Screen
The 4K-color external LCD display measures 80 x 101 pixels high and offers
at-a-glance phone status and access to some phone features without opening
the clamshell.
The standby screen for the external display shows the carrier, time,
date, signal strength, battery charge level, and other information. However,
the screen fades out and uses white numerals to tell time. It is so dark that
it is essentially unreadable when not activated by pressing one of the side
buttons to wake it up.
The internal LCD display is built on TFT (Thin Film Transistor) technology
and provides better performance and contrast which makes it more viewable
in sunlight than the external screen. It measures 128 x 160 px in portrait
mode and has 65K-colors, allowing for high-quality color imaging and video.
For a TFT screen, the circuit transistors are directly on the glass which
allows for brighter and more vivid colors and faster refresh rates. The
drawback to the TFT LCD is that they use more power than an STN (Super-Twist
Nematic) which is why the external screens often use STN to prolong battery
life. To conserve power the screen fades to black after 15 seconds if no
buttons are pushed, a setting that can not be changed.
 With
the 4K- (external) and 65K-color (internal) LCDs on the Z525a, Sony Ericsson
has failed to keep up with the rest of the industry as 262K-color displays
which offer great performance and contrast have become standard. Many of
the high-end phone manufacturers have even begun producing 16.7 million
color screens - a far cry from Sony Ericsson's 65K-color screen. While the
Z525a's screens may be satisfactory in some conditions, they often need
to be shielded to be viewed in the sunlight.
Audio
The Sony Ericsson Z525a supports up to 40 simultaneous chords which allows
for a strong performance of polyphonic ringtones. With its built in MusicDJ
sound synthesizer program, the phone can also be used to create, edit, and
send ringtones in MIDI format.
The Z525a also has MP3 ringtone capability as well as the ability to
record its own ringtones. Music or voice can be recorded directly as a ringtone
through the speaker although there is some loss in quality. The Z525a has
the all the features to make it very capable as a portable MP3 player but
with only about 16.0 MB of memory and no expansion slot, less than 10 songs
could be stored on the phone, rendering it essentially useless.
The media player software will allow it to play and store MP3s up to
192 kbps and includes an equalizer to allow the bass, treble, and voice
levels to be adjusted. It also allows the user to sort the limited number
of songs it can hold into folders and simple playlists and will support
audio files in MP4, M4A, 3GP, AAC, AMR, and WAV - in addition to MP3.
Blue lights around the rim light up in eight different patterns that
sync with melodies to match individual callers. The phone's unique light
effects will respond to the rhythms and beats of the music which is just
another in a long line of fun and innovative features of the Z525a.
With an MP3 player and the Z525a's ability to create and record songs,
the lack of an expansion slot and limited memory is rather disappointing.
While the Z525a's purpose with PTT and strong messaging features is to keep
in touch, Sony Ericsson may have missed an opportunity to keep up with an
emerging trend.
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