Sony Ericsson F500i - Should I? (Sony Ericsson F500i)

Member Name: jadeymclady

Product:	Sony Ericsson F500i
Date:	01/06/06 (272 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good price, good quality camera.

Disadvantages: Short 'life expectancy'

In November 2004, after being a loyal user of the Nokia 3310 for several years, I decided to upgrade my mobile phone for something more trendy and hi- tech. I wanted something that was (then) up-to-date and included lots of features but didn’t want to splash out much more than £150 on it either. I also wanted something on a Pay As You Go tariff. This made the whole process of choosing a phone quite tedious.

The Sony Ericsson F500i came at a reasonable cost (£120, but can be found for around £90 these days) but was only available on one network; Vodaphone. This didn’t bother me as I’d had been on the same network before and so was used to its tariffs etc., but for people in some areas, Vodaphone gets very bad reception.

Despite this, the phone comes with many features, mainly:

10 Mb Internal Memory – This may sound like a lot, but nearly everything on the phone uses this, so without even using your phone, it’s already used almost 4Mb or valuable memory space just for the necessities.

3D Games – Good quality Java games (Darts, Fighters and Super Real Tennis), with the capacity to download more should you wish to. I barely use them, but my brother for example, is transfixed with them!

Video Record and Playback – A reasonable quality of both picture and sound for a phone; many newer phones don’t beat it. Video length is only limited to the amount of memory left on your phone. Play back also allows you to watch videos that are downloaded or sent from other phones.

Camera with Quick Share - The camera on this phone is amazing. Picture size can be altered to take pictures of the same size and quality of most mediocre digital cameras. There are also many effects and frames that can be added. Pictures can become slightly grainy when taken in dark places or when using Night Mode. As for Quick Share, I’ve never used it and am not entirely sure what it actually is.

Multimedia Messaging (MMS) – This was one of the key features I was looking for in a phone, sadly, this has never worked for me. I’ve never been able to send or receive MMS messages because there is a problem with the internet connection.

Large 65K TFT Display – The display is huge, vivid colours and very, very clear. It makes the games and camera much more enjoyable to use. It also allows a menu made up of small, animated icons with make navigation easy to pick up.

MP3 Player – This was very alluring as at the time, my MP3 device had broken. However, although the sound quality is good, very few MP3s can be stored because they are stored using the same memory space as the pictures, games and videos on the phone. Therefore the MP3 player is used more as a novelty than a real way to listen to music.


The phone also includes the standards like text messaging and call lists as well as other things such as calendars, reminders and sound recording, most of which are very simple to use.

This phone is very easy to get to grips with, especially if you’ve used similar technologies before, however this is just as well, as the instruction manual is very basic. It doesn’t really tell you much you couldn’t work out for yourself and so I found it useless.

Through out the whole time I’ve had my phone, I’ve not been able to send or receive MMS messages or emails. An error message would come up telling me that it was due to a bad internet connection but my browser always worked fine. This added some restraints when I tried to upload videos and pictures onto my PC.

However, the phone is equipped with Infrared. Although not as quick as Bluetooth, it works just as well for me.

Almost two years on, I’m fed up with my phone. It still looks good and takes good pictures but for the past couple of months I’ve had problems with the joystick (meaning I can’t use the phone some times), battery going haywire (Phone will turn it self off, go from having no battery to almost full battery power within minutes etc.), it completely freezes on occasions and now it won’t ring and just diverts all straight to voicemail. Personally, if you’re looking for a reliable, phone with a long life, I wouldn’t advise you buy this one. However, if you want something fun and easy to use, that may upgrade within a year or so, this one will do.

Summary: A fun, good quality phone, not made to last forever.

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