Sony Ericsson Z550i

Available now
20th May 2006

The Sony Ericsson Z550i is the latest lower midrange clamshell phone from Sony Ericsson, aimed at both business and leisure users. It's a sober, understated handset that Sony Ericsson say is partly inspired by the styling of the classic T610. The Z550i is a tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 phone with GPRS.

In the past, the Z500 series handsets have been about one notch above Sony Ericsson's basic clamshells, and we assume that the Z550i has a similar market positioning. Still, it's pretty well specified - the Z550i has a 1.9" (48mm) 176x220 pixel display, 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth and expandable memory on Memory Stick Micro (M2) cards. There's also an FM radio, multimedia player, web browser, email client and RSS news reader.

It's not an exceptional handset in terms of specification, but it is aimed more at customers who are looking at a good value handset rather than a top-of-the-range device. And it's not too long ago that a display and camera like this would have been the top of the range. The Z550i does come with plenty of talktime - up to 5.5 hours, and a maximum of 13 days standby time.

The Sony Ericsson Z550i has two colours schemes available, Sterling Black and Pearl Copper (the black one being the "blokey" handset, and the copper Z550i the "girlie" one, we presume). The Z550i will ship to Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific from Q3 2006 onwards. There will also be a Z550c model for mainland China.

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