Sony Ericsson Z750a Cell Phone Review - Software
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Alfredo Padilla Published on June 12, 2008 Comment on this |
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| The Sony-Ericsson Z750a's operating system is straightforward and looks nice. We were particularly impressed by the powerful web browser on the device. |
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OS (4.0)
The Z750a runs Sony-Ericsson's proprietary operating system and interface slightly adapted for AT&T's services. In practice the interface is relatively smooth, easy to use and attractive, with menus that slide into place and almost iPhone-like transitions. We noticed the greatest lag when trying to get the music software launched, but even there it didn't "feel" slow because of the smooth transitions. The menu system has been organized to AT&T's specifications so most AT&T customers should be able to find there way around easily, and those who haven't used an AT&T phone before will find most items to be organized logically.
Once nice feature is the task switcher built into the Z750a. Press the dedicate button, located under the end key, and you get an on-screen pop-up with four tabs for notifications, running applications, favorite applications and browser shortcuts. Shortcuts are customizable and of course the presence of a running apps tab means that the Z750a supports multi-tasking. This last is something we usually only see on higher end smart phones, so it's nice to see it on a lower end device like the Z750a.
The applications menu is standardized for AT&T.
One issue we do have with the interface is the way that shortcut keys are used. On many phones you can access an item in the menu by hitting a corresponding number key from the key pad. The Z750a supports this, but unlike most phones it does not actually put the numbers next to the menu items. In practice this means you'll have to memorize the shortcut or count down the menu items, which isn't much of a time saver. For proprietary operating systems we cap the score at 5.0, reserving higher scores for more advanced "smart" operating systems like BlackBerry OS or Windows Mobile.
Home Screen Score (6.0)
The Sony-Ericsson Z750a home screen is pretty typical. There's a bar at the top with indicators for things like signal strength and battery. At the bottom are labels for the two soft keys and the center select key. Just above these labels is an indicator for the time and date. Most of the screen is taken up by the wallpaper, which is an animated floating bubble dealy by default. As is typical the four directions of the D-Pad act as shortcuts, by default they are: up for messaging, right for IM, left for files and down for contacts. These can be customized in the settings. You can also set any photo or video to your wallpaper. The overall effect is straightforward, familiar and easy to use, but there's also nothing particularly innovative or new here.
The home screen is clean and simple.
Extensibility (3.0)
The Sony-Ericsson Z750a supports Java applications like Opera Mini or Google Maps, as is typical of cell phones. It does not support native third party applications like more advanced smart phones.
Customizability (4.0)
As we mentioned above the Sony-Ericsson Z750a allows you to customize your home screen's wallpaper and D-Pad shortcuts. You can also customize the items on your favorites list in the task switcher. There is also support for themes, which change the background throughout the interface but really doesn't have any other effect. You can change the size of the clock on the home screen, but there's no way to change the font size or type throughout the interface. You also can't reorganize the applications menu. We aren't particularly impressed by the customization options, they're pretty typical for an entry level device.
Customizable shortcuts for applications.
OS Responsiveness (6.0)
This section is a little difficult to judge. We mentioned above that the smooth transitions and nice effects on the Sony-Ericsson Z750a make it seem to be very responsive, and in some cases, like the organizer apps, it actually is. In other cases, like accessing the music software, it isn't. We'd argue that the former is more prevalent than the latter, and we'd also note that a user's impression of responsiveness is sometimes as important as actually responsiveness. That slow time on the music software really bugs us, however.
Browser Features (6.0)
The Sony-Ericsson z750's web browser is reasonably capable for a mobile browser. It supports both mobile WAP pages and full HTML web pages as well as JavaScript, frames, encryption, saving a web page and cookies. What isn't supported are RSS feeds, saving images, Java, Flash or password management. This is slightly better than the typical mobile web browser, many of which don't totally support JavaScript. It's not as capable as the most advanced mobile web browsers like Nokia's S60 Web or Opera Mobile.
The desktop view on the Z750a's browser.
Browsing Interface (7.5)
The Sony-Ericsson Z750a's browsing interface offers users several choices. By default you get a Smart-Fit view, which organizes all the content into a single column to make it easier to view on a small screen. If you turn this off in the settings the page is rendered the way it will look on a desktop, but unlike many mobile browsers we've seen there's a good set of tools for getting around. In particular there's a Pan & Zoom mode that is very similar to the overview mode provided by S60 Web, Opera Mini and the latest version of Internet Explorer Mobile. Using this tool you get a bird's eye view of the page with a small box that you can move around to the content you want. Then hit the center select key to zoom in on the box.
Overview mode makes browsing large sites possible.
You can also increase or decrease the zoom level and switch between normal, full screen and landscape views. What makes all of this particularly easy to use is the support for keypad shortcuts. The * key will switch between the various views, the 0 key will let you set the zoom level and the # key puts you into Pan & Zoom mode. Not every thing's perfect, we noticed that making these transitions was a little slow, not surprising given that you're asking an entry level phone to perform operations that many higher end phones don't. Still, it's much better than what we normally see from a mobile browser on a device like the Z750a, and it's also better than the attempts we've seen at more desktop-like browsing experiences on higher end phones like the Samsung Glyde.
There is very good bookmarks and history support on the Z750a.
Apart from the viewing interface the Z750a provides solid support for bookmarks, including the ability to organize them into folders. The phone's history goes back beyond the current session and we like that when you enter an address in it will automatically filter matches from your history. There's also a Find on Page feature, which isn't seen on many browsers. Overall we'd put the functionality of the Z750a's browser close to that of Opera Mini, which is the browser we recommend to people when we don't like a phone's built in functionality. Opera Mini is still probably a little bit better, but the Z750a's web browser is quite capable on its own and there's no reason you can't have a solid web browsing experience with it.
Browser Access (8.0)
Navigating to our own site on the Sony-Ericsson Z750a took five steps, and one of those was just because the home page you navigate to isn't well designed. When you open the phone all you have to do is hit the center select button to launch the web browser. You then need to move down once to move away from a text entry field on the home page. Once you've done that simply start typing in a web address, in this case ours, and then the center select key to go on your way. You can see below that five steps is better than average and was only matched by the W580i amongst our comparison phones. We use steps here instead of a timed test because we don't want network issues to get in the way. Entering the web address is counted as a single step.
Gaming (2.33)
Continuing in an unfortunate trend the Sony-Ericsson Z750a does not ship with any full version games. It does have several demonstration versions, but we don't award points for these. We feel that every phone should ship with at least one halfway decent game. You do have a wide selection of Java games to choose from if you do want to divert yourself with the Z750a. We aren't particularly impressed by the phone's controls for gaming, however. The D-Pad in particular is a bit slick, and the center select button was too easy to hit by accident.
Not a single full version game in the bunch.
Calculator (2.5)
The Sony-Ericsson Z750a sports a simple calculator that allows arithmetic functions (+, -, *, /) as well as support for percentages and memory. The interface is different from the typical one we see on most cell phones where the four directions of the D-Pad are assigned to these functions. Instead the Z750a has a strip of functions at the bottom of the screen that you access by moving left/right with the D-Pad and selecting. For a simple calculator like this we actually prefer the other method, as its more elegant.
Calculate this!
Alarm (7.0)
The Sony-Ericsson Z750a allows you to set five different alarms, each with its own ring tone and recurrence pattern. We particularly like that the recurrence feature lets you pick the exact days of the week you want the alarm to sound, so you can have an alarm that goes off on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for example. This is significantly better than the preset recurrence patterns like Weekdays or Weekends that most phones feature. We were quite pleased with the alarm functionality on the Z750a.
Document Software (0.0)
The Sony-Ericsson Z750a does not include any software to view or edit office documents like Word or Excel files.
Other Software (0.0)
There is a plethora of additional software on the Z750a, with items like Music ID, MLB Gameday and other carrier oriented services that either cost you money or will lead you to spend money. We did not judge any of it worthy of additional points.
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