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View Best Sellers   Release Date: Q4 2004 Released For: AT&T - Discontinued Released for Cingular, the Sony Ericsson Z500a features a built-in digital camera with zoom, a built-in video camera that records still images and video clips with the click of a button, and offers entertainment features such as 3D gaming and music ringtones. With Cingular's Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), consumers can quickly send and share pictures, sounds and video over Cingular's EDGE network. The Z500a leverages Cingular's EDGE network to provide instant access to e-mail, games and information online... [Continue reading Sony Ericsson Z500a Review]

• Cool Style-Up covers dress the Z500a to suit style and taste
• Dual internal and external color screens able to show up to 65,536 colors (128 x 160 px) and 4096 colors (96 x 64 px)
• Built-in VGA camera with 4x zoom and video recording capabilities including easy photo sharing through Sony Ericsson's QuickShare solution
• Integrated MP3 audio player and 40-chord polyphonic sound engine with MP3 ringer support
• Conference calling and integrated hands-free speaker
• Messaging via Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), IM Wireless Village and email (POP3, IMAP4, SMTP)
• J2ME MIDP 2.0 support for application, ringer, wallpaper, graphic and game downloads including 3D gaming through Mascot Capsule 3D engine
• EDGE technology for high-speed data transmission with WAP 2.0 compliant browser

Technical Specifications
Network:	GSM 850 / 1800 / 1900
Form Factor:	Clamshell
Dimensions:	93 x 49 x 24 mm
Weight:	110 g
Antenna:	Internal
Navigation:	4-Way Keypad
Battery Type:	670 mAh Li-Ion
Talk Time:	10.00
Standby Time:	264
Memory:	6 MB
Expandable Memory:
Imaging
Main Screen:	65000 colors (STN) 128 x 160 px
External Screen:	4096 colors (STN) 96 x 64 px
Camera:	0.3 MP / 640 x 480 px / 4X Zoom / Video Recorder / Self-Timer
Audio
MP3 Player:
FM Radio:
Speakerphone:
Push-To-Talk:
Multimedia
Wallpapers:	128 x 160 px
Screen Savers:	128 x 160 px
Ring Tones:	40 chord / MP3
Themes:
Games:	J2ME / Mascot Capsule 3D
Streaming Multimedia:	3GPP / MPEG-4 / H.263
Messaging
SMS:
EMS:
MMS:
Email:	POP3 / IMAP4 / SMTP
Chat:	Wireless Village
Predictive Text:	T9
Applications
Phonebook Capacity:	510
Calendar:
To-Do List:
WAP:	2.0
Voice Commands:
Calculator:
Connectivity
Bluetooth:
Infrared Port:
High-Speed Data:	GPRS (Class 10) / EDGE
Wi-Fi:
GPS:
PC Sync:	SyncML
More Information
Website:	Sony Ericsson Z500a Website
Discussion:	Sony Ericsson Forum

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SE Z500a

I upgraded to the new SE Z500a this week from my SE T616, which I was happy with, but I have wanted a flip phone for a while. The first thing I am going to say about this phone is that I am dissapointed with connectivity. With the T616 having BT and IRA, this phone has nothing. While I can understand the exclusion of bluetooth (I mean, not that many people use it), the exclusion of IR is unacceptable. I mean with all the availiable customization, images, and videos this camera is capable of, your only connectivity options are: 1) EDGE, which I hear wonders for, but who wants to pay extra for data charges 2) USB cable, which I bought cheap off ebay but have yet to recieve and mess around with. While I had a BT headset, and a IR adapter, as long as the USB works fine, I am willing to accept the connectivity downgrade. Next, the phone itself. The first thing I noticed was the plastic it is made of. While it is sturdy and the hinge seems excellent, the plastic doesnt look or feel very high end. But, it is built great. Also the phone is a little thicker than a lot of newer flip phones I have held, but this is also acceptable. More on the external, the exterior color screen is a nice addition and has high appeal when I was looking at the camera. While the screen is not the greatest quality, it gets the job done well. The background can only be changed by changing the entire theme for the phone (small negetive), and it displays the time, battery, service provider, signal, and if you have any messages. It is also used for caller ID and picture ID. It can also be used as a viewfinder for the camera (only when the phone is closed though). I would like to be able to use the extrernal viewfinder when the phone is flipped open to take videos of myself, but I have yet to figure out if this is possible. Lastly, the outside face plate can be removed for even more cutomization. This brings up the next point. The phone is so new is the US there is verylittle accessories available other than the ones that are compatable with other SE phones. Hopefully soon we will see some more face plates and belt holders (none are availiable yet). Now the inside of the phone. The first complaint I have is the power button. It is built a little to deep into the phone making you have to press very hard to actually press it. Not a big deal, but annoying. The screen is very nice but I will agree with others when it is a little blurry. But this is only noticable if you are used to higher quality screens, for the average user it may seem fine. Also, they honestly could have made the screen bigger, seeing how they left a large frame around the screen, but it honestly has not bothered me yet. So far I have no gripes about the buttons (other than the power). The numbers and perfect and I like the space between the 4 main buttons. The T616, the buttons were all so close together they were easily confused causing in accidentable button pressing. From the T616 to the Z500 the menus are so much faster and better looking. The icons are crisp and clear and swicthing from one thing to another is lag free. Also, I love the ability to use animated images as background for the phone, it adds a lot. The themes the phone comes with are actually pretty good. Yet, the screen size is different from the T68i and T616 so those can not be used. This means we have to wait for more people to release more themes and programs. Another thing I like about this phone is all the availiable buttons and customization. There are 5 buttons that can be customized for shortcuts, my favorite being a button on the outside right of the phone, which I believe is reserved for Push to Talk (which I dont think cingular uses). There is a speaker phone built in, but I have not used it yet, it seems a little clumsy though. The phone is able to display and caputire 640x480 images and MPEG4 video. While I have played around with it a bit, since the lack of connectivity I have been unable to send them to my comuter for further inspection, although it looks very promising. Overall I think this is a great phone, and besides the lack of BT or IR it is awesome.

I have posted images and a video from the camera at:
http://z500.lookatthemonkeys.com
and more images can be found at:
http://monkeys.textamerica.com

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485 out of 537 people found this review helpful

Ample features but plenty of flaws as well.

This is the current Wal-Mart of flip phones. It has almost everything, it’s pretty inexpensive, but the quality you get isn’t necessarily the best around.

First off, if you want to get the most out of your Z500, I suggest picking up the USB data cable from Cingular for about 25 bucks. (The ebay companies selling the knockoffs can't be trusted... take my word for it on this one.) There’s no Bluetooth or IR support so the only other option is email, if you don’t mind paying the extra per-month or per-use charges. Personally, I have no use for either IR or Bluetooth on a phone so the data cable works out great for me. With the data cable you can chop up as much of your MP3 library as you want for use as your ringtones, make your own themes with the SE Theme Creator, or download custom wallpapers to your phone without having to pay any sort of service charge.

Having the cable also helps alleviate the problem of the mediocre amount of memory. After deleting all the non-protected content on my phone, it showed that there was about 6.6 Megs free. I really can’t complain too much since this is right at or slightly above average among similar phones. If you're careful about what ends up on your phone (like only using relatively short and low quality mp3s) and if you don't plan on permanently storing all of your pictures, ringtones, and videos on there, you should be fine. Realistically speaking, expect to be able to carry about 25 pictures, 3-4 minutes of video, and a few mp3 ringtones at a time. That’s not bad yet it would have been nice to have a bit more memory taking into account how multimedia-centric this phone is and also considering that the phone initially only comes with four themes, one application, and two barely playable demo version games.

One of the bigger issues with this phone is the display SE chose to use. Because the phone is slightly on the bulky side, the display may seem smaller than some others but in fact, the size and resolution are on par with comparable phones. It's simply the type that is used that causes the major problems. The Z500a has a CSTN display rather than any sort of active matrix type. While the 'crispness' of the display seems only a little lacking, the biggest drawback is how bright it is... or rather isn't. Indoors you're more or less fine but if you take this phone outside on a relatively sunny day, it's next to impossible to see the display at all. Without the backlight on, the displays are slightly visible in bright sunlight when held at just the right angle, however while indoors, at best it will look like an image has been burnt into the display. For all intents and purposes, you won’t be able to use the phone without the backlight and you also shouldn’t plan on using it outside too much.

While generally speaking, the software on the Z500a works well and is fairly intuitive, there are a few aspects that just make it seem that it was designed in a sloppy or rushed manner. Many of the purely aesthetic aspects of the phone are highly customizable but there are some functional options that I really wish had been included. For example, you can pick a 'screensaver' (usually an animated GIF) that will come on after about 25 seconds of inactivity however, there's no way to change how long that delay is before it comes on. Even worse, 5 seconds after the screensaver starts, a huge ugly black and white digital clock takes over both of the displays and there is absolutely no way of disabling this ‘feature’. This means you will never see your screensaver for more than 5 seconds at a time and there’s no options for fixing this. Also missing is any sort of real control over how long the backlight and/or displays remain on before turning off to save power. Instead, there are just four choices given to you for controlling the backlight: Always Off (which pretty much renders the phone useless and begs the question of why that option even exists), Always On (which will drain your battery in no time), Automatic, and Power Save. As far as I know, the only difference between the Automatic and Power Save modes is the fact that in Power Save, the displays will actually turn off rather than just the backlights.

Besides the lack of options, there’s one other problem with the power conservation. If one display is on, the other one is ALWAYS on as well... or at least its backlight is. It's absolutely ridiculous that the phone operates this way. This means that if you set your option to have the displays' backlights Always On, then even when the phone is closed, both the external display and the internal display are on all the time. Even in Power Save and Automatic mode, when you close the phone, the internal display doesn't turn off until the external one does. Then when you have the phone open, the external display is always lit up but shows nothing but a black screen. This is a complete waste of battery life and pretty much makes the Always On option useless unless your phone is plugged into the charger more often than it's not.

There are a few more quirks that become noticeable after a period of use. The +/- buttons on the side of the phone don't do what I'd expect them to most of the time. Unless you're in certain option pages or in a call, all these buttons do is bring up the status page for the phone or let you voice-dial someone. Maybe I'm crazy, but I'd expect them to adjust the ringer volume... which is something that's buried in the setup menus instead. The camera isn't the best quality, more like a webcam from about 4-5 years ago. My attempts to use the sound recorder app have produced nothing but rather quiet, very low quality clips. The main display seems to get dirty very easily for some reason. You can only set one one-time alarm and one recurrent alarm at a time. The main call log seems to incorrectly sort some calls, usually the more recent ones. Finally, there are one or two sound alerts that you can't customize.

One of the things I did really like about the Z500 is the 'Style Up Covers', which is apparently SE speak for changeable front and back faceplates. To my knowledge, this isn’t very common among flip phones. I like that if the front cover gets scratched up too much, it doesn't mean that the camera will forever be blurred or that the external display will be hard to read. It just means I have to swap out the faceplates... that is if you can find somewhere that sells the covers for this phone. Unfortunately, the lack of available faceplates isn't what turns this feature into a potential drawback. The covers are extremely hard to get off the phone at first. Both the phone's instruction manual and the instruction card that came with the covers we received say, "You may need to apply significant pressure the first time you remove the cover". This is by far one of the biggest understatements I've ever come across. It literally felt like I was going to break the phone in two just so I could have a blue phone instead of a gray one. In fact, it appears that my phone has a lot more ‘wiggle’ about the hinge ever since I changed the faceplate. It felt very sturdy and well built when I first got it but now it just seems a little flimsy.

Setting aside these quirks and drawbacks, this phone really does have some attractive features and some good qualities. Like I mentioned before, the biggest lure was probably the cost. Fifty bucks for two phones and two faceplates isn't that bad. Another standout feature is the fact that the Z500a is EDGE enabled, which means it's capable of sending and receiving data at much faster rates than most phones out there right now. Also, it's nice that there's no external antenna to get caught in my pocket or jab me in the hip when I sit down. Instead, there’s an internal antenna buried within the hinge. Being able to use MP3s for my ringtones has been great and the ringer volume has thus far been more than loud enough. The length of videos you record is limited only by the amount of free memory rather than an arbitrary number of seconds like on other phones. The speakerphone function works decently aside from the fact that you have to wait until your call goes through before you can turn it on. The voice-dial is pretty reliable. Several of the buttons can be linked to pretty much any menu on the phone. The menus themselves are easy to navigate and the file manager is well thought out. Being able to use an animated GIF for the main background picture is pretty nifty. The external display works well when receiving a call and features picture caller ID. Last but not least, after two months of use I've had no problems with the sound quality and only a few problems with reception, but that is most likely an issue with the network rather than the phone. I have yet to find a place where my signal strength wasn't great.

If it weren’t for the handful of unforgivable design flaws this could be an incredible phone at a remarkable price. If you don’t care about all the features and just want a phone that’s extremely well built, well thought out, and well designed, you might look at a different brand of flip phone instead. And despite the ability to email and surf the web at record speeds with the EDGE technology, this is just not the phone for a serious business user, although it does seem to synchronize well with Outlook. However, if a tight budget is your biggest concern but you’re really interested in being able to personalize how your phone looks and sounds, the Z500a should satisfy you without leaving you feeling like you ended up with a phone that’s behind the times.

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156 out of 182 people found this review helpful

Impressed so far....

Hello,

My wife and I have had these phones for about a week now. Cingular had the "buy one, get one free" offer. Actually it is two $30 rebates. In the end it is going to cost us around $80 for both phones (after taxes and rebates). So far the phones have performed perfectly. The sound quality is excellent. They work in places our old phones (also with Cingular) did not. The screen is nice (for non TFT). One of the larger screens on a phone in this price range. Speaker phone works good. Navigation is easy. Took about an hour playing around with the phone to get my contacts entered, a new theme picked, speed dial set up, voice dial set up, etc... Menu system is very easy to figure out and navigate. Included themes and ringtones limited and not very good, but tons to download! Camera and video camera are what you would expect out of a camera phone, decent, but nothing exceptional. Nice to use the camera to create photo caller ID pictures and backgrounds on phone.

We mainly use our phones for making phone calls. They do an excellent job at their primary function. All the other options and features are nice. I doubt that we will use the internet much from the phones or use the instant messaging. If you have Cingular I would recommend this phone. Very pleased so far.....but it has only been a week.

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188 out of 221 people found this review helpful

Great Little phone, especially when it's free

I got this phone as an upgrade from Cingular 8 months or so ago probably. I really like the phone. The quality of it is very good. I even had service and wasn't dropping calls verymuch after Hurricane Wilma last year. I have changed face plates on it a couple times already and I love that you can download ringtones, graphics or your own pictures and it has video capability at the same time. Now Cingular is offering the Answer tones also that Verizon has had for quite sometime. Just another nice way you can personalize your cellphone.

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2 out of 3 people found this review helpful

Sony Ericsson Z500a

The Z500a was a great phone....for about two weeks. After that time, my phone and my husbands, started dropping calls and wouldn't allow us answer incoming calls or when it did we couldn't hear the person on the other end but they could hear us. Then ringer just stopped ringing when it wanted and all the sounds would go out, ring tones and key tones. No matter how much we tried to change the tones, it wouldn't allow us. We would have to turn off the phones to get the sound to come back. Now we have a Moto 571 (think that's the model) and so far so good. I think some of our problems might have been our service but it's not happening with this phone so we'll have to wait and see.

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8 out of 13 people found this review helpful

Horrible phone, waste of money, and Cingular doesn't care

I initially bought this phone when it first came out in spring '05. Back when the phone cost $150+ It was a great phone for the first 2months I owned it, since then, it has just irritated me more and more.

The speaker is horrible, so if there is any kind of noise in the background, I have to ask people to repeat themselves.
The speakerphone is barely audible. For some reason, notification noises and the ringer are loud as day, but when using it for a conversation, it's useless.
The quality on the outside of the phone is not good. I in no way abuse my phone, but for some reason, all the paint has practically fallen off the case. I since then replaced this with a new case, but it took a lot of patience and some grunt to pull the original case off.
This phone randomly turns itself off. It has it's own 2nd personality. This happens every time I get a call, or call somebody. It will just turn itself off 2mins into the conversation. And on top of that, it takes a solid 2mins to turn on, and connect to a cell phone tower. Then another 30seconds to connect to the phone you are trying to call. So there goes 3mins of service I paid for, but couldn't use.

The internet function takes forever to connect. I've actually waited 10mins + for the phone to connect to the internet. While not too big of a deal, but when my friend can stand beside me and be connected in 10seconds, I realized I am being screwed.
The phones menu is always freezing up on me. Making me have to revert a few minutes for the phone to realize what is happening, or me having to turn the phone off then back on.

After about 4months of this phone irritating me, I took it to Cingular, and the phone showed off how awesome it is. I told the people at Cingular I wanted a different phone of equal value that I paid for this phone. They told me that their policy was to give a phone of lesser value, or the same phone. Since they managed to have no other phones but the z500a on hand, I got stuck with another one of these babies.
The 2nd phone they gave me has all the same problems, but more severe. The phone refuses to connect to towers at times. So I have to wonder around waiting for the Searching.... to go away. Or it will finally connect to a tower, only to lose connection 10secs into my phone call.

2 days ago, my phone decided it did not want to take a charge anymore. So now the battery is permantly dead. I tried this phone in 3 seperate chargers, and one car charger. I don't feel this also warrants buying a new battery, considering the phone refuses to charge, so I would spend money on an expensive battery, just to not be able to charge it. All of these chargers worked perfectly fine on my friends z500a's, but mine didn't accept them. I didn't think this justified buying a new charger, so I just let the battery die. I called the local Cingular store, and they want to replace it with another z500a.

How many of these phones do I have to go through for Cingular to get thier heads out of thier butts and realize this phone is just a myriad of problems and to replace my phone with a whole different model? I thought that extra money I paid for the insurance policy would actually be an effective use of dollars. But it's not. Cingular is by far the worst phone provider I've ever had(I thought Nextels roaming was great.. but Cingular takes the cake). This is by far the worst phone I've owned, or seen, so I have no faith in Sony Ericsson now also.

My contract expires in May with Cingular. At that point, I will go to Cingular, tell them I do not want to renew my subscription, and I will procede to destroy this phone in their store. Then walk next door to the Verizon, and sign up there. A lot of my friends have Verizon and like it a lot. They have much better service, and better phones than Cingular ever will. I do not understand how Cingular can have the largest wireless community when they are easily the worst wireless community.

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10 out of 18 people found this review helpful

straight up review

Pros

Good reception
Good speaker-phone
Confrence-calling
Vivid graphics
Good camera/video

Cons
You find 'em

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18 out of 35 people found this review helpful

My SE Z500a review

Well, it cant be said any simpler....DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE!!!! I just recieved it yesterday and sent it back the same day....that should say enough about the phone IMO. Where should I begin....the phone itself is bulky and the internal screen display seems as if this phone is made for high school teenagers, and if you are one I still wouldnt really recommend this phone. The phone itself is just weird, you know how when you first get a phone you feel good about it, well when I opened the box, I just wasnt very happy with the phone already, it was just a gut feeling. So, I will just break it down further with the few pros and growing list of cons of this phone.

PROS: Ummmmm....it has animations
-bunch of features
-uuuuhhhhhhhh....still thinking......it has a cool DJ Mixer where you can make your own ringtones....
-the speakerphone is decent
CONS: Reception is shaky
-CAMERA IS AWFUL, maybe the worst ive seen on a phone
-VGA is even worse.
-Buttons are difficult to press
-Hard to figure out what certain buttons do
-Display is Grainy and dark


There's more but I am begining to get nauseated by thinking of this phone again....so I sent it back and am waiting for my beautiful Moto V551 to arrive which I know wont disappoint.

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3 out of 6 people found this review helpful

This must be a comdey piece

Sure the phone works great for calling provided you don't need to make a call in a hurry.

The phone takes forever to connect/dial a number. If you have and incoming call it takes a while before you can begin the conversation I have been hung up on it takes so long sometimes.

The camera i fairly easy to use and works fairly well but I didn't buy a digital camera I bought a phone.

It would be nice to get incoming calls but most of the time the phonse shuts itself off for no reason so I don't get most of my incoming calls. If you don't mind getting cut off in the middle of a phone conversation because the phone decided it was time to shut off then this is the phone for you.

I have one, my wife has one (Cingulars family plan) our friend has one and several other people I know have this phone and we ALL have the same problems ALL the time. WE HATE THEM. And, to top it all off we talk to Cingular in person and they well at us and are unwilling to help, we call them on the phone and they hang up on us. Sounds like this phone is a thorn in everybody's side not wonder the price dropped drastically from when we bought them to what you can pick them up for now.

DON'T BUY THIS PHONE YOU WILL REGRET IT!!!!!

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11 out of 25 people found this review helpful