Sony Ericsson Z780 (Z780i / Z780a)
Discontinued 23rd April 2008, updated 4th December
2008
The Sony Ericsson Z780 is almost identical to the
Z770
announced a couple of months ago, but this time it comes
with aGPS (Advanced GPS) and Google maps. The inside
design has been made a little more conventional too,
making the Z780 an attractive 3.5G clamshell phone.
A quick trip around the Z780's features show that
it is a bit of a mixed bag. There's a largish 2.2"
240 x 320 pixel internal display, a pretty basic 2 megapixel
camera, stereo Bluetooth, an FM radio, multimedia player,
RSS reader, email client, web browser and a blogging
tool. The Sony Ericsson Z780 supports tri-band UMTS/HSDPA
(850 / 1900 / 2100 MHz) and quad-band GSM with EDGE
support, so the Z780 can be used pretty much anywhere.
According to the press release, the Z780 also supports
video calling, although the secondary camera is hard
to spot. The Z780 takes Memory Stick Micro cards to
expand the internal 35MB of memory.
One
of Sony Ericsson's spec
sheets says that the Z780 supports HSUPA as well
as HSDPA which would make high-speed uploads available
to users. However, since the same sheet also says that
the Z780 has a 128 x 160 pixel display, we will file
the HSUPA claims under "doubtful" for the
time being.
Talktime is an impressive 9.5 hours on GSM, although
most people will want to use 3G which is still a pretty
decent 4.5 hours talktime with up to 14 days standby
time. The Z780 weighs 100 grams and measures 92 x 49
x 16mm. There is also a Z780a variant for North America.
Although the Z780 supports GPS, there's no mention
of geotagging capabilities for the camera. Indeed, the
camera is the biggest weakness in the Z780. We know that
Sony Ericsson can do much better in this respect.
Sony Ericsson say that the Z780 should be available
during Q2 2008. No pricing information was given, but
we would expect the Z780 to be around €250 / £200
/ $400 at launch before tax and subsidy. (Update:
4/12/08: the Z780 is available in parts of South
America)
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Sony
Ericsson Z780 at a glance
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Available:
|
Now
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Network:
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GSM
850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
+ UMTS 850 / 1900 /
2100
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Data:
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GPRS
+ EDGE + UMTS (3G) + HSDPA
|
Screen:
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240
x 320 pixels, 262k colours
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Camera:
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2
megapixels
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Size:
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Medium
clamshell 92 x 49 x 16mm
/ 100 grams
|
Bluetooth:
|
Yes
|
Memory
card:
|
Memory
Stick Micro
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Infra-red:
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No
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Polyphonic:
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Yes
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Java:
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Yes
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GPS:
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Yes,
A-GPS
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Battery
life:
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4.5
to 9 hours talk / 14 days standby
|
|
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