The Definitive Review (Sony CMD-Z7)

Member Name: grandmasterjoel

Product:	Sony CMD-Z7
Date:	13/06/02 (477 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fancy looking simple design, Does everything a nokia does without being one, the games (lol - i jest!)

Disadvantages: Battery Life, Microphone is not in flip down, Reception is variable

Having been in the posession of this tasty morsel of phoneage for a month or so now I feel it is time to lay down the pros and cons (of which there are a few!) for the handset.

[Insert witty "oooo please don't give me a crown" joke here (like i even know what a crown is....)]

Well the main control for the z7 is the fancy little jog dial thing on the left hand side. For some reason, i don't know why, sony have had an obsession with jog dials. In this instance pretty much everything can be controlled with the dial except the typing of texts and numbers. This takes a bit of time to get used to and i'm not sure (as a right hander) whether the dial is on the correct side of the phone. It feels easier to use it with my left hand somethimes. Also the use of another button for 'select' operations would be useful instead of having to press the jog dial in all the time.

Access to most things is pretty intuitive and the phone book operations are pretty similar to any nokia on the market. One neat function is that the phone keeps you up to date with how much memory is left and how many spaces you have for text messages and numbers on the sim card.

Pretty standard 500 numbers memory on the phone itself.

well i assume you can see from the pictures that the phone is pretty damn sexy looking.

Sound quality is good on the handset and it doesn't sound like a mobile from the other end. One thing of note is that the handset does not get as good a reception as my nokia handset (with external arial).

now the whole point of a flip down phone (for me) is that it make the phone longer and you actually talk into the microphone. How disappointed was i to get a phone where the flip down is just for show and the microphone is half way up your face like one of those tiny nokias.

Now onto the games. HAHAHAHA call these games? now blackjack is ok. but table football?! they paid someone to d
evelop this game !??? that is sooo funny! at least in a real table football game you can tilt the table so the ball starts moving again. in this one it just stops.... for ever...

did i mention the snazzy orange backlight?

ringtones are a bit lame, there are no simple ones just a bunch of silly tunes. and the loudest ring is sometimes not loud enough. vibrate is stupidly lame and even when holding it in your hand it would be easier to feel the vibrations from a fly farting. there is the option of recording your own ringtone too if you have the time to waste.

You can send DTMF with this phone but not numbers in your phone book. you need to remember them i'm afraid.

Having slated the phone for pretty much the whole review you may be wondering why i gave it 4 stars. The reason is because i only want a phone for the simple things and it does those simple things remarkably well and looks cool with it. stuff like wap and downloading silly pictures and ringtones are crap whatever the phone and are just there to appeal to the teens. when it comes down to the simple business of actually being a phone, then this phone really IS the business.

Summary: