Sony Ericsson txt pro review

By Sameer Mitha | Updated: 6 June 2012 17:57 IST

Highlights

One look at the device and you will be forgiven for thinking it is a toy. It is really small and has a 3-inch screen. The entire device is no bigger than the palm of your hand. It is, however, thick and feels extremely well built.

The under Rs 10,000 phone category can be a bit dicey to decipher in today's market. For Rs 10,000, you can get an Android phone giving you a smartphone experience. But this experience is usually underwhelming and flawed in many ways. The sub Rs. 10,000 feature phones however seem to be basic enough to function as a mobile phone and usually pack in a few extras. Today we have amongst us the Sony Ericsson txt pro, which is a feature phone that costs Rs. 7,500. Can it satisfy your basic needs? Read on to find out.

Packaging and content:

The packaging of the box is tiny and in a word can be described as cute. Inside the box you get the phone, hands free, manuals and a micro USB cable that doubles as a charger.

Hardware and styling:

One look at the device and you will be forgiven for thinking it is a toy. It is really small and has a 3-inch screen. The entire device is no bigger than the palm of your hand. It is, however, thick and feels extremely well built. Despite the good build the device is really light, weighing 100gms.

The review unit we received was black in colour but the device is available in pink and white as well. The body of the device has a matte finish which is great as it avoids the device from becoming a fingerprint magnet. The touch screen however registers fingerprints very evidently.

The reason the device is a little thick is because it has a slide out QWERTY keypad. The slider on the device is quite sturdy. It also has a distinct click every time you slide it open or shut. The backlit keys rest on a matte-finished silver surface. The keys may appear to be small at first and they are but you eventually get used to typing on them. The rear of the device has a plastic back that can be ripped open to reveal the battery slot.

The rear also houses the 3.2MP fixed focus camera. There is just one physical button under the screen i.e. the home button. The right panel houses the volume rocker and a dedicated camera button. The top of the device has the on/off/lock button along with the 3.5mm headphones jack. The micro USB port rests here as well. This port can be used to transfer data to the device as well as charge the phone. All-in-all, the hardware and styling of the device can be a true eye candy amongst your friends.

Interface:

Sony Ericsson phones have always had a mixed reception in terms of their feature phones. Some such as the Walkman series or the Cybershot series have been credited with being great media and camera phones. The others have been sited to be a bit lackluster or sluggish. With the dawn of the smartphone era, feature phones need to add that extra punch at low costs to get noticed.

The Sony Ericsson txt pro has a four-cornered home screen. The four corners of the screen are represented with 4 icons. These icons are - the keypad, phone book, messaging and browser. It also has an option to quick access five of your most frequently used contacts.

The menu can be accessed by one slide of the finger but this is tedious as the touch screen isn't the most responsive and there is a noticeable lag in the animations. Overall, the interface of the device is a bit of a letdown.

Multimedia:

The txt pro wasn't designed to be a multimedia phone but it does a pretty decent job of representing your media. The music player is standard, giving you the option to play tracks by artist, albums or all songs. It also has an equalizer option. Having said that, the player is fairly decent. The down side is that the earphones provided with the device are a bit disappointing. The audio reproduced is loud and clear but it lacks bass and the overall punch.

You can play MP4 videos on the 3-inch screen but the screen resolution of 240 x 400 it isn't that much fun and after a point it hurts the eyes. The device comes with Wi-Fi, which is great. The phone is targeted at the social networking addicts and in this field the phone performs well. The QWERTY keypad is quick to type on once you get used to it and the phone has an on-board Facebook, Twitter and G-Talk app. All the apps function fairly well when connected to either Wi-Fi or EDGE. The device isn't 3G enabled which is a big downer.

The Opera Mini browser comes preinstalled and for the most part functions like Opera does on any other feature phone. Just don't expect to load heavy websites with ease on your mobile network and flash heavy sites seem buggy. For a smoother experience it is advisable that you stick to Wi-Fi.

The device also has a Yahoo mail and Gmail App preloaded. These apps work well but don't expect to use them to their full potential with relation to attachments. The device also has a fixed focus 3.2MP camera without a flash. If the lighting conditions are good then the images produced by the camera are rich and look good. The lack of a flash means that in low lit or dark conditions you will not get good results. The video recording quality too isn't anything to boast about. Basic home videos shot on the device may look good on the device itself but transfer them to your computer and the result is catastrophic.

Performance:

Being a phone you need to be able to make calls and send and receive messages on the device. Since this is not a smartphone it wasn't easy transferring the contacts to the device. We had to create a .vcf file on our phone and transfer the files to the txt pro.

The call quality of the phone is a mixed experience. In solitude, the conversations were smooth and the voice was clear at both ends. If there was noise at our end, the microphone of the device picked it up with ease hampering the conversation. The earpiece however is very clear irrespective of the situation.

Again the feature phone experience may not appeal to all but finding and calling contacts is as simple as clicking the corner of the home screen. Being a texting phone, the QWERTY keypad is excellent to type on. The keys are well spaced considering the size of the device and a little hard to type on. This is a good thing as it gives you a feedback every time you press a key. If you decide to use the touch screen's T9 dictionary instead of the keyboard, then it's a bad idea. The touch screen keyboard is a pain to use. We even slid out the keypad to search for contacts. That's how bad the touch screen T9 keyboard is.

The lack of a file manager is missed on the device. Sure it has internal memory of 100MB expandable to 32GB via Micro SD card but what will you use the space for without a file manager to transfer your data? The battery life of the device is really good. We were able to drain it in 3 days with average use.

Verdict:

By and large, it's hard to recommend this phone even if you are an addict who needs to be connected to social networking websites all the time. The lack of an OS, bad touch experience and interface outweigh the strong build and fantastic QWERTY keypad. You do have the option of getting an entry level Android experience for the same price.

Price: Rs. 7400

Pros:
Strong build
Great QWERTY keyboard
Good form factor

Cons:
Capacitive touch screen feels buggy
No 3G
Overall OS is disappointing

Ratings:
Performance: 3
Price: 3
Ease of setup: 3
Ergonomics: 5
Wow factor: 4
Overall: 3

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