Sony Ericsson C510

Sony Ericsson is looking close to home when it comes to inspiration these days. The recently reviewed W302 proved to be a more affordable facsimile of the W890, and the latest phone to fall under our critical gaze - the C510 - bears an uncanny resemblance to fellow SE product the C902.

Clearly the company is of the opinion that if something works once, then it’s worth trying again.

The C510 comfortably slots into the middle of Sony Ericsson’s catalogue in terms of affordability and specifications. All of the usual embellishments are here, including a Cybershot-brand 3.2 megapixel camera, 3G data transfer (and calls), memory card support and a trusty accelerometer. In the pantheon of SE handsets, this is business as usual.

Despite its familiarly, the phone does happen to come with some nifty tricks of its own, such as the elegantly designed camera cover. When in its closed position it’s completely undetectable. In fact we initially found ourselves pawing at the back of the phone in an oafish attempt to reveal the lens.

The cover slides down and slightly outwards smoothly to expose the snapper and the LED flash module. Despite being a fairly lowly 3.2 variant (surely seen as entry-level in today’s fast-moving mobile phone market), the C510 is perfectly capable of taking good photos and comes with the usual myriad shot options that we’ve come to expect from SE’s Cybershot range.

So far, so good, then. However, when placed alongside the C902 you realise that when it comes to build quality and overall aesthetics, you get what you pay for. The C510 doesn’t feel as sturdy or dependable and the cramped keypad makes texting a chore rather than a pleasure.

The phone is roughly 15g lighter than its illustrious stablemate, and while this naturally results in a handset that's going to feel less weighty in your pocket it has the side-effect of giving the impression that the C510 is the cheap option.

Another bugbear is the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack. We’d thought we’d turned a corner with the Xperia X1 sporting this coveted interface, but like the C902, the C510 opts for SE’s own ‘Fastport’ adapter.

Design concerns stretch to the keypad layout, too. The middle of the phone is a confused mess of buttons, all performing different actions but packed far too tightly against one another. Naturally this can lead to unwanted commands during intense use (while playing games, for example).

SE’s handsets have a habit of featuring such button location issues, and whoever decided that it was a good idea to put the ‘drop back to main menu’ key right next to one of the vital selection buttons really does need a clip around the ear.

Thankfully the D-pad is a modest size and grants accurate movement in all directions. The games pre-loaded onto the phone are a thoroughly affable bunch: Bubble Town is essentially a rip-off of Taito’s Puzzle Bobble; NitroStreet Racing is your typical urban racing game and makes good use of the accelerometer; and finally we have our old friend sudoku - a safe software choice if ever there was one.

One of the other key selling points of the C510 is its package of pre-loaded social applications (currently exclusive to the network 3 at the time of writing). It’s possible to update your Facebook status, watch clips on YouTube or keep in touch via Windows Instant Messenger.

It all works rather well, although the process of forcing all that data down a 3G connection means that the quality of YouTube footage is pretty poor, and watching it on such a small screen doesn’t help matters. Still, top marks for effort, and we can see this medley of social networking apps going down a storm with many prospective buyers.

SE is obviously keen to plug every available hole in the market with its range of phones and the C510 is competent enough to ensure that it will find a fairly sizable audience. However, we really do wish that the firm would start to innovate at every end of the spectrum rather than just slavishly re-hashing its previous mobiles.