Loading ...Sony Ericsson C510 review
By Kaloyan Stoychev, 23rd of March 2009.
The C510, as its model name implies, is Sony Ericsson’s most affordable Cyber-shot phone till date. It’s also the first Cyber-shot handset to use the index number 5** and to use the Smile ShutterTM technology. Fact is, it’s a mid-end handset and although the features may not sound too impressive, it’s really a little gem of a phone. It’s got both the looks and smarts to satisfy your not-too demanding parent or teenager, who wishes only for a tastefully designed phone that can do almost anything else a normal phone can plus a very nice camera. It’s a phone for the masses, really.
You’ll find an answer to almost any question you may have about the C510 in this review, in addition to a plethora of high-quality photos of the handset and images of the interface.
Table of contents
- Design
- User interface
- Organizer
- Applications and location services
- Camera
- Music
- Games
- Web and connectivity
- Contacts
- Messaging
- Calls
- Conclusion
Advantages
- UMTS / HSDPA 2100 (tri-band for the US), up to 3.6 Mbps
- Great design
- Thin and light body
- Smile shutter
- Great price
- Innovative lens cover
Disadvantages
- No HSUPA support
- No xenon flash
- Limited video recording
- Mediocre sound quality
- No USB cable included in the box
Sony Ericsson’s portfolio features many phones with 3.2 megapixel cameras, indeed, but few of them are actually camera-centric. Such are the W890, T700, W980 and even the newly-released W705. Sure, they take good snapshots, but that’s not what they do best. Now, there are others that are designed for taking photos. These are the somewhat outdated K800 and K810 (which nevertheless sport powerful xenon flashes) and last year’s splash- and dust-proof C702. The C510 is in the same league and many people would argue that it’s just a rehash and they would be right to some extent. The C510 is special, though, in its own unique way. It’s elegant, functional and affordable.
The first time you pick up a C510 it’ll amaze you how light it is. And thin! Sure, it’s a tiny bit thicker than a C902, but it manages to impress nevertheless. To be more precise, it measures 107.0 x 47.0 x 12.5 mm - quite adequate dimensions. It slips down your pocket with ease and causes no discomfort at all even in tight jeans (everyone has one of those). The C510 is also pretty solid. There are no creaking parts whatsoever, or at least we haven’t managed to come across any during the testing period. Generally, we’re quite happy with the build quality.
The 2.2″ TFT display that is featured on the front side can display up to 262.144 colours. The borders are flush with the rest of the body, as the screen lies underneath a glass-like plastic cover, along with the rest of the top part of the phone. The display itself is very bright and the colours are vivid and clear. The only problem here is the contrast, as it is with most mid-end phones. Don’t get us wrong, it’s not bad, but let’s just say that the blacks aren’t as dark as on C905’s screen. Legibility under direct sunlight is largely hindered by the screen coating, though.
The alphanumeric keypad is a pleasure to use. While the key spacing and size could have been a tad better, the keys themselves are nicely separated and are slanting towards the screen in order to improve usability. Tactile feedback, as with most candybars, is excellent. The same goes for the softkeys and directional pad. So, generally, only people with large hands could encounter small annoyances while using the buttons on the phone. By the way, the keypad lights up in beige.
The right side of the phone features the volume/zoom rocker and the camera key. The Fast Port connector can be found on the right side along with the Memory Stick Micro slot for hot-swapping memory cards. This time around, though, the Fast Port is near the top, which makes it less obtrusive, especially when there’s something plugged in.
The top and bottom sides feature nothing but an accent stripe in either blue or white, depending on the colour, that goes round the periphery (much like the C902 and K850). Oh, there’s also a lanyard eyelet at the bottom right corner.
The backside, features the familiar Sony Ericsson logo, the speaker grill and the lens cover, which I oh-so adore. Why? Well, first of all, it’s flush with the rest of the backside when closed. It’s also pretty neat when you get to slide it sideways in order to reveal the camera and the LED flash - the feeling is just fantastic. You’ll find yourself opening and closing it occasionally just because it’s so nice. The lens cover definitely wins some design points for the C510, considering its metallic build and classy looks. The back cover, on the other hand, has a nice soft feeling to it when you touch it (a la K810 and C905).
Once opened, the back cover reveals Sony Ericsson’s BST-38 lithium-polymer battery, which has a capacity of 930 mAh. Battery performance is quite average, the phone lasting about 2, maximum 3 days until power levels reach critical percentages. That’s on semi-intensive usage. Quite honestly, it could have been better.
The C510 comes in two colours - Future black and Radiation silver. The first one is mostly black with blue and silver accents, while the second is white with beige-ish accents. Both look pretty nice.
Later this year we’ll see a third colour version - a red and white one.
One thing that we aren’t too happy about the C510 is that it doesn’t come with a USB cable. That’s a big let-down. Sure, it’s in order to bring the total cost of the handset down, but that’s pretty a basic thing that need to ship with every modern phone. People, who’ve owned previous Sony Ericsson probably won’t have any problem with this, though.
Albeit we didn’t receive a Memory card with our test unit, the phone should most probably ship with a 1 gigabyte one, depending on your region.
The C510 uses Sony Ericsson’s proprietary OS - more specifically the A2 version. In my opinion, though, it should be called something likeA2.5 in the C510, because it has been improved many times since the release of the K850 and W910. It sports an updated JAVA platform and Flash lite version, new menu icons and animations, an expanded media menu, a YouTube player, a revised structure of some of the menus and Conversation messaging - those are just from the top of my head. The interface itself is with no doubt one of the most intuitive out there.
As I said, the UI is very easy to use and probably won’t leave you browsing through the manual to find how to access a feature/setting. It’s also very speedy. There’s no lag at all. Really. Well, maybe some of the transition effect in some of the flash menus may slow you down with a fraction of the second, but it’s hardly irritating.
Like on virtually any Sony Ericsson phone, the appearance of the interface can be customized with the use of themes. The phone comes preloaded with 6 of them. Five are flash themes - such that involve the use of flash lite animations and effect on the standby screen and the main menu.
The first one is the Clarity theme that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing on every Sony Ericsson phone. The second one is called Dusk setting - a rather dark theme, the standby wallpaper of which visualises tree silhouettes moving sideways on a twilight background. The second one - Morning glisten - features mostly whitish colours and a standby glisten animation. The Ray theme has blue laser beams fading in and out at different places on the screen. The Track flow theme shows square frames forming waves on standby and in the main menu. And lastly, we have the Cyber-shot theme with a slideshow wallpaper.
Fun facts: Every theme besides the Clarity and Cyber-shot themes has flash menus. The Dusk setting and Morning glisten themes were on the C905 as well. The Ray and Track flow themes involve keypad light effects, similar to the T650 themes, and special animations while the phone is charging. All flash themes except for Ray and Cyber-shot have wallpapers that are controlled by the accelerometer of the phone.
Ray and Dusk setting flash lite menus
The main menu has four different view styles: the normal grid view, the carousel view (icons switch horizontally) and the single icon view (icons switch vertically), in addition to the Flash menu view, if available. Every one of these are beautifully animated and feature either colourful generic icons or stylized flash ones.
The Media menu is another important part of the interface. It’s a place where you have access to all your pictures, music, videos, games and web feeds. It’s full with eye-candy animations and transitions and is actually pretty speedy. It can also be auto-rotated, the response being instant. This menu also houses the photo gallery, as mentioned. It’s very intuitive and smart, as, for instance, it allows you to tag photos, play instant slideshows with different themes and edit pictures via PhotoDJ (videos can be created with VideoDJ and ringtones - with MusicDJ).
A very central feature of the interface of most Sony Ericsson phones is the Activity menu. It’s basically a pop-up menu that shows you all your recent events, favourite sites, menu shortcuts and running apps. You could think of it as the Sony Ericsson equivalent of the Windows taskbar/Mac OS X dock. It’s pretty handy, no doubt. It enables both multitasking and fast access to frequently used features and can be brought up from anywhere in the interface.
I’d also like to mention that the right softkey now brings up a Google search menu on standby, instead of being a shortcut to contacts. While some people may find that useful, I think that the majority would rather have an option to change the behaviour of the shortcut.
Sony Ericsson’s feature phones have probably one of the best organizers on the mobile phone market. They are comprehensive in features and easy to use.
The first item in the Organizer menu is the File manager. As its name implies, it allows you to browse the file structure on your phone memory and memory card. It’s really one of the most powerful file browsers out there, as it allows users to copy, paste/move, delete or even send multiple items at once, sort files by name, date, file and size and rename items right on the phone. New folders can be created as well. You can also view memory status info from there.
The calendar on the phone is very handy. It gives you the opportunity to save detailed appointments and reminders (including birthday ones) and to review your week in detail. There’s even an option which enables you to find a specific event in your schedule. The calendar can be synchronised via SyncML or Microsoft Exchange.
The calculator is quite simple. The omission of a square root function makes it even more so - in a bad way. Thankfully, Sony Ericsson has decided to incorporate a unit converter into the app, which makes converting mass, length, area, temperature and volume units easy as pie.
Additionally, there are apps for taking down tasks with reminders and notes, which can even be put on standby. A sync option, a stopwatch, a timer and a code memo app are available as well. Strangely enough, the Video Call option is in this menu.
The phone comes preloaded with 4 applications, in addition to Google maps. There should have been a bit more, if you ask me.
AccuWeather - Neat weather application that can keep you updated on the weather all around the globe. The application features 3-day forecasts, including temperatures and wind speeds.
Photo Mate - A photo application that tells you about the basics of photography and how to use some of the special photo features of the C510.
World Clock 3D - A 3-dimensional world globe that shows the time (including time zone) and date of all the countries of the world.
YouTube - Well, I think that’s pretty self-explanatory. It’s an app that enables you to watch YouTube videos on the phone, without going to m.youtube.com, although the experience is basically the same. There’s also a shortcut for it in the Media menu.
Unlike these programs, which are located in the Applications menu, the Google maps client resides in the Location services menu, which in turn is in Entertainment, strangely enough. Google maps can pinpoint your position on satellite images, using your mobile connection, as the C510 lacks a GPS module. It’s still fairly accurate, though. You can also search for places around the world and save them in Favourites.
The camera of the C510 can shoot pictures of a maximum 3.2 megapixel resolution. That’s nothing new, surely? Well, in a way, yes. But still there are some niceties that make C510’s photo-shooting capabilities something to be excited about.
One of them is the rather unique lens cover. It moves horizontally and thanks to its special sliding mechanism, doesn’t need space to the side, but is rather flush with the back cover when closed. Thing is, the lens cover tilts up and slides over it to reveal the camera lens and LED flash (along with a glossy coloured finish). As I’ve already mentioned in the review, I’m pretty fond of this innovative implementation. But there’s a trick to opening it, though. You shouldn’t try and push the whole surface of the cover, but just the far edge and it will slide effortlessly.
The LED flash itself is used as a focus assist light, as a photo flash and as a video light. Its luminance can be rather blinding when the person who is taking the picture is focusing. Despite that, the results cannot be compared to those from a xenon flash. Night pictures are pretty much unusable not that great. They’re fuzzy thanks to the noise-reducing post-processing algorithms, but the noise is still far from gone. Colours are kind of off as well. Even when using the photo light, the exposure is inadequate. The subject also needs to stand still if you don’t want a smeary photo. That’s why, in my opinion, the flash is best used as a video light.
Daylight pictures, on the other hand, are very good. They’ve got pretty natural colours most of the time and adequate contrast levels. The noise is also not very visible. They’re still a bit fuzzy on full size, though. Hopefully future firmwares will improve upon this. Overall, I think the photo quality is good for a phone of its price range. Here are some samples:
[more camera samples available here]
The camera interface will be familiar to those who have used previous Cyber-shot phones. It’s speedy, intuitive and has a handful of useful settings. These include:
- Shoot mode - Normal, Smile ShutterTM, Panorama, Frames, Burst
- Scenes - Auto, Twilight landscape, Landscape, Portrait, Beach / snow, Sports, Document
- Picture size - 3MP, 2MP, 1MP, VGA
- Focus - Auto, Face detection, Macro, Infinite
- Flash - Auto, Off
- Self-timer - On, Off
- Metering mode - Normal, Spot
- White balance - Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent
- Effects - Off, Black & white, Negative, Sepia, Solarize
- Picture quality - Normal, Fine
- AF light - Auto, Off
- Review - On, Off
- Add position - On, Off
- Save to - Memory card, Phone memory
- Auto rotate - On, Off
- Shutter sound - Off, Sound 1, Sound 2, Sound 3, Sound 4, Sound 5
- Reset settings
- Reset counter
Some of these are available while shooting videos as well.
The C510 can use the Face detection technology while focusing, similar to the C905 and C902 before it. In that mode, it automatically recognises up to 3 faces in the frame and focuses on the one closest to the centre of the viewfinder. Pretty nifty feature, I know. This time around, Sony Ericsson has decided to put something else to further enhance this technology, called Smile Shutter. As its name implies, it allows your phone to focus on people’s faces and then take the photo the instant they smile. How does the phone know they’re smiling, you ask? You really don’t want me to answer that.
Sadly, though, this feature can’t be used when your sole light source is the LED flash, because when the phone stops focusing, the focus assist light stops as well, leaving the phone literally unable to see people smile. That’s a bit stupid on Sony Ericsson’s side.
The handset also supports geo-tagging, which means that it saves the GPS coordinates of every picture you’ve taken, as long as the setting is turned on. It uses the phone’s mobile network connection to work out your position, much like Google maps. You can then view the locations of each photo from the gallery via the aforementioned app.
As with all Cyber-shot phones (sans K800 and K550), there are shortcuts on the keypad which allow you to change certain camera settings on the fly. They light up in blue when you activate the camera, along with the camera key and the D-pad. They allow you to change the shoot mode, the scenes, the focus and the flash mode. Judging from personal experience, these are awfully useful.
The C510 shoots videos with a 240×320 (QVGA) resolution at 30 frames per second. We’d hardly expect anything more from a mid-end phone. The resulting videos are quite nice as well. You can bet that YouTube will be satisfied. As mentioned, you can even use the LED flash as a torch in low-light conditions. Here are some samples:
The C510’s music player is located in the Media menu, as with all recent Sony Ericsson phones. It’s basically a less-featured version of the Walkman v.3 player, lacking novelties suck as Shake control, SensMe; some useful filters, like Year and Genre and the Clear Audio and Clear Bass technologies from the higher-end walkmans. It still does the job, though. In fact, it’s still one of the best music software on the mobile phone market. It’s full of flashy animations and most of all, is very easy to use. It’s pretty speedy as well, even while playing music in the background (though it lags a bit then). It can also be set to auto-rotate when you turn the phone to the side. There’s also a dynamic search feature, which can be used to find any song in your list as you’re typing its title.
You can customize the sound output in a number of different ways. These include modifying the 5-bar equalizer, which includes MegaBass - a feature that heightens the basses but diminishes the trebles, and activating stereo widening, which gives the sound a “deeper feel” at the cost of the bass volume. Of course, the player can be set to loop and/or shuffle the songs as well.
On a side note, it supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, RealAudio 8, and several WMA file formats. It also shows album art. That should leave most people’s needs covered.
The sound quality is quite average, frankly. The basses are on the silent side and overall the volume could have been a bit higher. Despite that, it will probably leave most of its users pleased, as it basically does the job. It was never meant to be a music phone either. That is also implied by the bundled headphones, which aren’t of significant quality. But they’re still as good as (or even better than) the majority of headphones shipped with other manufacturers’ phones.
The C510 also comes with an FM radio receiver. The radio player supports RDS, which means that you’ll be able to see information about the particular station you’re listening to on your screen. You can also save up to 20 favourite frequencies. One thing to note though - you need to have a pair of headphones plugged into the phone if you want to listen to radio. You can choose to transfer the audio to the loudspeaker, but you still need a set of wired headphones, because the cable actually acts as an antenna.
The loudspeaker, while being pretty decent for notifying you whenever someone’s calling, probably won’t satisfy those who seek to use it for listening to music outdoors or in a noisy environment.
There’s also TrackID onboard - Sony Ericsson’s free music recognition service. With it, you can retrieve information about the title, artist and album of the currently playing song (either records a clip from the internal radio, if you’re using that, or uses the microphone). The results come back usually within 10-15 seconds. Data traffic charges may apply, though, depending on your operator plan. The service is amazingly accurate and has proven to be quite handy.
The C510 comes preloaded with 3 games.
The first one is called Bubble Town and is very reminiscent to the game Luxor, if anyone’s played that. The goal is to clear a field of differently-coloured balloon-like creatures by hitting them with other differently-coloured balloon-like creatures. When 3 of a colour are next to each other, they pop. The game is surprisingly addictive and is sure to cause the fast draining of the phone’s battery on your behalf.
The second one is called NitroStreet Racing. It’s like Need for Speed ProStreet, really. You drive a car either by using the D-pad or the accelerometer, you unlock new ones, you unlock new tracks, etc.
While the game isn’t bad, I like the NFS one better.
The third game is Sudoku. What you do is try to solve Sudoku puzzles with varying difficulties. The greater the difficulty, the more points you earn, which can be spent on customizing you virtual avatar and winning virtual trophies. You can also invite your friends to your personal little Sudoku cafe to play there so that you may improve its rating. There’s also a quiz game which involves guessing your friends’ tastes… or something. It’s quite an entertaining little game - especially to Sudoku fans.
The C510 supports both tri-band GSM / EDGE (that’s 900/1800/1900) networks, and UMTS / HSDPA 2100 (3.6 Mbps) networks. The American variant, C510a, furthermore adds support for 850 / 900 MHz 3G networks and 850 MHz 2G ones.
The phone supports Bluetooth v2.o. That way, can transfer files between the phone and, say, a computer or even other phones, regardless of the manufacturer. You can also stream music via it, as it supports the A2DP profile. You can use the phone as a Human Interface Device as well (i.e. remote) for your PC. It’s capable of transferring files at speeds of about 140 kilobytes per second.
The web browser that ships with the phone is called NetFront 3.4. It’s actually a pretty nice browser. It has a nice cursor-oriented interface that makes browsing pages considerably easier. You can save web pages and pictures, mark favourite sites, pan and zoom, search for sites and find text on a particular site using Find option. You can browse pages in text-only mode as well, in order to reduce data traffic. The home page is a customized Soy Ericsson start page, which gives you fast access to Google search, your browsing history, a link to Sony Ericsson’s fun & downloads mobile site and more.
NetFront 3.4 supports CSS, HTML, xHTML, and light Javascripts. It cannot display any Flash content. It’s quite a nice web browser when it comes to rendering web sites. You can also use the browser in landscape mode, and it will automatically switch to landscape mode if you tilt the phone.
RSS feeds provide a brilliant opportunity for people to keep themselves updated on the latest news from various websites. This is built right into the web browser, and if you’re browsing a website with RSS feeds, you’ll be notified by a RSS icon at the top of the browser. From here on it’s easy to add the feed to your list of subscriptions on the phone. You can set the feed to be updated automatically or manually, if that’s what you prefer. You can easily access your feeds from the Media menu, but if you don’t want to go through the hassle (or lack thereof) of doing that every time, you can simply add the feeds directly onto the standby screen. This is quite a brilliant solution, if you’re a keen user of RSS feeds.
The C510 supports most common e-mail services, including Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. You’ll have to set up everything manually though, unless you choose to make use of Sony Ericsson’s online e-mail set-up. The phone also supports push e-mail. You can make use of both IMAP4 and POP3 protocols.
The C510 can hold up to 1000 contacts or 1700 phone numbers. That’s quite enough for most people, in my opinion. Each contact can be given the following information:
- Name
- Number (Mobile, Mobile (private), Mobile (work), Home, Work, Fax, and Other)
- E-mail (up to 3 e-mail addresses)
- Web address
- Picture
- Contact-specific ringtone
- Voice command
- Work information (Title, Company, Street, City, State, Zip code, and Country)
- Personal information (Street, City, State, Zip code, and Country)
- Info (a note)
- Birthday (can be added to the calendar)
You can send contacts to other phones via Bluetooth, MMS, SMS and e-mail or sync them with your PC. Contacts backups can be done right on your memory card or on your computer, using the Sony Ericsson PC Suite. There’s also an option to save 9 speed dial numbers, naturally. Saving groups for quickly sending multiple messages at once is also possible.
Dynamic contact search is, of course, present.
The C510 supports the use of SMS, MMS, EMS, e-mail and voice messages.
The message editor found on the C510 is a universal one, used for both writing SMS and MMS messages. It’s quite easy to use and is visually pleasing. You can add emoticons, pictures and photos, videos, sound files and even recordings to an MMS. There’s also a feature called conversation messaging, which displays all your messages with a certain contact in speech balloons under each other. It’s quite handy, that is.
As always, the T9 dictionary is the best on the market and miles ahead of anything else out there. You can always add a word to the dictionary if it’s not in there already. The C510 supports EMS messaging, so you can add graphical smilies, sound effects, animations and small black/white pictures to your SMS messages. You can also set up templates, or use the default ones. These can be added without even leaving the editor. Other features include a large variety of special symbols, support for copying and pasting text, changing writing settings, such as language, dictionary, word predictions and suggestions.
The C510, being a phone, can make calls, as preposterous as that may sound. To make a call, you dial the number via the keypad, search for a contact in your contacts list or recent calls one, or use the Smart Search feature, which suggests certain contacts, depending on which characters you’re typing right on standby. That last one is quite a useful feature, I’ll tell you that.
In addition to voice calling, the C510 can do video calling as well. There’s a front-facing video call camera for that purpose. The video stream it produces can be mirrored, or replaced with a static picture.
The network reception we’re quite pleased with. The signal strength was fluctuating at times during the testing period, though, but it quickly recovered. No dropped calls too.
The call manager can be brought up by pressing the Send key when in standby mode. It brings up a list of 30 of the most recent calls. These can be categorized by all, answered, dialed and missed.
Quite frankly, we fancy the C510, despite it not being a high-end phone. It’s thin, has a fantastic design and feels very well both while in the hand or in the pocket. While its camera could have been a tad better, me referring particularly to the low quality of the night shots. The lack of a xenon flash is to blame for that in most cases, though.
This petite snapper will always have a place in our hearts, as humorous as that may sound. If it was us, we’d definitely grab one - at least as a back-up phone. It does everything it’s supposed to do quite well and in style. Its price is pretty decent as well. Despite its deficiencies, we recommend this phone, no doubt.
[review based on firmware revision R1DA032]
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Video - unboxing the C510
[HD video stream at YouTube] [HD video download link]
Gallery of the C510
Great review! I have this phone and so far very pleased. However, there are some factual errors. First of all, you say in the main disatvantages that it doesn’t have a front facing video call camera, it does. Secondly, no memory card? Mine came with a 1GB card, this may be location dependent though.
Thank you for your input.
I was pretty convinced that the video call camera was an ambient light sensor, sorry. Also, the test model I received didn’t come with a memory card. It is probably, as you’ve said, location dependent. Will edit those ASAP.
I love all Sony Ericsson phone and rather have 18 of them , but i would like to stress that the x enon flash is the heart of a good rated camera phone no matter if the the phone is high or mid range . therefore it does not matter if its mid range or high end camera phone , the xenon flash is the key
dont you agree?
Nice review - I’m strongly considering trading “up” from a Windows Mobile phone to one of these as I’m fed up with all the “faffing around” that goes with smartphones.
Do you know how it copes with Exchange Activesysnch ? Can the C510 have a “work” connection to Exchange e-mail as well as a “home” connection to a POP3 account- both active at the same time.
Also, is there an easy way to turn off data (push e-mail) when roaming overseas but keeping the phone active (SE support were unhlefull in this regard)
thanks in advance
Terry
Go to the email settings and turn off push?
Hello! Really liked the review! But I have some questions: Can you zoom when taking photos in 3 MP resolution? Are the camera and phone processor faster than K55o’s?
I would like to change my current phone and the things mentioned above are important for me. Keep up the good work!
Very extensive review, thanks!
First review I’ve read here, so perhaps it’s standard, but I’d like to give two points of advice:
1. The large amount of big pictures in between the text makes the text very uncomfortable to read. It takes a long time to scroll from paragraph to paragraph, especially at the top of the article. Perhaps using small thumbnails of the images (like four in a row with the option to click them to enlarge) would improve it a lot. Pictures are of great quality though, very nice.
2. I also think a big review like this would benefit a lot from either paging or a clickable index or so.
Thank you for your comment.
Well, first of all, it is standard practice for us to include full-size screenshots of the interface and photos of the phones between paragraphs. We’ve never before received any complaints about this, so I doubt we’ll be changing the layout of the reviews any time soon. We will, however, have your opinion in mind.
Secondly, yes, we indeed have begun using a table of contents for every review, but, absent-minded as one can sometimes get, we’ve forgotten to incorporate one here. I’ll make sure this gets fixed.
Next time you should include photos of the phone in the dark, so we can see the keypad lighting effects.
Got mine in UK from Orange, disappointed though as no YOUTUBE app
no games just 4 crappy demos not nitro ect.. no weather app and no GOOGLEMAP app
Good phone though.
[...] se-nse [...]
“Go to the email settings and turn off push?”
Cheers - If I go for this it’ll be the first non-smartphone I’ve had for many years. SE’s technical support said I’d have to delete the e-mail account ! (TBH I thought that was a pretty lame answer - that’s why I posted here)
Is there a similar menu option to stop activesynch without deleting the settings ?
Still nobody answered my questions: Can you zoom when taking photos in 3 MP resolution? Are the camera and phone processor faster than K550’s?
It is to my knowledge that you can only zoom whilst taking photos in 2MP mode on this phone. A minor let down :(.
Still… this review is great and i cannot wait to recieve my unit. Ordered it yesterday from three (£20pm):
Unlimited Texts, Unlimited Internet, Unlimited 3 to 3 calls, 200 Anytime Minutes, a free £20 accessory voucher and the phone for free. Also my old 4gb m2 memory card from my w610i will fit it.
Its a great deal for a pretty decent phone, well worth a look at.
[...] Sony Ericsson C510 review [...]
Do I read correctly that this phone lack the bestpic function and goes back to the old 4 vga pic burst?
Also - is it just me or has thw qaulity gone DOWN compared to the k800? How much is this caused by physical diffirences (chip, lens , focal length) adn how much by firmware?(can pic quality ever come close to the K800??)
Thank you in advance for feedback.
No BestPic, sorry. And quite frankly, image quality has degraded since the K800. There’s a lot of noise in low-light pics and a lot of noise reduction. Daylight pics are fine though.
So, I guess that a new firmware could potentially fix the image quality, but not thoroughly.
Thanks nightblade- I love the new design and inerface, but will not downgrade in pic quality, that’s why I buy a cybershot in the first place…
Why C510 is released in two colors only?
If you have read the full review, it is stated there that SE will release the third color later this year… a red and white one.
Does the Sony Ericsson MXE-60 (The compact flash) work on the C510? I thought it might offset the Xenon Flash disability.
Can anyone explain me why in this review phone has color of screen border like body of phone - light. But on the box and in the shops it is like mirror and is much darker? camera flash?
+ Looks nice
+ Is quite thin
+ Has radio and mem card support
+ CHEAP!
Mine, mine mine mine! :D
I have read the full review and i don’t need such a stupid reply from kristine. Because of the release of C510 with only two colors initially, i have to postpone buying it as i don’t like the two available colors.
Got mine yesterday from Carphone Warehouse for £110 inc. £10 topup - bargain tbh, phone is unlocked and unbranded letting me use my Vodafone contract sim card.
The review says that there’s no USB, but a 1GB M2 card. Mine was the other way around, no memory, but a USB cable. Ordered a 4GB for £10 from Play.com.
Everything about this phone is awesome, apart from the camera.
One thing I’m pleased with is the ability to change the snooze time for it. Previous phones I had were set to 9 minutes, this one lets you set your own
I currently have a K750i…
How does the C510 stack up against the K750i camera wise?
I think it’s better
please explain what is the H inthe top left of the screen
That means that the phone has HSDPA (3.5G) coverage.
Hi, I replaced a K800i with this and am loving it! Can anyone help with a question please? If I add an animation in SMS it becomes a MMS, so where K800i sends it free (if using incusive contract minutes) this C510 turns the same thing into a chargable message. A bit unfair I think. I heard it should be free via supported EMS but can’t find that on there.
Could you tell what is life of the battery for 2g talk time when you reviewed this phone?
nice review..i really want to buy the phone..just few clarifications tho..you mentioned something about updated java platform, i need to know the specific software version of this handset (please please please..) e.g. JAVA Platform (J2ME MIDP2.0).. needed this on some applications that i’m using. thanks in advance.
Is there any way of getting rid of the ‘H’ (HSDPA) at the top of the screen?
Not that I know of, no. Why would you want that?
About the software version… sorry, but the handset isn’t with me now. I believe it’s the same as the W705’s and C905’s (with the february update), if that’s of any help.
Does anybody know what is the SMS storing capacity of C510?
I wonder if anyone noticed, but i noticed that the fixed focus camera phones actually take better pictures than those auto focus ones.
Refering to comparison for sample pics for C510 and sample pics for W715.
W715’s pics see to be much clearer, and color seem to be brighter.
Does anyone know why? (isit bcos the C510 is a testmodel etc etc?)
P.S. someone asked the zoom on 3 MP resolution, YES IT IS POSSIBLE!
you need to do a firmware upgrade, which you can download from the SE’s site.
Hiiaaa
I GETTIN THIIS FONE 2 MOZ CUUZ IT COOL X
Like aparekh I too was wondering if anybody knows what the SMS storing capacity of the C510 is?
Also , on my old sony ericsson when the activity menu comes up from a received text message, I was able to change it so that the date and time appeared under the persons name. This seems not possible - if so, I haven’t figured it out. Is anyone able to help me?
Hi
one question!!
what does it mean that it records videos limited?
main disadvantages i mean…
does it means that it records for EXMPLE 1 minute? not more in every recording?
please explain more! i want to buy!!!!
PLZ ! TNX!
No, it means that the video quality isn’t that great.
THANKS for asnwer but in the review u said that : “The resulting videos are quite nice as well” is it right to say that : the recording for a QVGA resolution is good! you meant it?….
I don’t know u understood my purpose or no!
Maxium text message storage on A2 phones depends on how much memory you got left on the phone. You can transfer your messages to your memory card and thus make room for even more messages. My W595 currently holds 8956 messages
nice review!tnx a lot!
I have a question about the directional pad. More specifically, the center button. I just need to clarify if that center button is actually a “joystick,” much like it has on previous SE phones. Or does it only function as the OK or the ENTER button? From the pictures provided, it’s hard to tell.
I guess if it’s not a joystick, then it’s safe to assume that the squared-shape surrounding the center button is the directional keys - UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT buttons.
Please clarify.
Thanks.
It’s a D-pad (directional pad). No one uses joysticks anymore. Not even SE.
I always loved the joysticks for playing games, though they’d always give problems in time to come. Oh well..
I bought this mobile for 10 thousand INR d:)
And uptill now faced no problems . But think that my model is a bit slow
Why I don’t know may be due to some problem in the internal memory .
Is anyone experiencing the same problem ?
Rather I should say is it a problem or the phones os is slow ?
[...] Design [...]
You could try updating the phone via the Sony Ericsson Update Service.
Overall the phone itself is good. I was going to get SE G- or W-705 but at the end decided against those 2 and went for C510 because of its keypad that gives a much better feel of each key without looking at them vs. the kind of flat keypad on 705. Though, I really cannot configure why most of newer SE phones (according to the phone sales from the cell-phone carrier) went backward to make it so inconvenient for us to have to reset time/date each time the phone SIM and/or battery are removed. Also, i found it funny why SE made such inconsiderate decision to remove the photo light (as light function) from C510.
From the time when SE UI was really bad (e.g., name search in Phone Book can only search the first alphabet of the name then had to scroll down if the list contacts say 10 names that start with same letter say S such as Sam, Simon, Sandy, etc.) until now when the UI, IMO, had improved and even surpassed Nokia, I have had many generations of SE phones and the last 2 being W810 and K770i with …the time/date setting is really a no-brainer basic function but got taken out while the photo light function is really good and comes in handy at times you may need it say in a dark parking lot…seems SE is trying to go back to the older times on these functions…
By the way, anyone knows why SE started to put the charger/connector port on the side instead of on the bottom that used to be?? The benefit of the port on the bottom can allow us to dock it on some 3rd party or even SE own speaker base on a vertical position while being charged…my dock for W810 had been wasted because SE changed this design…well i guess this is the purpose for SE, so we need to keep buying new accessories to keep up with these non-essential changes…
i already have this phone… it was a great phone., but after 1 month i bought the phone, it was not functioning. i was so disappointed..
i already have this phone on PAG but somenody told me that i doesnt work on every network as i had to buy a tmobile sim worth£10..is it so as i thought it was unlocked..pls somebody tell me so dat i can atleast do something about it!
i bought it from carphone warehouse!
hi, just wanted to say gr8 review and received all the information i wanted. plus i also love that u answer ppls questions which makes me like u that whole lot more. keep up the fantastic job
Thanks! Oh, and sorry to anyone I haven’t been able to reply to.
help.. the calculator of my c510 is not working…
I think SE has gone for the double LED flash due to size constraints.The phone is pretty slim.For Xenon flash one needs a cylindrical capacitor whose size is pretty big compared to that required for ordinary LED flash…I want to buy this phone.But wud like to know abt the battery from someone using the phone.Also in some forums i saw there is an error that after some time there is an error “Use a Sony Ericsson battery” even with phones containing batteries initilly shipped with the phone.Then a friend recently told me some applications stop working .He went to the service centre with the problem and got t rectified.But after a week it started agin???
i have this phone working fine ,
No errors yet,
But i dont like camera feture , Music & Motion is good.. Graphics is also very good
If you looking for camera future this phone is not for you….
i have this phone for bout 2 months now, took it to the beach for the first time and got a grain of sand under the down button, and it is really really hard to get out, so now i have no down button and no idea how to open the front panel as the back screws dont do anything in relation to the front!!!!!!
Why cant i get a silver sim free one in the UK ITS DOING MY HEAD IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
wonderfull review this is the best review of all the web……….
A.What is the limit of video recording?? (i.e. how many minutes)
B.The c510 doesn’t have gps but has the Google maps application how is this application does it help in proper navigation ??
C.does it have motion sensor games ??
like u move the phone and the dice roll games like that
A. No limit in length.
B. Shows you where you are and enables you to browse the globe. Haven’t you used Google maps before?
C. If you had read the games part more closely, you would have found out that it does have a motion sensor game.
I read somewhere that when you receive a text, on the screen the first few words show up as well as the name. I don’t like the words coming up as I think it should be private, is this true? - and if so, can you change it?
what are we talking about here? cell PHONES! all these damn cell phone reviews are about the camers, the dumb mp3, internet, blah blah blah. i would think the most important thing is reception/call quality and battery life. people need to get a life. buy a camera for taking pics.
@ zone:
It’s true for all new SE feature phones and yes, you can change it.
@ tani:
Leaving aside the fact that I mentioned all of these things in the review, I feel compelled to ask you in which century are you living? Calling hasn’t been a cell phone’s primary designation for a long time. They’re regarded more as multimedia and communication devices now.
I know this sounds stupid but how do you take the phone cover on the back off?
heya,
i got a c510 and wenever i try and send any theme or application from my pc to phone via usb, my pc displays a message “phone doesnt support this file”
however my phone supports the same file if sent via bluetooth from some other mobile
help!!
[...] Design [...]
m really Happy with this review!
I want to buy this mobile phone. can i go further without thinking any more?
I was wondering, between this and the Sony Ericsson K850, which is better??? Except for the camera capability.
Can someone help me??? Between SE K850 and SE C510, which is a better buy? And get more bang for the buck???
Thanks so much
Its utube not work if u want to see any movies on mobile utube it will not support you .its videos quality is also not well in comperision on others mobiles.i have purchase it mobile in 11800 in april.tody am filling very giulty to see anothers mobiles facillety. so that i want to say that dont purchase this mobile,its sound quality also very bad.
Heya, great review. My beloved K800i is…dying on me, so its time to get a new phone, was thinking of gettin gthis one tomrrow but i have questions
1. Is the battry rejection normal?
2. can this be corrected with firmware?
3. I am on a ‘pay as you use’ contact (not to be confused with pay as you go) how can i avvoid useing applications that are ‘online’ that im gona have to pay for…its hard to explain.. >_< (i will be transfering to paygo, but getting this phoen is an emergancy as i dont have one)
4. is it true about the firmware upgrade about zooming?
How many messages can this phone hold? Someone who owns it answer please. Thank you
@Moomoo
1. I havnt had any batery rejection problems
2. I’ve had 2 updates, one added a (poor!) pedometer and not really sure what else
3. go into internet options and change the network which it uses to connect to another one, the internet then just fails, I’m on orange contract (UK) and have them set as o2 - no charges!
4. well like i say ive updated and still no zoom on 3MP (and for me not even at 2 or 1MP - onl VGA!) obviously this is just a digital zoom which means that if you could zoom at 3MP, it has the same effect as taking thepicture unzoomed and then zooming in after (which you can do)
@Luis
ive had over 1000 with no probs
ps.
Think its the best phone ive ever had!
only bug ive ever had is (twice) its displayed two copies of the screen as if it were in a mirror on top of each other! quite an amusing bug and can be solved by turning on and off
my music works fine on my memory card, but my pictures just keep coming up with a purple box and a cross next to it; if i send the picture to somebody else the picture comes up perfectly fine ? why does it keep doing this & how can i change it ? x
great review, really helpful, ive just got a couple of questions:
1. can you put your own themes on the phone, such as spongebob which is bluetoothed from another phone?
2. does it cost you to go on google maps and youtube?
3. what is the limit for the amount of gb of a memory card can the phone take eg 1gb, 2gb, 4gb etc
thanks xx
1. Yes, you can install themes.
2. It will cost you, unless you’ve got some kind of data plan from your operator.
3. Theoretically, 32GB. You can put in any M2 card you can find.
Hi, i have this phone but still not used to it. i have 4 questions….
1) When sending a text message, can we insert a number in the text message from our contacts?
2) when i try and send one text message to many recepients (approx 40) it says message sending failed, but when i send it to like 5 individually then it sends it.
3) Can you only store 15 contacts ina group and no more?
4) when i try and send all contacts through bluetooth from this phone, i only recieve one in the other phone.
Pls help
Great review! The pictures really help!
My main concern though is the video recording. I want to know how it would perform under low-light conditions. (yes i know you mentioned the quality sucks, but just how bad is it?)
Supposing I took this phone to a party / a friends music gig / or if I tried to take a video at night.. how would it perform? The video samples you posted were all shot in the daylight, but how would the phone perform at night? I don’t mean completely dark, but just imagine taking the phone to a concert or something like that.. will it be able to capture the moment?
I think I read somewhere than on Orange, the phone doesn’t have all the features.. I don’t remember which ones, but is this true?
Hi,
does this phone have predicted text? If so, is there a way to turn it off? I’m all for this feature, but when it gets to the extent that it takes longer than usual for you to write one word due to correcting the phone, it’ll get irritating.
My sister used to have an SE, and it annoyed the hell out of me when i tried to use it.
Thanks
Im Sorry But That Review Is Wank;
Ive Had My C510 For 2 Months & Its Broken; & Yes I Did Look After It; It Just Refuses To Turn On; Im Now Back To My Trusty k800i
Please Dont Buy The C510!
x
I got the phone 3 weeks ago and this morning all of a sudden it’s unable to send and recieve text messages. And the problem is with the handset not the connection since I used the same sim with another handset and it worked. Anybody having any idea what could be wrong?
Hi I purchased this mobile. Does any one know how to check the firmware version of this mobile. And How to upgrade it to the latest version. As I purchased this 2 months ago.. facing some problem with the speakers.
Thanks body.. great review, I never seen before. I hv a C510 but I did nt know all the futures mentioned here.. thanks. But i knew that its a great phone from SE for middle segments. I don’t hv face any problem still now.
Good review, I will be back to read more!
Hi,
I was wondering if anyone could help me> When I bought the phone, the wallpaper was a slide-show of the pictures already stored on the phone. I have tried to use my photos from the camera album to use as slide-show for wallpaper, but am unable to. Is it possible to do it?
On the video it shows the phone charger. I was wondering if the charger in the UK is like this. Also, it comes with no USB lead, so what happens if the charger was like the one in the video… I won’t be able to charge it up! Please Help!!!!
I had put up a query months regarding the SMS storing size in SE C510, not sure if anybody replied. But what I found out was that C510 has a feature wherin one can chose whether the message should be stored on the phone memory or storage card. May be this can give more SMS storing space. Happy Messaging!!
hehehe i really like that phone but the issue is i connot buy huhuhuh,…my money is not enough……
hahahaha…….maybe better luck next time…i think i should fing money to buy that….anybody want to help me?hehehehe
i’m not geting the menu icons changed as per themes , wat do i do for dis ?
anyone guide me , plsssssssssss !
i need sony ericsson media manager software
i have original cd
but i can’t install in my system
showing one error
kindly send me my id
What a FAB review!!!!! I’ve looked at dozens, but this is top marks. I just bought mine, and am waiting for it to arrive. Your review showed me all the functions. How fantastic.
I really like this blog good job! Sony Ericsson is my favourite one
Im from the UK and got this phone on contract mine didnt come with a memory stick but it did come with a usb cable
maybe it depends on the region or network you get it on i got mine from orange
I have had four of these appauling phones in the space of less than a month. All have had the same problem, “No Network Access”. The videos and themes in the phone memory become deleted and the only way to sort my problem out is to send it back for a replacement. Even they guys at Vodafone started to sigh when I came through their door. My fifth C510 broke when I dropped it. My W610i has suffered more but still works (FAIL) and I am now investing in a Sony Ericsson C901. At least the camera quality of the C901 is better…