Gadget Review
Sony Ericsson T707
Rating 
Some phones market themselves as fashion accessories based on a paintjob but the T707 from Sony Ericsson incorporates some interesting features to make this handset stylish yet multifunctional.
The T707 flip phone comes in three rich, metallic colours: black, pink and blue. I tested the blue one and I must admit it was nice to have a small splash of colour in my otherwise all black and grey gadget wardrobe but this is not the reason it interested me.
The inbuilt gesture technology and personalised pulsating notification were the highlights of this phone.
Within settings you can switch on gesture recognition, which means that with a wave of your hand you can end incoming calls or stop your alarm.
The camera on the front of the closed flip phone will detect the motion of your hand as long as it is relatively close (about 1-6 centimetres) and while the phone is ringing you can silence it simply by passing your hand over. How Jedi!
As the phone rings it also has a pulsating ring of blue light on the outside cover. What is neat about this is that you can customize the vibrations and kinds of light for different contacts.
Lets say you're fast asleep and rudely awakened by the sound of your phone ringing. You will be able to tell that it is your parents and (if you wish!) a swipe of your hand, without even having to open your sleepy eyes, and you can silence it and go back to snoozing.
Opening the T707 the inside looks quite typical for a mid to low priced flip phone but once you scroll through the menu you realise that there are plenty of features including web feeds for news direct to your phone, a YouTube application for viewing and direct upload and Exchange ActiveSync and regular email functionality.
The 3.2-megapixel camera has geo-tagging (automatically tags your location as you snap pics), some basic image editing, and video/picture blogging functionality as well as video calling.
While it doesn't have GPS it does have Google Maps as well as the usual connectivity such as Bluetooth and USB, and you can use it as a modem for surfing the web from your laptop.
Storage-wise it only has 100MG on the phone itself but you can store of to 16GB of music, movies or pics if you use the Memory Stick Micro slot.
What can I say? You might glance at this phone and pass it over purely because it looks like a fashion handset (indeed with the endorsement by tennis player Maria Sharapova it was marketed this way) but it is deceptively brainy.
If you assumed this would be a bog standard flip phone with a few gimmicky bells and whistles you would be wrong.
The Sony Ericsson T707 is available from 3stores and stockists nationwide and online at www.three.ie.
It is available from €149 on 3Pay, available for free on certain Pay Monthly plans and for €119 on 3's Best of Both price plan.
By Marie Boran
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