Nokia updates their ‘tough phone’ portfolio segment but occasionally, currently 5500 is taken out of production and spotting a copy at a retail store is a rare occurrence unless you’ve visited a second hand store. Sever budget models can be regarded as ‘semi-tough’ because some of the constructive peculiarities, employing plain but sturdy pieces which wouldn’t look well in a more expensive model; one might regard as such phones like Samsung M110, Nokia 1650/1680, but these don’t provide a 100% waterproof or dust-proof protection. In this sense, Sony Ericsson C702 is a very unusual product, being marketed as a ‘tough phone’ and at the same time identifiable with the terms of a hi-end cameraphone. The manufacturer claims rainproof and dustproof protection, however it can’t qualify as a fully waterproof gadget – it would resists the fine raindrops but letting it go skinny dipping in your bathtub will eventually render it defunct. The trials that Nokia 5500 Sport once was through without taking any damage are inapplicable to C702 as long as you want to keep it alive; it can’t resist heavy blows either, the casing being manufactured out of plastic (the Nokia thing was made from stainless steel). Still a basic level of impact damage protection is present – the plastic casing is rather thick, the memory card slot is protected with a gag reinforced with rubber padding, every part is in a tight contact with the others. Hence a fully justified positioning. The exterior appearance of the device also confirms the ‘tough’ tag associated with the product.

	Sony Ericsson C702 Specs:
Supported Networks:	GSM 850/900/1800/1900 + UMTS/HSDPA 2100
Memory:	160 Mb of user memory Memory Stick Micro slot (M2), up to 4 Gb Gb card bundled
Screen:	2,2" , QVGA (240х320), 262K
Connectivity:	USB2.0, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, A2DP supported
Camera:	3,2 Mp (up to 2048х1536), auto-focusing, flash, video (QVGA 30 fps)
Battery:	BST-38, 930 mAh up to 7 hours of talktime up to 300 hours of stanbdy
Size:	106 x 48 x 15.5 mm
Weight:	105 g
Guiding price:	€300

This way or another, Sony Ericsson C702 has two proficiencies: an above-than-average camera with some obvious ambitions and a reinforced casing. No phones of this kind have previously been spotted on the market, that’s why the model is bound to win a short-lasting popularity with a limited audience, yet this is not irony or a synonym of failure… C702 would love to pass for the best choice of a cameraphone for a picnic-goer, but the real state of things is a story yet to be told a bit later.

Design and Ergonomics

The size and weight of Sony Ericsson are moderate; the device wouldn’t qualify as a miniature one and neither it could win a ‘slim’ label, the thick and sturdy plastic has an obvious effect on the handset’s physique: the battery cover bay sports a backside padding ensuring a better contact with the battery. The phone looks stocky and gives the hand a corresponding feel when you hold it; the soft-touch surface of the battery cover, the fixing screw, the massive wristband holder. One would naturally expect metal, yet the phone employs no metal parts; it is entirely manufactured from plastic. This naturally leads to a much lower impact resistance than in the full metal body of Nokia 5500 Sport.

The size is comparable to other Nokia smartphones, revolving around the dimensions of 6220 classic, and is but slightly smaller than Nokia N82. There handset comes in black and blue color versions, the sole variable parts being the battery cover and the bottom of the casing. Both solutions look eye-catching.

The Fast-Port slot was moved to the bottom edge from its usual side location, which resulted in a good boost in ergonomics. The right edge hosts the shoot button and the volume rocker, the upper edge is where the power button sits. The specialty buttons are compact-sized, retaining full operational comfort, which is not the case with the numerical keyboard. An M2 memory card slot is nested on the right edge of the handset; it is protected with a plastic gag reinforced with some rubber padding which ought to ward off water and keep the memory card bay out of harm’s way. Ironically enough, the level of protection is too uneven for different parts: the Fast-Port slot is left virtually unprotected, which left us wondering and staring at the rest of the slots, which are all protected in the same manner as the memory slot, - all of them save for the ill-treated Fast-Port. The memory card sits a bit too deep to be able to extract it easily without the help of a tool other than your own fingers.

The back surface hosts the camera unit, it’s lens protected by a tight shifting guard. Long periods of usage may lead to worn spots appearing on the protective glass of the lens, for it comes in close contact with the moving part. The lens guard is also made of plastic. Just by the lens the self-portrait mirror and a double LED flash are located. As compared to the xenon flash of Sony Ericsson K800i, it doesn’t do well, much to our disappointment. The polyphonic speaker has a rather low volume, so you can occasionally miss a call in a very noisy environment.

All in all, the device design looks quite appealing, with a number of interesting moments. A combination of different materials and colors, a nice keyboard backlight combined produces some impression of quality, it’s obvious that the designers have done a good job. The assembly quality is up to the level expected from a ‘tough phone’. Certain extra details like the fixing screw of the battery bay or its backside padding) create the image of a long-serving and bold product unafraid of hardship. The idea behind is to mimic the appearance of the earlier known tough phones, taking no pain to employ extra protection in practice. The target audience of such products is rather narrow, yet SE are determined to maximize the sales. The majority of user s will be content with the design and the associated illusion of protection.

Keypad

The keypad of Sony Ericsson C702 brings up no trouble; the buttons are not too responsive, i.e. you can’t distinctly feel if a button was pressed or not, because of the buttons’ relatively short move. Seeking to minimize the tiny spaces between the buttons and the surrounding parts, the company engineers had to resort to such a concession. The weak points which would surely get taken out by a burst of water are the said spaces around the buttons, the interface slot and the meshes underneath which the speakers are hidden. At the same time, the phone has more chances to survive in the rain than any model not tagged as ‘tough’. The keypad backlight is of a white color, slightly uneven, though no problem here at all – all the button marks are clearly visible.

Screen

Sony Ericsson C702 comes equipped with a 320x240 QVGA TFT screen. The diagonal size is 2.2’’, which is a very moderate achievement for a cameraphone – the same goes to Nokia 6220 classic. On the other hand, the screen matrix is of a fine quality, the picture is smooth, clear-cut and has realistic colors. The brightness level is quite good, though the colors tend to fade if the screen is exposed to the sunlight. The thick protective glass suffers from the sun glare, it can even get extremely annoying at times.

Battery

In order to remove the battery cover, you have to loosen the fixing screw and hook it up from behind. The model utilizes a standard BST-38 930 mAh battery. The manufacturer claims 7 hours of talktime and 300 hours of standby. A moderate duty cycle (about an hour of talktime, up to two hours of listening to the music and camera shooting, an hour of working with the miscellaneous functions and menus) wasted a full battery charge over roughly three days – a level sufficient for an unpretentious user.

	Nokia N78	Sony Ericsson C702
Regular duty	3 days	3 days
Multimedia cycle, video(3GP)	4:41	3:45
Multimedia cycle, audio (MP3)	18:46	20:25

Connectivity

Following a signature trend established by the company for its 3G products, C702 possesses a secondary camera for video calls. HSDPA is fully supported, though there is no IRdA port available; which is effectively substituted by Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR. It functions quite correctly and brings no trouble when using a wireless headset. The following profiles are supported:

• Basic Imaging
• Dial-up Networking
• File Transfer
• Generic Access
• Generic Object Exchange
• Handsfree
• Headset
• HID
• JSR-82 Java API
• Object Push
• Personal Area Networking
• Serial Port
• Synchronization
• SyncML OBEX binding
• Audio/Video Remote Control
• Phonebook Access

Paradoxically, Flight Mode is only available when a SIM-card is in; once it’s out, the phone can be turned off but player and camera can’t be activated. That’s a serious downside of multiple devices by Sony Ericsson (even smartphones) weakening their positions against the competing solutions by other brands.

The wire connection is done through a firmware interface. USB 2.0 is claimed, though the real data transfer is significantly lower, revolving 500 Kb/sec. Modem, Mass Storage and PictBridge connection types are supported.

The wanted mode is selectable from a corresponding menu. The Mass Storage connection functioned correctly, both storage locations were detected (the phone itself and the memory card) The Sony Ericsson PC Suite application coming on a bundled software disk can help you quickly synchronize the phone and the PC.

The integrated FM tuner supports the TrackID function. RDS is supported, the memory can contain up to 20 bookmarked stations. The application interface is very friendly, the quality of incoming signal is high, as well as the audio volume.

Java Performance

As usual, Java enjoys a perfect implementation in this model just as in any other SE product – it supports 3D profiles, midlets can be sent over via Bluetooth; the performance rates are high, on par with K850i:

	Java Performance
Model	Sony Ericsson C902	Samsung U900 Soul
Jbenchmark 1.0.1 Score	7011	1329
Text	2197	310
2D Shapes	1705	314
3D Shapes	816	243
Fill Rate	555	134
Animation	1699	328
Jbenchmark 2.0.1 Score	1221	152
Image Manipulations	402	179
Text	756	172
Sprites	583	157
3D Transform	765	130
User Interface	18943	129
Jbenchmark 3D HQ	167	187
Jbenchmark 3D LQ	305	211
Triangles ps	32956	18919
Jbenchmark HD Gaming Score	95 (3.2 fps)	131 (4.4 fps)
Smooth triangles	44004	41491
Textured triangles	25433	27654
Fill rate, KTexels	556	716

User Interface

Sony Ericsson C702 bases off the A200 platform, and preserves the full associated functionality. You can always refer to the following article to find out more on the call service, PIM, media capabilities and other things offered as native A200 features:

Sony Ericsson A200 Base Functionality

A number of original interface themes are available. The main menu has three alternate viewmodes: grid, merry-go-round and one large icon per screen.

Preinstalled software

There are two preinstalled games coming with the phone: Foto Quest Fishing and the classical Brain Juice game.

The Remote Control application allows to control your PC right away from your phone, however it requires installing a specific program on your PC; this program is available from the software disk you will find in the box. The FaceWrap application lets you horribly disfigure people’s faces in the photos (as well as any other kind of objects) for your own sick amusement.

GPS

Google Maps 2.0 is yet another standard application preinstalled on all A200 platform products. Sony Ericsson C702 comes with a full-fledged onboard GPS receiver, just like W760i. The positioning can be done not only by the carrier’s base stations, but also utilizing the real hardware GPS.

Google Maps is free; the program comes fully configured and has a number of extra settings in addition to the standard functionality of the base version. You can choose the preferred system of measures, to precise map scaling, add chosen locations to your favorites list, customize the route calculation routine and search by locations and bookmarks. The application interface is rather handy; the downsides are a lack of possibility to recalculate the route or save it. Nokia Maps 2.0 available to most existing smartphones offers a much better functionality and comfort of operation, remaining the market’s leading solution.

In addition to Google Maps, the Wayfinder Navigator application is also available. It requires periodical subscription, which is done for a fee. The offered features in many ways resemble those of Nokia Maps. The routes can be calculated for pedestrians and car drivers alike, a route can be optimized by time, distance and traffic-jam-wise criteria, paid highways can be optionally excluded from the pathfinding routine, several map viewing modes are available. The application isn’t as convenient as some of the competing solutions, and the number of options is rather limited. In a nutshell, little to get excited over.

The Tracker application is used to assist in physical exercise, jogging and collecting statistical data about these activities. The integrated GPS unit is used to calculate the route and overall distance. Considering the slow speed of starting coordinate acquisition (about five minutes), you are hardly ever likely to get precise results with the aid of C702. The applications prompts to specify the user’s personal data required to compute the amount of calories burnt during the training. All the collected statistical data are stored in the coach log. You can view your scores and a variety of miscellaneous statistical calculations including overall energy consumed, total covered distance and so on. The application can indeed prove of some help during your jogging sessions, provided that you run for distances long enough to smooth down the calculation inaccuracies.

Multimedia capabilities

The Media menu contains a set of options standard for all A200-based handsets, the MP3 player has the same characteristic interface, found in K850i for instance. The player controls are very well-orchestrated, the settings include repeated and random playback, track sorting can be done by performer and genre; an enhanced stereo option is available (though turning it on gives no perceptible boost in sound quality. Progressive track rewinding is supported.

The sales box contains a firmware headset, but you don’t get a 3.5 mm adapter. It provides a fairly high sound volume, but still not enough for noisy environments. The sound quality is pretty pleasing, comparable to the audio of multiple other models by the company, closely approaching Walkman handsets and slightly worse than the latest generations of Nokia and Samsung products offer. A continuous mp3 playback cycle can last for about 18 hours.

The TrackID service enjoys a fair implementation. Using it you can record a fragment from the currently played song (on radio or in the player) and upload it to the web for identification. If the sample is recognized as belonging to one of the track stored in the database, the song title and performer name are sent back in a message; all identified (and hence found in the database) songs are available for purchase. The service should prove interesting for a youth audience, especially combined with the FM tuner functionality: an unfamiliar song can be ‘captured’, ‘probed ’ and downloaded in a matter of minutes.

Camera

C702 is none of a revelation to today’s market in the sense of the camera, Sony Ericsson can always offer much better doing cameraphones, for instance the 5 Mp K850i. Inside its native segment the handset looks pretty good, staying on par with K770i, T650i and slightly surpassed by K800i and K810i. The maximum resolution of the photos is up to 2048x2536, the video clips can be shot at 320x240. A secondary VGA cam used in video calls is located at the top of the screen.

Let’s now review the interface of the camera application; it utilizes a horizontal orientation, the difference from K850i is minimal, for the concept is proven by time and is quite successful. The right half of the screen is the home of three small buttons which are used to switch between the photo and video modes and scroll through the saved shots. The viewfinder window displays a number of indicators telling of the currently selected resolution, the flash activation status, the macro mode and the remaining number of shots; image stabilization and geo tagging activation statuses are also displayed there.

Pressing the left navigation button brings up a menu of settings made in the traditional manner of Cyber-shot products. There are only three shooting modes available: standard, landscape and frame (the signature mode of Sony Ericsson, BestPic, is missing from this model, which looks a bit weird)

There are four focusing modes available: auto, macro and infinity (i.e. the focusing is deactivated), along with the FaceId mode. The latter is a very specific mode in which an object (presumed to be the person’s face) is captured in a frame which starts moving after the object. It starts off from a white color and grows green or red depending on how successful the current focusing in. The feature works quite all right but can be easily deceived with a photo. The real-life advantage is rather limited, but at times you may find it useful; some shots expose a slight boost in sharpness and accuracy.

All the settings are quite standard::

Photo

Shoot modes	Normal, Panorama, Frames
Scenes	Auto, Twilight landscape, Twilight portrait, Landscape, Portrait, Beach/Snow, Sports, Document
Picture size	3 MP (2048x1536), 2 MP (1632x1224), 1 MP (1280x960), VGA (640x480)
Focus	Auto, Macro, Infinite, Face Detection
Light	Off, Auto
Self-timer	3, 5, 10
Effects	Off, Black & white, Negative, Sepia, Solarize
White balance	Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent
Metering mode	Normal, Spot
Picture quality	Normal, Fine
Shutter sounds	On, Off
Turn on time and date	Adds a timestamp
Geo-tagging	Adds a geo tag to the file's meta data
Reset file number	Yes
Save to memory	Onboard memory, expansion storage

Video

Shoot modes	Normal, Panorama, Frames
Video size	QVGA (320x240), QCIF (176x144)
Night mode	Yes
Focus	Auto, Macro, Infinite
Turn on/off microphone	Off, Auto
Reset file number	Analogous to Photo
Effects	Off, Black & white, Negative, Sepia, Solarize
White balance	Auto
Metering mode	Normal, Spot
Save to memory	onboard memory, expansion storage

There are two resolutions available for the video mode: QVGA (320x240) QCIF (176x144). The zoom is 2x digital, unlike the main camera which has a 3x zoom. Night Mode and Brightness settings are available. Only one parameter is available in the White Balance submenu – Auto.

The image stabilization feature doesn’t get you anywhere closer to a perceptibly better photo; the quality difference between a normal and a stabilized photo is indistinguishable from the difference between two non-stabilized photos taken one after another. That’s why this image stabilization is nothing more than an extra selling point giving no real life advantages. ISO settings are unavailable, which looks a bit weird against the background of competing solutions. Extra options include a geo tagging feature, which embeds geo tags into taken photos, indicating the place and time. This useful feature is rapidly spreading outside the cameraphone segment.

A few samples of photos taken with maximum quality settings:

The camera of C702 is presumed to have some real power, at least in theory, but in real life the implementation is rather poor, yielding in quality to most competing solutions. The color rendition is imperfect, the macro mode often fails to achieve the intended results; white balance adjustment is also rather imprecise, though leads to little trouble. JPEG compression works as expected – at maximum quality, the artifacts are rare or non-detectable by the naked eye. The long exposure times result in less noise even in nighttime shots. The flash is a standard LED unit, not a xenon-powered one like in Cyber-shot flagships. Hence you can’t expect any really good nighttime shots. Picky users may find themselves disappointed with the quality of shots, but the mainstream audience won’t get too upset.

SMAPE's opinion

The quality of signal provided by Sony Ericsson C702 is up to the standards, yet the volume of the polyphonical speaker proves at times insufficient. Unlike the senior C902 model, the phone comes with a bundled 1 Gb memory card, which ought to be enough for most users.

Considering the unique positioning of this product as a ‘tough phone’ and a lack of competing solutions (you can also list here the original design, the onboard GPS unit, the coaching applications, the Cyber-shot brand after all) we can say that the model can be deemed successful inside its native segment, and will surely win a small but loyal audience. In real life, C702 can’t fully replace the real ‘panzerphones’ of the previous generations (e.g. Nokia 5500 Sport), but still it’s a good option for the enthusiasts.

The question of possible competition from the more traditional Cyber-shot products which offer the same possibilities minus the reinforced casing (e.g. K770i) involves the fact that the unprotected counterparts are nearly twice as cheaper. So is this illusion of protection worth the extra money charged? Sony Ericsson C702 doesn’t look attractive compared to comparable Nokia phones when the price labels get on the stage. We wouldn’t expect a high demand for this model, it’s clear that the solution is only meant to fill in a niche which otherwise would be left vacant and has little competition. The majority of buyers will stick with the more functional devices offered for the same money, even those lack a semi-protected casing.

+ An integrated GPS receiver
+ A handy lens guard
+ An appealing design
- No additional shooting modes
- The level of protection is lower than the manufacturer wants you to think
- No standard slots
- Average quality of photos

Author: Anton Spiridonov, editor@smape.com

SMAPE.com

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