lets you alternate between portrait and landscape according to your current activity. When you slide out the keyboard, the screen automatically switches to landscape and if you receive a call at an inopportune moment simply turn the phone on its side to silence it.

The QWERTY keyboard on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro is one of its main distinguishing features. The four rows of the keyboard are spacious and allow for comfortable typing, especially if you prefer not to touch-type on-screen. Sony Ericsson seems to be creating a few Pro versions of popular handsets, including the XPERIA X10 Mini Pro, to appeal to people who like both a touchscreen and a physical keyboard on their mobile. With the Vivaz Pro, though, if you are in a hurry or don’t want to open the keyboard for some reason, you also have the option to type a quick message using the virtual keyboard.

Specifications

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro runs on the same Symbian platform and is powered by the same internal processor as the Vivaz, with the same support for 3G and Wi-Fi for rapid, reliable connection. You can access the array of features using the shortcuts along the top of the screen – these can be changed and customised to meet your mobile needs, selecting alternatives by pressing and holding the icon down to bring up the list.

The 5-megapixel camera is capable of high quality images and features autofocus, LED flash, smile detection and touch focus. Although it contains fewer pixels than on the Vivaz’s camera, the video player is on a par and supports the creation of HD films. With apps pre-installed for sites like YouTube, Picassa, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook, you can share your images with ease. And if you want to keep them on your phone, simply expand the internal memory to up to 32GB using a microSD card.

Music wise, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro has an FM radio as well as a music player. The music recognition function lets you find track details from just a short recording of the song on your phone, so you can add to your collection on the move.

Considerations

With a full QWERTY keyboard onboard the Vivaz Pro, there is an extra 2mm on the height and thickness of the phone.

Verdict

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro is a HD-capable handset in the same league as the original Vivaz only with a slide-out keyboard behind the touchscreen.