Sony Ericsson C510 Cybershot

Author's product rating:   

Look & Feel	Excellent
Durability & Robustness	Strong
Battery standby time	Excellent
Value for money	Reasonable
Range of features	Satisfactory

Advantages:	A great phone, good features .  If you like Sony Ericsson phones then you'll like this
Disadvantages:	Not great picture quality .  No Free Games .  Not many extras on the phone

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

My old phone, which has been through quite a lot over the past 2 years, was starting to get worse for wear. I had to get a new phone, however wasn’t really happy with the choice that Phones 4 You were providing me with. Unlike when I brought my old Sony Ericsson, this time all of the good phones were on contract and being a student anything more than a tener a month on pay as you go. One of the first phones I picked up was the C510, however due to the fact that on the network that I wanted, you could only get the phone in silver, and I had set my heart on the black one.

In a stupid decision, I decided to buy another phone, a Nokia one and within a week, I knew I had made a mistake. I could not get used to the phone, I didn’t like it, it looked cheaply made and just didn’t work for me. So I went back into the shop and managed to get them to exchange the phone for me, and now finally, I have the perfect phone.

What is the C510?

The C510 is probably one of the newest and cheapest Sony Ericsson phones on the market at the moment. It cost me just under £100, which is quite a bit considering that it is supposed to be ‘the phone for the credit crunching times’. The previous phone I had brought cost me £29 less and had around the same features that this one has, however the only problem that I had with that phone is it wasn’t sony ericsson and I couldn’t get along with the phone at all.

This phone is available in two colours, I have pretty much always been with Orange, and really didn’t want to change to some of the cough cheaper cough networks, due to the area I live in and my knowledge of them usually not working here. You can either choose between silver or black.

Now looking back, I think the salesman fed me a line with the silver phone I ended up buying. If I wanted Orange, then I could only have silver. According to him, Orange is the only one that produces this phone in silver, and that is the only colour they produce. Silver is not really for me, I would have much preferred the black, even though the salesman said it was a unique colour, I have now seen more of the silver than I have of the black.

Design/Look/Feel

Like I said before, the phone comes in two colours, but that would be the only difference you’d get from the two phones if you were to buy both of them. The phone is called a candy bar phone; it is 12.5mm thick, 10.7cm tall and 4.7cm wide. It is most definitely the lightest Sony Ericsson phone that I have ever had.

I have to say I was quite pleased with the screen on this phone, at 2.3inch’s it is one of the biggest screens on a candy bar phone, maybe even the biggest. Some do say however, that with this big screen however they have compromised the size of the keypad. I have quite large fingers for a girl, and have to say I haven’t had any problems with the keypad use so far.

The back of the phone looks more stylish than the front in my opinion, it has a lovely two tone silver colour, a different colour for the phone and then the little slide thing which if you slide down opens up the camera for you has a darker colour. It does look overall like a really stylish phone, however I would have preferred the black one and it’s a shame that orange do not produce that colour.

Design/Look/Feel: 9/10 (A really stylish phone, I would have preferred the black one however)

Menu

If you have ever used a Sony Ericsson phone before, then the menu system is pretty much the same on every phone. When you load up onto the menu, you’ll first come to a little envelope, which if you click further you will be able to write and send texts.

It is a very easy to navigate your way around the menu section, if you can’t be bothered to go through each one trying to work out which one is which, you get some clever little pictures which makes the navigation even easier.

Menu: 10/10 (Same as always, really easy to use)

Buttons

The keypad is pretty small but not too small that it’s not possible to use. I think if you’re a bloke with big hands then you might have trouble using this. The two buttons at the top which you press to get to address book or search are still quite tough to press down. I don’t know if they will get softer over time however quite a bit of pressure has to be provided to press them.

Other than the main buttons on the front you only have two more buttons on the right hand side of the phone. The first one is the volume button up and down. Then you have the cybershot button, which has caused me quite a bit of bother.

I went out last week, and right at the end after about 6 hours of extensive use, the batteries in my camera went. They were only very cheap batteries, but I pulled out my phone and then everyone began to use that for the pictures. Everyone struggled with the cybershot button, it takes so much pressure to push it down to take the picture and then the shutter lag is so long that the end product ends up very blurred.

Buttons: 8/10 (Pretty easy to use, could be too small for blokes with big hands though)

Media/Sound

As I’m so used to my old Sony Ericsson phone which was a W810i and was within the Walkman phone range, I am so used to having a brilliant music player on my phone. Even though this can’t compare to my W810i on the music player sides of things, it is still a brilliant As I’m so used to my old Sony Ericsson phone which was a W810i and was within the Walkman phone range, I am so used to having a brilliant music player on my phone. Even though this can’t compare to my W810i on the music player sides of things, it is still a brilliant music player.

The quality of the sound is very good, but be careful not to have it too high as if you fall asleep with it on the pillow next to you with the alarm set, it will make you jump out of your bed, and it’s not nice, especially when you had spent the previous night partying.

Media/Sound: 9/10 (Brilliant)

Battery Life

I got the phone on Monday 3rd August, and charged it up fully and just now, on the 10th August it is beginning to die whilst I’m writing this review. One thing that I have always been pleased about with Sony Ericssons is the fact that you get a brilliant battery which lasts for at least a week a time. You have to remember, that this is a new phone for me, and I have played on it constantly since I’ve got it and the battery has still lasted until this point.

10/10 (Best thing about the phone, but you seem to get this with all Sony Ericcssons)

Cyber Shot

Unlike the battery life, one thing I have always been disappointed with when it comes to Sony Ericssons phones is the camera quality pictures. It is so hard to use the cyber shot button on the side, that when you have used all of your might to push the button down, the image might be gone and if you miraculously get the image, then it will very likely be blurred.

It is a bit easier to use the main button the key pad of the phone, however again, because of the shutter lag which seems to go on for days, you can get bored and start shaking or your image could have come and gone by that point. This is one of the biggest things I don’t like about this phone, it could be brilliant otherwise, however you never really get to use the 3.2 mp camera to the quality that you want to use it for.

One of the things that appealed to me about this phone to begin with was the smile shutter, which waits for the person in the picture to smile before taking the picture. It doesn’t at all and has caused me nothing but annoyance since.

Cybershot: 5/10 (Very hard to use, and doesn’t always deliver good pictures)

Extras

Like most phones, you will have to buy your own memory card if you want to take a lot of pictures or put a lot of music onto the phone, which is completely fine. I didn’t even ask for the prices in the shop as with the first phone I purchased for a 2GB memory card, they would have charged me £12.99 when I could get it off play.com for about £5.

When I came home I looked up for this one on play.com and was amazed at the prices. It is a very expensive memory card and you can’t even get it very cheap on EBay which is almost unheard of. You’re more likely to get a cheaper one on play.com rather than on EBay.

One of the nicest things on the phone is something called an Accelerometer. I have this on my IPod touch and what it means is just by turning the phone portrait or landscape the picture on the screen changes as well. This is a great little addition, it’s not something that I would really expect in my next phone, but for this one, I think it really is a brilliant extra.

Extras: 5/10 (The accelerometer is brilliant, however the memory stick price is stupid)

Games

Or lack of games. I’m sorry but when you buy a phone, you expect free games on it. On every phone I’ve had since the age of 10, even on my old 3310 which had the snake game, you had free games. I was SO disappointed when I found out that all of the games on this phone were demos. No free games at all. How ridiculous.

For the price you pay, you expect to have free games on the phone, but to have none; I did feel like sending in a complaint saying how stupid it was that I didn’t get any games on the phone.

Games: 1/10 (No free games and all of the demos are lame)

Sim Only/Pay As You Go

I have to say, the salesman that we had was very good, he managed to sell sim only to us as well, even though now, I have cancelled it, I still have to wait until September for the contract to end now. I wasn’t very happy about the sim only, but he sold it to us saying you can cancel it.

You will probably be asked whether you want this phone on sim only/contract or pay as you go. I myself am sticking with pay as you go and am getting the dolphin thing which gives me 300 free text when I top up £10. I don’t think for a cheap phone like this, then it is worth paying £15/£20 per month.

==The Good==

I do really like the phone, I think it is very stylish and to be honest, it is a lot better than the Nokia phone I had before, however you are paying £30 more for this phone rather than the Nokia 5130 that I had before. The phone has everything I need, it’s very easy to text, very easy to phone up people, it has lovely pictures stored on it already and it takes okay pictures, and I hope after I get used to it, it will start to take brilliant pictures.

The screen is huge, especially for a Sony Ericsson phone. I think this is one of the strongest points about the phone. The phone is very light, I took it clubbing with me the other week and it fit easily into my little bag without any problems at all. If it was my old phone, it would have pretty much filled up my bag completely.

The main reason why the phone is good is because it’s simple. I think if you are used to Sony Ericssons phone, then you will love this one. It is one of the best I have used; however there is not much difference between this one and the first Sony Ericsson phone I had back in 2003.

Sure the camera quality is better, but they have kept the menu the same, they have kept the way the phone pretty much works the same. This for me is a good point, as I am not too good with change, and I like the way the phone works. However, I’m sure for some people the fact that the phone hasn’t really evolved other than the picture quality in the past 6 years.

The Bad

The phone cost me around £100; however they have included less on this phone, than they have on my nan’s Sony Ericsson which cost her £34. I think the main annoyance for me, was the fact that they have skimped out on including games or all of the little extras that are included on my nan’s cheap Sony Ericsson. My old phone, which I got back in 2007 was pretty much made for me, not only did it have a brilliant music player, but it also had a lot of different applications which included things like guitar notes, light and other little extras. I believe at the time, this phone cost me the same as this one does, however it had so much more little extras than this one has.

The camera quality is supposed to be brilliant at 3.2 megapixels, however because it’s so hard to take the picture, it becomes one of the weakest cameras that I have used on a Sony Ericsson phone. The one is probably one of the weakest made phones that I have used, it does feel a little flimsy and knowing me being such a klutz I will probably break the phone pretty easily down the line.

Final Opinion

The phone is a lot weaker compared to the W810i that I brought two years ago, It doesn’t have half of the features that my old phone has, however it is a Sony Ericssson phone, with all of the basics that my old phones had, and for me, that is good enough. The phone is very stylish, which of course for us girls is very important, it is very slimeline which means it fits into your handbag and doesn’t take up too much room.

You can easily slip it into your pockets without feeling like you have a hefty weight in your pockets, it is a very good phone because of this, however it does have its problems and I don’t think it really is worth a £15 a month contract or even if you buy it for £100 on pay as you go.

If you wait a bit, then you might be able to get it a lot cheaper down the line, it is a very good phone and when it gets down to about £50-60 then you will be paying for what it really is worth.

The Nokia 5130 that I originally had was a very good phone, however I couldn’t get used to it because it was nokia and not a sony ericsson. If you are looking for a cheap good phone, then maybe go with the Nokia 5130 instead of the Sony Ericsson C510 as you are saving £30 and you are getting pretty much the same features.

I am pretty sure this phone will be with me for a few more years even despite it’s problems. I have ordered a memory stick for £8, and hopefully it will be here before I go on holiday this weekend. I think a lot of pictures will be taken and hopefully then, I will be able to get the full use out of the camera on the phone. If I do, I will upload pictures onto here, and will probably have to change a bit of my review, depending on if the camera performs good or badly to the beautiful views I’m sure to be getting.

Final Note

If you can get it cheap, then buy it. If you are used to Sony Ericsson and you don’t like change (like me) then this phone is brilliant. I think it is a very good phone, but it does have it’s problems. Sony Ericsson have in the recession taken a lot of the extras that made my W810i brilliant, and taken them off this phone, which even includes any free games which are usually included. Such a shame, considering this phone is pretty good.

(C) Kirsty 2009