Forum > Sony Ericsson / Sony > General > First Impression: Sony Ericsson G700

Sony Ericsson G700 and its sibling G900 are the phones tha are supposed to transform the companie's smartphones from being nich products to become phones for ordinary users. It feels like they will succeed.


The mobil editorial staff has more than one fanatic supporter of Sony Ericsons smartphone system UIQ. I have tested phones from most manufacturers, smartphones as well as simpler models, but as soon as a new UIQ phone has arrived to the editorial stuff, it imediately gets snatched by the editor-in-chief or some other UIQ enthusiast.

But when both Sony Ericsson G700 and G900 arrived to the editorial stuff simultaniously, I saw my chance. The phones are very similar and we will soon publish a full test of G900. To be able to say anything more about G700 one has to find another angle, namely how it works for a complete UIQ newbie. That is how I argued and suceeded to get my hands on the trofe G700.

The reasoning is not wrong. G700 will be Sony Ericsson cheapest smartphone so far with a price around 312 EUR (495 USD). Despite that it has a touch screen, it still looks and feels as an ordinary phone, so obviously they hope to atract new customers.

One of the big advantages with Nokias smarthpone system is that is reasonably easy to use, those not interested of all extra features can use the phone as an ordinary phone. That is not the impressopn I have got the few times I have fingered UIQ. For example, when I have tried to use a P1 I have been a bit nonplussed, despite rich experience of other smartphons and handhelds.

I don't know what has been changed in G700, but I never get that feeling anymore. I just start using the phone without looking in the manual (we never got any manual for it anyway) and it works very well.

The phone also feels good in the hand. Marginally wider and a bit heavier than my last testing phone K660. The feeling is much more convenient than P1.

To be able to further test how well G700 works as an "ordinary" phone I pretend it has no touch screen. It works very well, I work through the phone's functions without any problem and after a while I start to wonder what I shall use the touch screen for.

One of the things that impresses me is the WEB browser in the phone. It feels really fast, especially when scrolling and it even beats my earlier favourite, the one found in Nokia smartphones. It disturbes me a bit that it has no turbo-3G, but it is probably just a matter of cost reduction. To keep the price down an older plattform has been choosen, in principle it is same phone as P1.

I am positively suprised. At least I had expected to be a little bit frustrated with a complicated user interface, with unnecessarely requirement to use the pen or with UIQs notorious slowness. So far I have not noticed anything of that.

A full test of the sibling G900 will be published in the May issue of the magazine mobil and on the WEB shortely after that. The test of G700 will come a bit later.

On 2008-04-20 14:34:58, plankgatan wrote:
this review SUCKS. it tells nearly nothing