Sony Ericsson C702 Review

[Chris]

Please post your Sony Ericsson C702 reviews and opinions in this topic.

• Sony Ericsson C702 Photos & Specification

[Ghost]

Key features

* Splash and dust resistant
* Built-in GPS receiver
* 3 megapixel camera with active lens cover and dual LED flash
* Face detection and geotagging, fast autofocus
* Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, HSDPA (3.6 Mbps) in the European version
* Fingerprint resistant case
* FM radio with RDS
* Bluetooth (with A2DP)
* Tracker sports application
* Memory card slot for M2 cards (up to 8GB M2 cards supported)

Main disadvantages

* Controversial looks
* No office documents viewer
* Awkward volume/zoom rocker
* No TV out

Another interesting fact is that this is the first splash and dust resistant Sony Ericson handset. The C702 also features the GPS-based Tracker sports application. Clearly, it's a phone for the youth and the sports minded.

Design and Construction

The Sony Ericsson C702 has a casing of rounded edges giving the somewhat chubby bar a nice solid feel in hand. It gets even better for the nice rubbery finish of all the cyan surfaces. By the way, the whole casing is fingerprint resistant, the screen the only area vulnerable to smudges.

The 2.2" display has the keypad crammed down the front panel. The 256K-color QVGA display does well in terms of brightness and contrast, and doesn't seem to have reflection issues. Yet, it doesn't fare well under direct sunlight.Above the screen, the secondary video-call camera is placed, along with the earpiece.Below the display are the control and navigation keys, grouped in three square patterns. The D-pad's in the middle. On both of its sides there are two rocker-styled sets of buttons.

The left one features a soft key and the Activity menu key, with the tiny convex **** of the Call key embedded amidst. Symmetrically on the right, we get the other soft key, the correction C key and the End key. The dedicated Call and End keys are becoming standard in Sony Ericsson, along with the three-soft-key layout. The proprietary "Back" key is absent in C702, replaced by the right soft key. User-friendliness is greatly improved, except maybe for those who go back a long time with Sony Ericsson handsets.

User interface spiced up

The user interface in C702 has the well known Sony Ericsson feature phone styling, spiced up with a few recently introduced features, we've discussed in previous reviews.

The main features in the C702 user interface include the optimized Media Center, Flash Lite 2.0 support, 4 types of main menu views, and the three-soft-key layout. Unfortunately, the auto rotate capability seen in K850 and C902 is missing here.

As most previous models, the C702 comes with a dedicated Flight mode. When turning on the phone, you may opt to start it directly into Flight mode. The Sony Ericsson C702 cannot work in Flight mode unless a SIM card is inserted, unlike competing Nokia S40 models.

In active stand-by mode the screen displays information about the network signal, battery strength, current date and time, plus the next alarm due. Pressing the navigation key in any of the four directions can start a user-programmed feature or application. The main menu itself is a 4 x 3 grid of animated icons, each of which can be directly accessed by pressing its corresponding alphanumeric key. All sub-menus are in list view with tiny icons on the left side. Response is fast in every submenu and application.

Phonebook

The phonebook can store up to 1000 entries with a total of 7000 phone numbers available.

A good feature is the Smart Search, which lists all available contacts in the phonebook starting with the digits typed in the standby screen. The search engine looks up both letter combinations in names and phone numbers that start with the digits entered. The Smart Search can also be switched off if not needed.

Also present is the Send All Contacts option that transfers the entire phonebook to another compatible Sony Ericsson device.
good

As usual, you can choose whether the SIM contacts or the phone contacts should be default for the phonebook. Displaying both lists simultaneously is impossible.

On a different note, a nice option allows you to auto save to SIM any new contacts that you're saving in the phone memory.

Contacts can be ordered by First or Last name. They are searched by gradual typing of the desired name. When adding a new contact, there are 7 phone number fields available. This is the first tab of fields for the new contact.

The second one is for email and web addresses. The third is for assigning a picture, a custom ringtone and a voice command. The fourth goes for Title, Company, Street, City, State, ZIP, Country information. The last, fifth tab, is for additional information and birth date.

When you add the birth date, the phone prompts adding it to the calendar and setting a reminder, which we found to be a handy feature.Messaging as good as usual

Along with the standard messaging functionality, Sony Ericsson C702 offers the Manage Messages and Manage Email features, plenty of settings for accounts, and the option to assign categories to messages. These features are embedded in the standard Sony Ericsson interface and have become standard for each new release. The Manage Messages application consists of three tabs. The first one is All Items, There's also an On Mem. Card and an In Phone tab, each including Drafts, Inbox, Outbox, Saved messages, and Sent messages folders.

This menu allows messages to be moved to memory card or phone memory, arranged by categories, date, size, and contact, as well as other functions for improved message handling.

All messages, except emails, use one Inbox. No matter what kind of message has been received, it goes to the shared Inbox. Only emails have their own dedicated Inbox.

When composing a message, the character counter will alert you when you're 20 symbols short of the 160-character limit. The T9 dictionary goes without saying.
goes

The email client in C702 supports dozens of settings and all types of encodings. C702 can save attachments, no matter if they are supported or unknown file formats. Email messages can be sorted by size, date and time. Support for push email is available too.

Office documents as Word, Excel and PDF cannot be opened, of course.

Viewing a message in fullscreen mode and changing the font size (small, medium, large) are handy options. There is a separate Manage email application, with the same structure and features as the one for SMS.

A 3.2 Megapixel camera with extras

The Sony Ericsson C702 has a 3 megapixel autofocus camera with a dual LED flash, self-portratits mirror and active lens cover. The double purpose alphanumeric keys are a welcome enhancement to the camera handling. The D-pad can also be used for switching between still camera and camcorder, while scrolling up or down changes the exposure compensation.

The cool Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot SE v2.0 camera user interface is no news anymore, and it works like a charm in C702. The camera user interface main features are the pop-up sub-menus enhanced with icons and small photos, for even more intuitive performance, and the Multi Menu packing all the available settings.

Spiced up with Face detection, geotagging and macro mode, the camera capabilities of the C702 easily catapults it to the ranks of some of the best Cyber-shot handsets.

The face detection works well when the two eyes are visible. We tested it with tree people in a frame and Face Detection kept the tree faces in focus.

Features and applications

The Sony Ericsson C702 offers the traditional time-management features. There is an Organizer icon in the main menu and it contains several applications: File manager, Alarms, Applications, Video call, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, Synchronization, Timer, Stopwatch, Light, Calculator, and Code memo.

The Calendar offers monthly, weekly and daily views. When you enter a birth date in the phonebook, the phone prompts adding it to the calendar.

Tasks can be two types: simple Tasks and Phone calls. Notes are written similar to messages and can be displayed on the home screen, too.There are five alarm slots available. Each one offers a lot of options - you can opt to repeat the alarm on chosen days of the week, as well as everyday. Text and a picture can be added to the alarm. Furthermore, the alarm's behavior can be defined in case the time it is due to go off comes while the phone is in silent mode.The Voice recorder has no limit to recording length, making the free memory available the only restriction. The Calculator is the regular Sony Ericsson application. It offers the basic functions, no bells and whistles. The stopwatch and countdown timer are also the well known basic applications.The dual LED light on the back of the phone can also be used as a torch, thanks to the Light application. The LEDs can be on continually or for a period of one minute only. They can also send out an SOS signal.As far as the additional applications are concerned, the Sony Ericsson C702 comes with AccuWeather Light preinstalled. You can get local weather forecasts but you have to download the needed data online.The FaceWarp is a fool-around piece of software, used for adding silly faces to portrait shots.

So it is a good mobile phone to own.

[punkaznguy]

i somehow dont get why one of the main disadvantages include controversial looks???

[Nokomotor]

Hi,

Electronics equipement has no warrenty, i mean how much time will it work, its depending on the usage and thatswhy you have to get risk. but i checked this model for 6 month and worked fine.

[azzu595]

this is great fone with amazing camera
Flagship SE Model
Nice Review Micro
thx

[Yuros]

i somehow dont get why one of the main disadvantages include controversial looks???

Is this controversial look?

sony-ericsson_c702_1.jpg

[maxcreigs]

Worst phone I've ever had. Got it after great experience with K750i, but this one is SE's ultimate failure. Changed software 3 times. After every change one problems gets solved, three new appear. Here are some "features":

- Keypad backlight not working (solved after 1st software update)
- Menu browsing terribly slow (solved after 2nd)
- Unable to save Internet settings (solved after 3rd)
- Menu browsing still slow
- Suddenly loses GPRS/3G connection (aka no Internet), regains after reset
- Poor speaker quality
- Frequent unexpected shutdowns
- Battery doesn't last more than 2 days with moderate usage
- USB file transfer terribly slow, tends to abort transfer with "Access denied" message. BT transfers are FASTER then USB. Note that another SE phone works perfect with same memory card, same cable and same PC and software.

SE customer support has only one solution for all problems: "Update your software again". I have a better one. Throw it away and get a decent phone.

Oh, here's something positive: GPS works really nice.

[Wilhelm]

OK , I finally got my hands on this one today.
A good friend of mine got the C702 and as he came by for coffee and a little chit-chat I seized the opportunity to run some benchmarks on it.

The phone itself looks , feels and behaves very good.
I like the fact that it has a camera shutter like my SE K750i , and I like the layout and form of the keypad.

As I don't own this phone myself I can't tell more about it , but I know this - it will run those famous 1MB-Gameloft Java games without lagging a bit!


Sony Ericsson C702 - benchmark:

JBenchmark 1.0
Score: 6544
Text: 1970
2D Shapes: 1700
3D Shapes: 838
Fill Rate: 567
Animation: 1469

JBenchmark 2.0
Score: 826
Image Manipulation: 252
Text: 526
Sprites: 510
3D Transform: 511
User Interface: 11117

JBenchmark 3D (3.0)
HighQuality Score:432
LowQuality Score:462
Triangles p.s.:35615
KTexels p.s.:1701

JBenchmark HD (4.0)
Rendering Quality:
Bilinear filtering: Success (96%)
Trilinear filtering: Failure (84%)
Sub-pixel precise perspective correction: Success (98%)
Z-buffer depth: Success (16 bit or higher)
Performance:
Smooth triangles: 36660
Textured triangles: 32636
Fill rate: 1434 kTexels
Gaming: 169 (5.6 fps)

SPMark Java06
Score: 2205
2D (fps):34.7
3D (fps): 12.5
Fillrate (kTexels/s): 3689
Polygon (kVertices/s): 22.8
PNG: 67
JVM: 1952

DisplayBench v1.5.5
CPU Tests
CPU Score: 121
Mem Score: 314
Int Score: 304
Float Score: 878 / 156822 FLOPS
Copy: 174 KB/s
Read: 846 KB/s
2D Tests
Polygon Draw: 234
Color Draw: 126
Circle Draw: 177
Graphics Draw: 226
Smoothed Edge: 115
Filled 133326 pixels at 56848 Pixels/s


The benchmarks are a 1-pass score only!
As it isn't my phone I couldn't invest too much time in benchmarking it in multiple passes.

The SE C702 is by default installing games and applications to the external memory.