The Sony Ericsson Z770: "your life in a clamshell"

This is a phone we've seen in the wild on a couple occasions, but we had one detail dead wrong: the model number. It turns out that Sony Ericsson's newest Z series flip is actually the Z770, not the Z660 we'd heard before. The company is billing the Z770 as a phone fit for people who need access to the internet (web and email, specifically) but aren't necessarily interested in stepping up to a full-fledged smartphone, featuring "easy" email setup, zoom / pan features in the web browser along with an actual mouse pointer (anyone familiar with S60's browser will get the idea here), and integrated support for Exchange ActiveSync. The GSM / EDGE 900 / 1800 / 1900, HSDPA 2100 handset will hit shelves in the second quarter in Vogue Red, Graphite Black, and Exquisite Gold.

[Udayan Tripathi @ Feb 10th 2008 3:00PM]

This is almost a perfect description of the iPhone.

"The company is billing the Z770 as a phone fit for people who need access to the internet (web and email, specifically) but aren't necessarily interesting in stepping up to a full-fledged smartphone,"

[Ryan Trevisol @ Feb 10th 2008 5:58PM]

". . . and don't mind living in the hell of T9 internet access"

[hiko36 @ May 3rd 2008 5:13AM]

Isn't T9 extremely fast internet?

[Ryan Trevisol @ Feb 10th 2008 5:59PM]

^ Not meant to be inflammatory. I loved my Razr V3xx's speed and rendering when it came to accessing web pages, but it killed me when it came to typing in web addresses, and I would've NEVER considered composing an email on it.

I gladly took the 3g hit to go to the iphone.

[chrish @ Feb 10th 2008 6:27PM]

Agreed. The iphone is "it" when it comes to a "do everything" phone. Not only does it do everything, it does everything comfortably and intuitively. The edge network is a bit slow but since most of the time I'm around a wifi connection I hardly ever notice.

[drsilverworm @ Feb 10th 2008 8:47PM]

I guess recording video doesn't fall under the category of "everything"

[Poom @ Feb 11th 2008 5:51AM]

EVERYTHING? More like calling, web browsing, and listening to music. Yeah, some other stuff too, but it's far away from doing "everything".

[JeffL @ Feb 10th 2008 9:20PM]

My first reaction to reading about this phone was excitement. Good web and email access without the bells and whistles of a smartphone? With a dedicated keyboard? Perfect for replacing my iPhone.

My second reaction was: "Wait, my last three phones have been Sony Ericssons, and they've been crap!" Each time I was suckered into thinking "surely SE has fixed their user interface problems by now", but no, each time I ended up with a phone that was frustrating to use and underpowered. I'm going to give this one a miss.

[Matthew @ Feb 11th 2008 5:49PM]

@jeffL

This doesn't have a dedicated keyboard, it doesn't have any keyboard! Just a number pad.

[stuckouteast @ Mar 26th 2008 5:46PM]

test post