As part of the testing of the new phones (check the S600 preview), I put my hands on the new Z520, which happens to be the most beautiful clamshell made by Sony Ericsson, ever â€â€� few will disagree with this. I loved it, and I’m eager to tell you everything I experienced, but firstly I would like you to take a look to the picture on the right, the Z520 prototype status screen. When I saw that, I immediately asked the people around me what the hell was that K426a thing and the only response I got was that it’s the name of the firmware prototype, and not a future or rejected phone. But you know official sources, they can deny the existence of a phone the day before its presentation. Even so, if we take the risk of imagining a candybar “K400″ with the same features as the Z520 (which are these), it would be weird for it to be better spec’d than the K500, of higher nomenclature. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time we find a Sony Ericsson named under a phone with lower specs (K600 > K700). The 26a part of the name shown in this screen would refer to the quadband access (we’ve seen xx26 models aimed at the South American market and the “a” models are for North America, both with different GSM bands). What would this “K400″ mean in SE’s range? A cheap way to get a quadband K700 with USB 2.0, sacrifying some 26mb of internal memory and with a slightly worse display. But honestly I haven’t seen a phone of this kind in Sony Ericsson’s 2005 roadmap. This could just be the least lasting rumour ever [...]

Continue reading the Z520 preview:

The first impression you get when you hold this beauty is its compact size. It’s far from thin, but it’s still thinner than the S600, S700 and the Z600. It’s also feels light somehow, altough the whitepaper says it weighs 96grams. The antenna in the Z520 fits with the overall desing just as well as in the J300, but is a bit bulkier than we’ve seen before. I guess four GSM bands need their space just as low and mid range Sony Ericsson need better reception reputation.

In the photo on the left you can see the S600 and Z520 with a J210 in front illustrating how the volume (cubic centimeters) of various kinds of phones can be the same while the distribution differs. Candybar phones are always slimmer and longer, right? Well then: well designed swivel, slider or clamshell phones are simply compact. What people prefers is a matter of taste.

In the next couple of photos you can have an idea of this new cover material treatment the S600 and Z520 are bringing. Quoting from the S600 preview: “the material used in the covers of the S600 and Z520 has a really cool matt finish. It seems to retain less fingerprints but I wonder if it will get dirty with time: the unpolished surface doesn’t ease the cleaning of, say, food marks. But the look is super stylish”. In the case of the Z520 not only the material attracted my attention, but the colors available. The main frame is available in white and silver, with 5 different covers available for each. I had the Light Purple, Light Blue and Chalk White covers, corresponding to the collection intended for the white Z520. Damn mess, yeah, you can just choose from 10 initial covers. Many of them remind me of what graphic designers call “female personal hygiene advertising colors”, but I must admit they look awesome to me.

Once opened, the white keypad immediately resembles the Nokia 2650, and blue leds appear everywhere. The number keypad may be the most comfortable of the SE range. Just as it should be, there’s no vertical separation between keys and the shape of them creates a depression between rows. The feel of the click is accurate and soft. The d-pad is quite big as the one of the Z600 but at least the center button has been enlarged.

A smart idea is what gave birth to the leds that flash all around the phone when someone calls or messages are received. As you can see above (center) they’re not exactly independent leds for that function, but the actual leds under the keypad. This means that when someone calls, it is the keypad light which starts flashing, and you can notice it in the exterior with the phone closed thanks to the pseudo transparence of the piece around the keypad. In this unit, the central row of leds was broken, and the “Light Effects” option under the “Sounds & alarms” menu is still under development and lead to nowhere.

In fact, I feel that the Z520 is a very design-oriented device. In some way it reminds me of the Z200, with its clean and smooth curves. It’s difficult to understand why there are two design styles in Sony Ericsson lately. Almost gone are the days of the minimalistic designs of the P800 and Z1010 or the refinement of the T610 and S700. The three cover designs of the K600 are good attempts to stay out of the mass design but just not as exciting as formerly (there’s a dangerous thin line between minimalistic and boring). The Z520 design, however, contrasts with the busy lines of other new phones like the S600 or K750. Photos don’t do it justice, you’ll fall in love when you get hold of one.

The external screen ain’t no Z800’s 128×160px, but it’s a nice touch to the cute device anyway. With 4096k colors all over its 80×101 pixels it’s more than just functional (I think it even supports animated GIFs as background). I doesn’t look to be very visible under direct sunlight conditions, and its brightness can’t be adjusted (unlike the internal screen), but for a compact clamshell with no special features missing for 225€ I’m not complaining. Curiously, the press release mentioned you could take pictures with the phone closed, but if you notice the place of the camera and the absence of mirror, did they mean you could take pictures of yourself this way?

Speaking of screens, let’s get into the big one. As you know, it’s a 1.8″ 128×160 pixel 65k color TFT screen, the same as the K500. Only the expert eye can difference these “low res” screens from the higher quality 176×220 displays of the upper range phones, altough the brightness and intensity is not the same either. The speed of the menus is more than decent, I couldn’t find any place where it slowed down. Less pixels always mean less effort for the processor to move them along (that’s why the S700 was always slower than the K700). The predefined themes clearly take all the advantages of the screen and the improved interface, and they’re full of transparences and animations to show off, plus they’re bright and beautiful (not always the case among new SE phones). There was this strange item under the General settings menu, “Turn On/Off GFX”, apparently a developer-only option whose effect in the interface I couldn’t find. Apart from all the graphics in the screen being redrawn, nothing changed when switching from On to Off or viceversa.

That’s what a scant 15 minutes with a very early prototype can offer. I am no market predictor but the Z520 deserves to be a best seller “all around the world” (the quadband will surely help that). If only it had 10 or 12 megabytes more of memory…

Pros:
Compact form factor
Attractive design
Excellent conectivity with Quadband, Bluetooth and USB 2.0
Famous K700 VGA camera with “Expanded” mode for near megapixel photos
Price

Cons:
Only 16mb of memory
Low resolution display
Can’t take photos comfortably with phone closed

See also:
The Official Photos of the Z520
Z520 specifications (S600, Z520, J210 and K608 are official, no photos yet)
Photos of Ellen and Zoe
Discuss this in the Z520 forum thread