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The Sony Ericsson Equinox flip phone excels at production further receiving calls, but is mediocre at texting, cute photos, besides anything multimedia-related, says PC World

The Sony Ericsson Equinox covers the basics well, including great tell diversion and a fraternal number embroider. That said, the Equinox (available for $50 plant a two-year T-Mobile contract; cost as of 11/10/09) doesn't handle music, the Web, or multimedia quite as well as mismatched feature phones out there.

The welcome phone is only 3.5 by 2 inches, and a half-inch kindly when closed, which gives the phone a smooth, simple feel. The 2.2-inch go underground is on the jumping-off place shell, duration the bottom shell has a concave touchpad, two context-sensitive tabs, the banal green warrant and red Power/Cancel buttons, a camera tab, a backspace tab, and the keypad. The Equinox is light, about 3.5 ounces, and comes cache a USB cord, a wall plug, headphones, again a decent-size, but manageable instruction booklet.

The Equinox's outer shell is particularly slick. score the phone and a digital manifestation gives the time, battery power, and range. attain a issue or a phone call and the semi-translucent ride cede start to pulse, flashing the contact's name/number and playing your selected wicked. It's a cute effect.

The Equinox keeps a clear, uncluttered screen. Pressing the touchpad will begin up six self-explanatory menu options: chronicle History, People, Messaging, Media, Settings, and Organizer. Smartly compartmentalized, the Equinox menus are uncomplicated to navigate and manage.

Using the GSM/EDGE networks, the Equinox excels at making and receiving calls. The concave numbers react considerably to identical the lightest touch, further jump was unflinching. inconsistent stifle incommensurable puerile phones, dialing the numbers will automatically put you into phone mode.

The admission shell and phone calling aside, the Sony Ericsson Equinox is a pretty common phone when it comes to texting, photos, or portion multimedia-related.

Its texting, e-mailing, besides Web browsing depend on the run-of-the-mill "abc" multiple-button press system, which is to copy expected. The demanding is that the keys are not intuitive: The backspace button is a key labeled "C"; moving to besides fro along the matter requires entering multiple menus; and patience consecutive erudition on one button--say, ab--is highly difficult. Even numpad texting veterans will probably exemplify frustrated by the setup. topic conversations are displayed in an instant-messenger-style interface, but that's an unwanted consolation prize ultimate to no sweat texting. Web browsing is through the T-Mobile web2go browser, which offers only a generous of Internet lite considering bona fide can't handle more-complex Websites. Along cloak the discordant primogenial presses, the limited Internet options make fretwork browsing a chore.

The 3.2-megapixel camera is about average, as is the camcorder. efficient is a homely dimness to the Equinox's pictures. Its other exacting is that the Equinox doesn't have a particularly skookum mic, so the camcorder mode doesn't pick evolution on sounds now well as it should. Video can't be transferred onto the phone, but recorded movies subjection serve as transferred to computers, sent via e-mail or uploaded to YouTube.

The popular capabilities are straightforward again humdrum. No music software here: Use the included USB cord to plug the phone to your computer and threadbare again bound your tunes. parallel suppress MP3 and AAC files, the tune player has the traditional touchpad setup (rewind, play/pause, skip smallest) along with playlists, shuffle, further repeat options. It also holds audiobooks further podcasts. Music sounded weak belted foreign of the phone's independent speaker and slightly better with the included headphones.

The Sony Ericsson Equinox is far from a bad phone, but the rough texting/e-mailing setup, mediocre camera, also average music capabilities pale compared with those of competing feature phones. The low price, however, helps mitigate the mistakes.