Introduction
Manufacturers who have a wide portfolio of products, try to segment their models (while others are trying to widen the portfolio), they offer handsets for all target groups. Such target groups have been created that don’t exist, but no problem, this is the point of marketing. There are youngish, trendy, musical, fashionable, business, basic, camera-based or navigation phones and the subject of this review is about games.
I can’t say it’s the first bird of the flock. Maybe Nokia N-Gage models are part of this category, the series, having a single model update, has been disbanded without a successor, the N-Gage brand lives on through the mobile gaming platform created by the Finnish guys. Sony Ericsson intends to use its F series for this reason, the letter is from fun.
Not killing the punch line, I’d like to note that if we really want a phone that indeed offers a great gaming experience, then, as a matter of fact, iPhone bests them all, but since that costs four times as much as F305, we can’t compare the two gadgets. The small box, which came from mgsm.hu, has two back panels, a stereo headset (HPM-60), a 512 MB M2 card and a wristband inside.
Exterior
To tell the truth we can’t complain about F305’s design. The device, coming in black or white, has a pretty cool exterior, the darker one is a really nice one, the d-pad under the 2” display (176 x 220 pixels) is great, and the gaming experience is emphasized by the pair of buttons above the display; well-well, we can see the symbols from the Sony Playstation controller. (Ok, these are used on all decent game controllers, but if this is a Sony Ericsson we really have to remember PS and PSP devices.)
The whole phone is covered in shiny plastic, but the sides and the back are coarser. Still, there has been no problem with the quality of the materials, and the sliding mechanism is near perfect, there can be no wobbling observed. When taking a look at the keys on the front we can see the dedicated “gaming key” in the bottom left, but there are no other extras. After sliding the phone open we can see the numeric keys, which are placed on a single, die-cast plastic panel, which is not the best deal, but there are no serious issues with it.
The system connector is on the left side of F305, still using the manufacturer’s proprietary connector and in the case of previous Sony Ericsson models which had the connector at the same place, almost every forum on the web has been filled with potential customers and users cursing this layout. This has its reasons, since an accessory that is connected here can make the phone have an unpleasant shape, it can be hard to put it in a smaller pocket.
On the other side of the phone we can see the three usual buttons: the volume control keys on top and the camera’s hotkey on bottom. This means that F305 has a camera on its back, it is a quite modest little hole, having a resolution of 2 megapixels. There is a speaker on each ends of the back and the manufacturer is proud to tell us that we have a case of stereo sound playback.
Hirdetés
Menu, basic functions
Let’s welcome with a huge applause the menu, originating from the marriage of Sony Ericsson and Sagem, having a kind of French logic, as F305, after S302 and W302, is the third handset on the market from the manufacturer that has been assigned to the once French brand. This results in a couple of nice features and some cons as well.
The main menu has the usual Sony Ericsson icons and layout, we have four themes by default, but the menu icons cannot be changed. There is no problem with speed, everything happens very fast, the French-Chinese-Swedish-Japanese engineers did a good job, no matter which one of them has been the boss. Still, we can yet again face the horror of “Cancel” screens in this model as well: this hellspawn appears when we exit a menu without changing anything.
The phonebook’s layout is similar to the ones on other Sony Ericsson models, we have a tabbed interface with all the information, but thanks to the Sagem connection the capacity is not limited, we can enter contacts until there is some free internal memory, and this is where SMS and MMS messages are stored as well. This memory has a size of 10 MB. F305 has an email client as well, it supports attachments up to 300KB and only if the format is supported.
As for the PIM functions we should note the nice graphical calendar with month and week views, which allows to store text notes and sound notes recorded with the voice recorder. The stopwatch, the calculator and the timer are basic functions, the code memory is missing again. The voice recorder, which I have just mentioned, can only record 30 seconds of sound and it cannot be launched during a talk. There is no unit converter, but we have a world clock.
Multimedia
The camera on the back can take photos at a resolution of 2 megapixels, it has fix focus, and has no flash or mirror. As you can imagine we won’t be shocked by a superior image quality, and the number of settings is low too. We can set image size and quality, white balance and save location, we have timed shots, camera sounds can be turned off, there is a night mode, some effects and frames, and that’s about it. The phone records videos at 176 x 144 pixels, and here are some test pictures.
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The musical features are better. The stereo speakers won’t make our hair fall out (not as if it would matter much in my case); the headset improves things a bit, but it’s a serious flaw that the one supplied cannot be taken apart and since Sony Ericsson, with the exception of X1, is still not willing to use a 3.5 mm jack, we are blocked from using our own headset, at least until we obtain a converter.
The software is all right, it’s just like in any other Swedish-Japanese phone, it has repeat and shuffle modes, the software can run in the background and sorts tracks by ID3 tags. We can again rant about the equalizer, as there is no Megabass or Clear Bass, there is a simple Bass mode, but this is not what we’re used to. Should I thank this to Sagem or to Sony Ericsson’s lead developer? We have an FM radio, however, and it supports RDS.
Games
Of course we have to dedicate a whole page to games. Our phone had 11 of them, none of these being demos, but we should attract everyone’s attention to the fact that this setup can change from network to network and there can be changes in different countries as well. The common point is that F305 has a motion sensor, which allows some games to be controlled by tilting the handset.
The situation is interesting, as the feature is not used anywhere else. The menu won’t rotate, not even the pictures will when reviewing them in the gallery. Even from these games there are only three where we can enjoy this extra function. You can see a video below of all the games, but let’s see a quick round-up as well.
Black Bass Fishing is the first app, where we have to fish and in order to do so we have to shake the poor phone all the way around. Bowling is just what you would think it is, here we again have to make use of the gyroscope to roll the ball. The game called Jockey is unfortunately no Dallas-simulator, but a horse race, where we can control the horse by tilting the phone and use a whip with the OK key, which makes the turbo to load and speeds up our four-legged ride. In the case of Tropical Madness we have to roll a ball shape on a kind of track, here the gyroscope would have been good, but we have to use the buttons. I won’t introduce Sims 2, Racing Fever GT is also self-explanatory (it’s with cars, okay?), QuadraPop is the well-known Tetris-clone, just like Lumines Block Challenge. JC Does Texas is the only one using a horizontal screen, but we’ve seen this before as well, we have to shoot a lunatic freak from a cannon, to score points by mashing through all kinds of objects, birds and airplanes. JewelQuest is a logical game where we have to roll stones, while Asteroids is another classical, this time in a lame edition.
Well, this is not it. On the supplied memory card we can find the installation files of another 39 (which totals to fifty!!!) games, which will surely be enough for a time. Still, we can’t install all of them at the same time on the phone, due to the small capacity, but everyone should make a selection of what’s required. This PDF file is from SEMCblog, enlisting all the games, including images and short summaries. Happy reading!
Data transfer, summary
There is no 3G, we have GPRS and EDGE. This is enough for reading mails, sending MMSs, or maybe check out WAP, but it’s weak for anything else. The browser supports HTML, but neither the resolution, nor the display size will allow anyone to browse forums (I’ve tried it). At local level we have stereo Bluetooth and USB, but there is no data cable in the package.
The battery has a rather good performance, as it’s a 950 mAh Li-Pol. The phone has been on for four days, of course if we keep playing all day it will give up sooner.
Summary? Well, it’s really hard. First because it’s too expensive now. 100-125 euros are too much. The Sagem-inspired menu won’t be everyone’s favorite and the seldom use of the gyroscope is quite a flaw. But it’s well assembled, it looks cool, it can be expanded, it has a camera, a music player and users like this, so when it’s price will go down, it won’t be an unsuccessful model. And fifty games is really a lot, no doubt about that.
Let’s just say that we appreciate that they are trying, so here goes a faint Cool product award..
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| Sony Ericsson F305 |
Bog
Translated by Szaszati
Sony Ericsson F305 has been provided by MGSM.hu. The handset can be purchased at:
1024 Budapest, Lövőház u. 12.
On-line at www.mgsm.hu.
Specifications
| Sony Ericsson F305 | ||
 | General | |
| Technology | GSM | |
| Size | 96 x 47 x 14.6 mm | |
| Weight | 97 grams | |
| Available colors | black, white | |
| Display | ||
| Internal display diagonal | 2” | |
| Internal display resolution | 176 x 220 pixels | |
| Internal display type | TFT | |
| Number of colors | 262.000 | |
| Memory | ||
| Phonebook capacity | dynamic | |
| SMS memory / max. MMS size | dynamic / 300 KB | |
| Internal memory | 10 MB | |
| Memory expandability | M2 | |
| Data transfer | ||
| Frequency bands | 850/ 900/1800/1900 MHz | |
| GPRS / EDGE | Class 10 (4+1/3+2) / Class 10 (236.8 kbps) | |
| UMTS / HSDPA | none / none | |
| IrDA / Bluetooth | none / 2.0 (A2DP too) | |
| WiFi | none | |
| USB | 2.0 | |
| Push-to-talk / RSS | none / none | |
| GPS receiver | none | |
| Basic functions | ||
| Profiles | present | |
| Vibra function | present | |
| Built-in handsfree | present | |
| Voice dialing / voice commands | none / none | |
| Sound recorder | present (30 seconds) | |
| Alarm clock | present, also when turned off | |
| Predictive text entry | T9 | |
| Software | ||
| Platform | SE-Sagem | |
| WAP / HTML browser | 2.0 / present | |
| E-mail client | present (POP3, IMAP4, authenticated) | |
| Java | present, MIDP 2.0 | |
| Games | 11 | |
| Currency converter | none | |
| Extra software | TrackID | |
| Multimedia | ||
| Main camera | 2 megapixels, fix focus | |
| Secondary camera | none | |
| Video recording | present (H.264 format, 176 x 144 pixels) | |
| Music player | present, can run in background | |
| Equalizer | present | |
| FM radio | present - RDS | |
| Battery | ||
| Main battery | 950 mAh Li-Pol | |
| Standby time | 400 hours | |
| Talk time | 8 hours | |
| Other | ||
| gyroscope | ||
