Z500a Opinions, anyone have one?

This is a decent phone! It has all the features and functions that a normal person would need. The pictures on the display look decent but not of high quality and kind of fuzzy.
In my opinion this phone could have been better designed and with better functions, (common SEMC where is the bluetooth).
This phone is good for its value (mostly free depending on the carrier), but i would prefer to pay a little extra for something that seems more worth my time.

 

the rf on that phone is supposed to be better than any other cing. phone

 

@Fire14

The Z500 isn't too bad from what I hear, although it is certainly not the best either. If any of the European handsets work on Cingular then I would suggest that you look at the Z600. If you are not awfully fussed about having a clamshell then the K700 is an excellent choice, by far the best option of the three.

You may want to spend a little more and go for the S710, which, if it is anything like the S700, will be a superb choice.
There is also the Pxxx series of smartphones to consider; the P800 is somewhat outdated now, but they are relatively cheap to buy SIM free and still offer the main features of the P900 and P910.

I only use SE products, they have become something of a 'discerning choice' in Europe. Nokia is seen as being mostly for young children, old people or technophobes. I would very much recommend SE to you.

If you would like more information on SE products then you might be interested in this website.

 

I migrated to Cingular from ATTW in January and chose this phone for a couple of reasons:
It is a clamshell phone (was tired of the Nokia bar phone)
It is a tri-band phone, allowing me to use it on any network most anyplace in the world (My phone came from Cingular UNLOCKED!)
It is relatively small
Has a BIG standby time and decent talk time
It has some good bells and whistles including mp3 ringtones, animated wallpaper, connectivity via USB data cable, big phone book.
The RF ability is EXCELLENT! I could not connect much at all in my office with my Nokia 6200, but now enjoy maximum or almost maximum signal strength.
It also has a mini display on outside when phone is closed, making it possible to see what is happening with the phone at a glance.
This phone supports voice calling and voice caller ID (when person's name is listed in your phonebook). This works well with handsfree sets.

The things that irk me somewhat are the resolution of the screen, the fact that the phone is a bit "fatter" than most clamshells and the pretty low resolution photos. The camera IS good enough however to record such things as the other car that hit you while you were using the phone .. . Another small irritation is that yohave to add the same person to phonebook again if you do not add ALL numbers (mobile, home, etc.) the first time. I cannot find a way to simply edit the entry and add different phone numbers to the same person once that person has already been entered once. The last thing is the lack of good quality accessories for this phone. One last thing is that dust seems to collect under the glass of the mini display on front. It is easily remidied by removing the front cover and cleaning with lintless wipe and then replacing the cover. Since it is currently a Cingular exclusive, I have a feeling the marketplace has not yet geared up to produce NICE cases, replacement covers, etc. I am not sure this phone is available outside CIngular USA or not.

Overall, I am pleased with this phone. Others have seen the phone and think it is cool. Although PC Magazine says the keyboard sucks in their review, I find it easy to use and easy to navigate. For $50.00, it is a decent phone to get.

 

I don't like it, it's just my personal taste..

 

This phone has some quirks (mms, email kind of tricky ) to it as i've heard but for 50 for 2 it's a great deal. Also with the free faceplates you can cover up the plain looks of it.

 

also some of the screens go white. all you need to do is to take the battery out and reinstall it and it will be fine

 

I wouldnt reccommend this phone too much. Sure it's a great deal... I think it was $70 for two of them. But this phone is definately not attractive, and very cheap feeling. I thought it was a little toy when playing with it. The RF on it was pretty, good though... especially for a SE. And as dallison said... the screen went white once while I was trying it out. There's a reason why they only charge so little for this video phone .

 

I was dissapointed when I saw the Z500, one because the overall bulky size of the phone scared me off and two because of the miserably small screen. The phone is actually bigger than the V400 which is already on the large end. You'd think that a large phone would be justified by a large screen, but no, Sony Ericsson totally scrapped down the value of this phone by putting a miserable 128x128 screen. With so much space around the screen, you'd think they'd put a nice big screen like the V3 has. I hope they release something like the V800 in the US.

 

we have had quite a few that don't turn on, so SE is back tojunk status to me

 

Well this is just a low-end phone, so that doesn't mean that all of SE is junk. The T637 is pretty good, my T68i (of all phones) works great, and I imagine that the S710 will be a great phone, too. Of course by the time that finally comes I'll be wanting the Motorola V8 SLVR.